The study of homosexual space: an example of feminist geographies’ limits in Chilean academia?

Abstract

The relationship between space and sexuality is a topic of increasing interest for researchers in Chile, especially when this refers to homosexual sexualities. However, the visibility of sexual identity is a variable that creates tension between these components, providing both epistemological and methodological challenges to local geography. Bringing together the limited number of publications that have confronted the spatial dimension of homosexual sexuality in Chile, it is possible to find the description of a specific territory, as well as subjective experiences within this space. Interestingly, none of those studies have been designed with the objective of being a geographical investigation. Furthermore, these studies do not take a feminist approach to the question, taking into consideration the support that the latter perspective provides in bringing to light the realities found outside the main disciplinary focus. From this point of view, homosexual space cannot be reduced to either mapping or a description of experiences. Instead, it is important to recognize the relationships of power that produce and permit the observation of homosexual identities. In this way, the following text uses a concrete example to illustrate two interconnected phenomena: first, feminist geographies have had difficulty in articulating homosexual identity in their analyses, and, second, there exists an unexplored potential in interrogating local social sciences from a specific epistemological frame.