Abstract
The Foucauldian notion of dividing practices is the focal point of this chapter. I will consider how spatial dividing practices are produced through an analysis of the regulation of sexualities in school spaces. More specifically, I turn my attention to the production of dividing practices that produce “safe spaces,” “queer spaces,” and that enable the production of subversive spatial acts that “imprint utopian and dystopian moments” (Munt 1995, 125) within and around high school settings in the United States. My aim is to interrogate some of the implications that ensue from these various attempts to produce spaces that construct and are constructed by the politics of identity. I will commence my analysis by elaborating upon my conception of Foucault’s notions of dividing practices and heterotopias.
Identity is constructed in the temporal and linguistic mobilisation of space, as we move through space we imprint utopian and dystopian moments upon urban life. Our bodies are vital signs of this temporality and intersubjective location. In an instant, a freeze-frame, a lesbian is occupying a space as it occupies her.
—Munt 1995, 125
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© 2004 Mary Louise Rasmussen, Eric Rofes, and Susan Talburt
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Rasmussen, M.L. (2004). Safety and Subversion. In: Rasmussen, M.L., Rofes, E., Talburt, S. (eds) Youth and Sexualities. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403981912_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403981912_7
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