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Introduction
Five years after its publication, Gillian Rose's book Feminism and Geography continues to be a central reference for the elaboration of a feminist geographical perspective. Her claim that `to think geography-to think within the parameters of the discipline in order to create geographical knowledge acceptable to the discipline-is to occupy a masculine position' (Rose, 1993, p. 4) forces feminist geographers to examine not only where they are speaking from, but indeed whether they can speak at all in their own field. Rose's radical approach would seem to foreclose the possibility of a feminism 'in' geography and suggest that feminist practice necessarily constitutes a different kind of knowledge; one which is fortunately being shaped through the exchanges and debates her insightful book has brought about. Her last chapter on the `Politics of paradoxical space' opens many venues for the creation of non-masculinist subject positions, yet, in my own reading, I am still struggling to find a language capable of expressing these emerging locations.
Drawing from feminist psychoanalysis, Rose points to the embedded dualism of the discipline, where the Other (Woman) is incessantly reproduced from the Same (Man); in addition, Teresa de Lauretis's (1987) concept of `the subject of feminism' is used to sketch a more inclusive geography, one where difference is inscribed in itself, or in the act of differing, and not merely in relation to the Master Subject (see Rose, 1993, p. 9). Although Rose's commitment to de Lauretis's notion seems real and is well sustained throughout the last chapter, I believe it is being undermined in her own writing due to her frequent mentioning of a 'beyond' the space of the masculinist discourse she so convincingly uncovers. This contradiction occurs partly because de Lauretis's discussion of gender as a discursive space of representation is not directly addressed in Rose's text. In an effort to recover this important aspect of the subject of feminism, I would like to bring the language and terminology of Feminism and Geography into sharper focus. Ultimately, my hope is to advocate more forcefully-along with Gillian Rose-a feminist politics of paradoxical space.
Gender as a Technology
In her article `The technology of gender', Teresa de Lauretis (1987) distinguishes gender from sexual difference and lists four propositions, which I summarise: (1)...