Occupying the Margins On Spacing Gender and Gendering Space

Abstract

The traditional enclosures of households, schools, and factories are well-known sites of discipline and confinement. In counter-distinction to these sites, this paper analyzes the marginal spaces of gender practices and habitable relations. The notion of marginal space generally supposes that we think in terms of relations of liminality. Conceptualizing gender relations in the context of liminality not only renews an awareness of space as a dynamic, social relation but also allows for new ways for thinking about relations of difference than the disciplinary enclosure model. One of the central arguments of this essay is that marginal spaces are not just spaces of movement but they become so through movement. These spaces are characterised by mobile habits: the gestures, dress, speech, and mannerisms that people either assemble in the formation of marginal spaces or are required to possess as they negotiate, occupy, or transform the margins. I suggest that there is an interrelation between space and social activity wherein mobile habits delineate peripheral spaces at the same time that these spaces condition habits. As I attempt to show, the interaction between space and cultural practices is neither causal nor representative but loosely textured and full of potential permutations and transformations.