Gender at a Distance

Abstract

This article explores the conflicting representations of masculinity and femininity in contemporary travel writing. The workings of power are quite easy to identify in texts that represent 'other' places populated by foreign and exotic people. This article adds another layer to that cartography by exploring how patriarchy is embedded in the representation of foreign lands. Using the insights of postcolonial and feminist research, it is possible to illustrate how intertwining hierarchies of gender and geography continue to reinforce one another in contemporary travelogues. However, locating the ways in which masculine/feminine maps onto familiar/foreign is only part of the project- this article is also concerned with resisting the hegemonies of patriarchy and colonialism. With a performative understanding of identity formulated by Judith Butler, it is possible to interrupt the strict attachments of man = masculine and woman = feminine that are employed in the literary colonization of foreign places. When these subject positions are understood as performative identities with no innate gender core, the liberating potential of travel writing takes on a new meaning. This article argues that stories concerned with crossing the boundaries of territory and identity reveal an important disruption in the man/woman ontology.