Pleasure Zones

Bodies, Cities, Spaces

Author: David Bell, Jon Binnie, Ruth Holliday, Robyn Longhurst and Robin Peace Series: Space, Place, and Society (Paperback)

The essays collected in this volume apply queer theory in a consideration of the human body as a vehicle for understanding relationships between people and place. The book examines the body as an entity constructed by gender, sexuality, race, class, nationality and disability.

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How does a subculture appropriate space within the dominant culture? What is the city's relationship to the body? Geographers from England and New Zealand apply queer theory in their consideration of the human body as a vehicle for understanding relationships between people and place. These provocative essays examine the body as an entity constricted by gender, sexuality, race, class, nationality, and disability. They also look at sexual identity as it relates to communities, and how humans "do" gender through regulated practices such as heterosexuality. Pleasure Zones tackles topics such as the politics of gay men's health; the relationship of sex and death to the city; erotic urban landscapes, and how public policy labels lesbians. Each essay attempts to reconcile queer theory and social and cultural theory with the discipline of geography. The result is an illuminating and accessible look at the formation of personal and collective identities. Building on two decades of geography that recognizes the body as a politicized site of struggle, and applying the perspective of the sexual dissident, Pleasure Zones brings a fascinating variety of human experiences into sharp relief.

About the Author

David BelI teaches cultural studies at Staffordshire University. He is coeditor of Mapping Desire, The Cybercultures Reader, and City Visions, and coauthor of Consuming Geographies and The Sexual Citizen .

Jon Binnie lectures in human geography at Manchester Metropolitan University. His work has appeared in Society and Space, Gender, Place, and Culture, Environment and Planning, and Progress in Human Geography. He is currently writing a book on sexuality and globalization, Globalizing Desires, and is coauthor of The Sexual Citizen.

Ruth Holliday lectures in cultural studies at Staffordshire University. She is coeditor of Organization/Representation, Organizing the Body, and Contested Bodies. She recently completed an Economic and Social Research Council-funded project entitled Public Performances, Private Lives: Identity at Work, Rest, and Play, from which the material in her chapter is drawn.

Robyn Longhurst is a lecturer in the Department of Geography, University of Waikato. She has published essays in numerous edited collections and geographical journals and is author of Bodies: Exploring Fluid Boundaries.

Robin Peace is currently a senior researcher for the Ministry of Social Policy, New Zealand. She was previously a lecturer in feminist geography at the University of Waikato.