Week Seven

I was in the group reading the articles devoted to space. I found the Kohler, Wisconsin article interesting (especially as it is within my area of study) but I didn't find the exploration of the idea of space very convincing.

In the Kohler article, there were two basic ways in which the category of space is employed: first, as a means of exploring the geography of the city itself and the contested conceptual mappings of that geography by labor organizers and company spokespeople, and second, in terms of spacial solidarities constructed between worker-residents of Kohler and, depending on whether you ask the union or the company, respectively, workers in other areas and consumers of Kohler products. The first of these is somewhat trivial, the second not convincing. I agree with the author that homes are gendered female and workplaces male, and that this plays out in both company and union literature, but I don't think this insight is particularly new or profound. This should be obvious to anyone with a basic familiarity with contemporary feminism. The author does attempt to go beyond this basic insight in her exploration of the business district of the town, but her reading of that district and its gender politics seemed very forced and relied on only a snapshot of the evidence--there was nearly zero discussion of what women actually did in that area in terms of shopping or what they did in the American Club on the days it was open to them. Of course the area will appear gendered male if you ignore all the roles that women play in it. The idea of this area as a contested terrain was insufficiently explored.

As for solidarities, real or imagined, with workers and consumers, I think it's a bit of a stretch to explore this in terms of space. Obviously the category of space applies in the limited sense that these solidarities are felt with other people who are spatially separated, but beyond that trivial fact I don't see the application, and the author doesn't explain it. In her defense, she only indirectly claims to be exploring this relationship in terms of space, and my criticism would probably be different if I hadn't been assigned to read these articles through the lens of the category of space--something the author didn't necessarily intend to happen.

In the other article, the discussion of the way a change in urban geography was used to their own advantage by the powers that were is very interesting, but the category of space is not really theorized. Obviously space played a major role in the changes that occured after the fire, and one can productively think about the ingenious way that spatial changes were used to consolidate power without necessarily challenging the economic or diplomatic power of the targeted populations (which would likely have seemed much more obvious as a source of power). Unfortunately, despite the obvious relevance of the topics explored, there is little to no theorization or discussion of power and its relationship to geographical space.