New cultural geographies: the spatiality of leisure, gender and sexuality

Abstract

The contribution of geography to leisure research is well established. The relationships between spatiality, gender and sexuality are, however, less clearly articulated within previous leisure geographies. Whilst the concepts of spatialized feminism and gendered space have been well documented in geography, this is less true in relation to leisure studies. Only recently have leisure and tourism scholars begun to acknowledge that the synergy between gender relations and spatial relations is a major contributor to leisure relations (Aitchison, C. and Jordon, F. (1998) Gender, Space and Identity: Leisure, Culture and Commerce , Leisure Studies Association, Eastbourne; Watson, B. and Scraton, S. (1998) Leisure Studies 17 (2), 123–37). This recent shift can be attributed, in part, to the new cultural geography and its inclusion of leisure, culture and tourism within its spatial analysis. This paper reviews the development of the new cultural geography and its impact upon leisure studies. The review is constructed in the form of a chronology which addresses four distinct discourses of leisure geographies. The first discourse identified is that of traditional leisure geographies which are reviewed in the context of a historical overview of the geographical analysis of leisure spaces, places and landscapes. The second section of the paper then examines the impact of feminist theory upon geography in the 1980s. The feminist leisure studies of the late 1980s, and their emphasis upon social relations rather than spatial relations, then forms the third section of the paper. Finally, the recent synergy of spatial and social analyses of gender, sexuality and leisure, embodied by the new cultural geography, is evaluated. In conclusion, it is argued that the new cultural geography, with its focus upon space as relative and symbolic, rather than absolute and material, enhances the ‘geographical imagination’ by providing alternative ‘ways of seeing’ leisure.