RGS Conference: Pt I

This week I am attending my first proper conference - of the Royal Geographical Society, this year hosted at Cardiff University. So far it has definitely been worth the journey, with day one providing a wonderful mix of feminist geography and migration studies.

First up were twin sessions titled ‘New & Emerging Research within Gender & Feminist Geography’, sponsored by the Gender and Feminist Geographies Research Group. Throughout these two sessions there were some obvious crossovers with my own research, with several papers touching on migration and women’s empowerment. In part one there were also several more surprising connections: the balcony as an in-between space was explored in Nezihe Basak Ergin’s presentation ‘Women’s Everyday Lives In & Beyond Cities’. Just this week I have been thinking about layers and interfaces of privacy, so this was perfect timing and has got me thinking about potential photo surveys for my upcoming site trip.

Amrita / Johanna / Javier / Neziha

In the discussion following Johanna Hopp’s presentation ‘Mobility Through the Lens of Hitchhiking’, one unexpected focus - a surprise both to me and, I think, Johanna - was the gendered nature of risk assessments. The requirement for explicit phrases on safety when hitchhiking as a woman provoked an intense discussion over the balance between open and productive conversations about sexual harassment and the risk assessment’s role in reinforcing restrictive gender dichotomies.

Part two of this session proved equally interesting, covering topics from gendered insecurity in the built environment (Hosna Shewly’s paper on prostitution in Dhaka) to methodological conundrums (Ben Knight’s presentation ‘Listen as Method’), during which several spatial themes emerged. Hosna dicussed the need for urban design to be ‘more than just the absence of violence against women’, while Cecilia Alda Vidal’s paper explored Malawi’s sanitary infrastructure as a method of control over the female body.

Melike Peterson, convenor of the previous session, talked about ideas of comfort, homeliness and intersectionality in her paper on various public spaces in Glasgow. This was particularly interesting for me as I am currently exploring notions of security, as well as how comfort can be designed into a space used by people from many cultural backgrounds. Although Melika did not directly mention the architecture of the spaces she studied, many of her theoretical references and core ideas should prove useful in my own research.

Hosna / Ben / Cecilia / Melike

The methodological questions raised during Ben Knight’s fieldwork also struck a chord, with his research located in a refugee drop-in centre in Manchester and concerned with the act of listening as a research tool. He talked about the barriers posed by linguistic and cultural misinterpretations and, although I am well aware of the practical problems with translated vocabulary from my own interviews so far, I had not fully considered the effect that using a translator can have on the progression of the interview itself. Ben’s explanation of the loss of emphasis and emotional range in his translated English-Kurdish conversations gave me something to consider when putting together my own questionnaires and interviews.

Something which came up in the discussion afterwards was the question of positionality in fieldwork. Ben’s position as a white male questioning a woman of colour elicited certain responses, in some instances reminiscent of the often traumatic Home Office interviews. Positionality and the delicacy of interviewing migrants has been on my mind for some time, so to hear Ben’s experiences was extremely helpful.

This afternoon’s session, titled ‘Migration Geographies: Migration, Borders and Control’ illustrated the wide-ranging topics covered by migration studies. The first paper, by Vilhelmina Vainikka, focused on the notion of ‘the masses’ and its multiple connotations within the context of the Finland-Russia threatscape. This was an interesting shift from my own focus on southern Europe, although many of the questions she raised are relevant for my own research.

That was followed by Anna Lindley’s talk on a slightly more familiar topic - the UK migrant detention system. Anna’s paper debated the issue of risk, both to and of detainees, with accounts from both sides of the justice system. Several of her comments sparked questions for my own work, highlighting gaps in my knowledge of the on-the-ground running of Spanish asylum claims and accommodation centres.

Vilhelmina / Anna / Franz

The final talk of the day was from Franz Bernhardt, who very animatedly discussed the ‘revolution of generosity’ and Wales’ efforts to brand itself as a nation of sanctuary in the context of the UK’s ‘Hostile Environment’ policies. Taking the most theoretical approach of the day, Franz covered a lot of ground from Massey-esque ideas of ‘home’ to the morality of defining a ‘genuine’ refugee. Many of the questions he posed are ones I am also grappling with, especially those concerning the often practical necessity of projects which work with, rather than oppose, questionable government policies. I left the session with copious pages of quotes and references to research further, as well as the knowledge that it’s not just me sitting on the fence with these big decisions.