Robyn Longhurst | University of Waikato (original) (raw)

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Papers by Robyn Longhurst

Bridging Worlds – Building Feminist Geographies

AbstractThis research reports on interviews with 35 mothers in Hamilton, New Zealand, about their... more AbstractThis research reports on interviews with 35 mothers in Hamilton, New Zealand, about their use of information communication technologies (ICTs) to develop and maintain emotional links with their children. It is informed by work on gender, communications, families, "stretched out communities" and transnationalism, which enabled me to think more deeply about this issue. Interviews revealed that the gendered spaces of mothering are now being stretched beyond the home. Cell phones, Skype (software application used to make voice and video calls), Facebook (social networking site) and email were among the most common ICTs mothers discussed as shaping their relationship with children, both those living at home and those who have left home. The research concludes, however, that this does not mean that the gendered discourses surrounding mothering are necessarily being radically reconfigured. Mothers continue to take a large share of the responsibility for running households...

Leisure Studies, 2011

Page 1. SPACE , PLACE , SEX and LYNDA JOHNSTON AND ROBYN LONGHURST Page 2. Space, Place, and Sex ... more Page 1. SPACE , PLACE , SEX and LYNDA JOHNSTON AND ROBYN LONGHURST Page 2. Space, Place, and Sex Page 3. Why of Where Series Editor: George J. Demko The goal of this series is to provide new perspectives ...

the past three decades feminist geography and the concept of gender have been deployed unevenly b... more the past three decades feminist geography and the concept of gender have been deployed unevenly by geographers in Aotearoa/New Zealand. A politics of knowledge production means that feminist geography occupies both the centre and the margins of academic knowledge. In order to highlight the diversity of feminist geographical knowledges we pay attention to local, regional, national and international contexts. First, we begin by positioning ourselves as working in the geography programme at the University of Waikato. Second, we review the directions taken at other universities in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Third, we examine a number of key international organisations that have been important in supporting geographers and others who share a focus on space and gender. In the fourth and final section we suggest strategies for strengthening feminist geography in the future.

Placing Critical Geographies, 2021

International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment and Technology, 2017

enlarge the question of both national identity and gender by investigating the aptly-named Heartl... more enlarge the question of both national identity and gender by investigating the aptly-named Heartland documentary series. They analyse both the series itself and the discourses around it from the book of the series to the press cuttings. In doing so they pinpoint images of nation, masculinity and femininity that are both stable and transgressive and which emerge through the documentaries themselves, their presenter Gamy McCormack and the celebrated Chloe of Wainuiomata. The Heartland documentary television series provides an excellent opportunity to tease out issues of representations of place, 'real ' places, 'kiwi culture ' and constructions of masculinity. The main presenter of Heartland, Gary McCormick, claims that the aim of the series is to demonstrate to viewers `that life in the countryside and provincial towns of New Zealand is as rich, varied, and as interesting as anywhere else on the planet ' (McCormick, 1994: 7). McCormick and his production team...

New Zealand Geographer, 2020

The 75 th volume of the New Zealand Geographer was published in 2019. Fifty year and 100year anni... more The 75 th volume of the New Zealand Geographer was published in 2019. Fifty year and 100year anniversaries tend to attract attention. The 75 th anniversary of the journal should, however, not go unpassed, if only to observe that from this point on it will appear only in digital form. In the New Zealand context this also defines the journal as having been in existence longer than many other social science and earth science journals. To mark the passage of 75 years, former Editors and the inaugural Managing Editor were asked to reflect on their time with the journal. The personal responses which follow this introduction, take us back to 1991 when Richard Le Heron assumed the editorship (after a decade as Assistant Editor). In 1991 Nelson Mandela was released from imprisonment, the Hubble telescope was launched, and Jim Bolger was Prime Minister of New Zealand. The Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF), capped enrolments, and the merging of departments to create much larger 'schools' whereby geography largely disappeared from unit names were still in the future for New Zealand universities. Richard Le Heron's tenure still reaches back to only the fifth decade of the journal's existence. The passing of Ray Hargreaves early in 2019 (Hearn, 2019) severed an even earlier link. Hargreaves served from 1965-1969 as the fourth editor

AbstractThis article considers the relationship between food, eating and home for a group of elev... more AbstractThis article considers the relationship between food, eating and home for a group of eleven migrant women, each from a different country, currently living in Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand. Interviews and cooking sessions with these women prompted mixed feelings to surface, aligning women with both their new and old homes. They discussed the numerous ways in which they blended food and cultural traditions, and the way they often feel both included and excluded from New Zealand society. In this way, food, culture and home are paradoxical. It is important therefore to focus on the coproduction of feelings, emotions and affects prompted by food and eating for migrant women in Hamilton. This account provides a means of enriching migration studies with recent theorizations in embodied, emotional and affective geographies.IntroductionThis article considers the relationship between cooking, eating and mixed feelings about home for a group of migrant women in Hamilton, Aotearoa New ...

In her new book, Transforming Gender, Sex, and Place, feminist geographer Lynda Johnston provides... more In her new book, Transforming Gender, Sex, and Place, feminist geographer Lynda Johnston provides a multiscalar and transnational scope on trans and gender variant embodied experiences of the everyday in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australasia. Johnston begins by setting the current scene with a powerful anecdote about the everyday negotiating gender and identity in today’s world. She juxtaposes “gender reveal” parties that reify gender binaries fixed at birth, with Facebook’s proliferating gender identities, which portray an increasing number of representations of trans and gender variant people in popular culture all the while legal documents fix female and male bodies. Out of these contradictions, Johnston poses the central questions of her book: “how are place and space transformed by gender variant bodies, and vice versa? Where do some gender variant people feel in and/or out of place? What happens to place and space when binary gender is unraveled and subverted?” (p.4). The broad...

Dialogues in Human Geography, 2017

This commentary on Boyer et al.’s (2017) article reflects on producing knowledge on regendering c... more This commentary on Boyer et al.’s (2017) article reflects on producing knowledge on regendering care at different geographical scales. I begin with my own story about my partner being a stay at home father as a contrast to the authors’ focus on regendering care at the scale of the nation – United Kingdom. Different things are gained and lost by focusing on different scales and yet geographers, traditionally, have tended to pay more attention to broader scales constructing them as more rigorous and scientific than intimate scales. One of the things that can be gained by focusing on the intimate scales of bodies, home and community, however, is a deeper understanding of the emotions and affects that surround caregiving. The commentary also raises two additional points: First, that there is a need for conceptual and empirical work that dislodges the simplistic alignment of women with motherhood and men with fatherhood; and second, that there is a tendency for work from outside the Angl...

Bridging Worlds – Building Feminist Geographies

AbstractThis research reports on interviews with 35 mothers in Hamilton, New Zealand, about their... more AbstractThis research reports on interviews with 35 mothers in Hamilton, New Zealand, about their use of information communication technologies (ICTs) to develop and maintain emotional links with their children. It is informed by work on gender, communications, families, "stretched out communities" and transnationalism, which enabled me to think more deeply about this issue. Interviews revealed that the gendered spaces of mothering are now being stretched beyond the home. Cell phones, Skype (software application used to make voice and video calls), Facebook (social networking site) and email were among the most common ICTs mothers discussed as shaping their relationship with children, both those living at home and those who have left home. The research concludes, however, that this does not mean that the gendered discourses surrounding mothering are necessarily being radically reconfigured. Mothers continue to take a large share of the responsibility for running households...

Leisure Studies, 2011

Page 1. SPACE , PLACE , SEX and LYNDA JOHNSTON AND ROBYN LONGHURST Page 2. Space, Place, and Sex ... more Page 1. SPACE , PLACE , SEX and LYNDA JOHNSTON AND ROBYN LONGHURST Page 2. Space, Place, and Sex Page 3. Why of Where Series Editor: George J. Demko The goal of this series is to provide new perspectives ...

the past three decades feminist geography and the concept of gender have been deployed unevenly b... more the past three decades feminist geography and the concept of gender have been deployed unevenly by geographers in Aotearoa/New Zealand. A politics of knowledge production means that feminist geography occupies both the centre and the margins of academic knowledge. In order to highlight the diversity of feminist geographical knowledges we pay attention to local, regional, national and international contexts. First, we begin by positioning ourselves as working in the geography programme at the University of Waikato. Second, we review the directions taken at other universities in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Third, we examine a number of key international organisations that have been important in supporting geographers and others who share a focus on space and gender. In the fourth and final section we suggest strategies for strengthening feminist geography in the future.

Placing Critical Geographies, 2021

International Encyclopedia of Geography: People, the Earth, Environment and Technology, 2017

enlarge the question of both national identity and gender by investigating the aptly-named Heartl... more enlarge the question of both national identity and gender by investigating the aptly-named Heartland documentary series. They analyse both the series itself and the discourses around it from the book of the series to the press cuttings. In doing so they pinpoint images of nation, masculinity and femininity that are both stable and transgressive and which emerge through the documentaries themselves, their presenter Gamy McCormack and the celebrated Chloe of Wainuiomata. The Heartland documentary television series provides an excellent opportunity to tease out issues of representations of place, 'real ' places, 'kiwi culture ' and constructions of masculinity. The main presenter of Heartland, Gary McCormick, claims that the aim of the series is to demonstrate to viewers `that life in the countryside and provincial towns of New Zealand is as rich, varied, and as interesting as anywhere else on the planet ' (McCormick, 1994: 7). McCormick and his production team...

New Zealand Geographer, 2020

The 75 th volume of the New Zealand Geographer was published in 2019. Fifty year and 100year anni... more The 75 th volume of the New Zealand Geographer was published in 2019. Fifty year and 100year anniversaries tend to attract attention. The 75 th anniversary of the journal should, however, not go unpassed, if only to observe that from this point on it will appear only in digital form. In the New Zealand context this also defines the journal as having been in existence longer than many other social science and earth science journals. To mark the passage of 75 years, former Editors and the inaugural Managing Editor were asked to reflect on their time with the journal. The personal responses which follow this introduction, take us back to 1991 when Richard Le Heron assumed the editorship (after a decade as Assistant Editor). In 1991 Nelson Mandela was released from imprisonment, the Hubble telescope was launched, and Jim Bolger was Prime Minister of New Zealand. The Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF), capped enrolments, and the merging of departments to create much larger 'schools' whereby geography largely disappeared from unit names were still in the future for New Zealand universities. Richard Le Heron's tenure still reaches back to only the fifth decade of the journal's existence. The passing of Ray Hargreaves early in 2019 (Hearn, 2019) severed an even earlier link. Hargreaves served from 1965-1969 as the fourth editor

AbstractThis article considers the relationship between food, eating and home for a group of elev... more AbstractThis article considers the relationship between food, eating and home for a group of eleven migrant women, each from a different country, currently living in Hamilton, Aotearoa New Zealand. Interviews and cooking sessions with these women prompted mixed feelings to surface, aligning women with both their new and old homes. They discussed the numerous ways in which they blended food and cultural traditions, and the way they often feel both included and excluded from New Zealand society. In this way, food, culture and home are paradoxical. It is important therefore to focus on the coproduction of feelings, emotions and affects prompted by food and eating for migrant women in Hamilton. This account provides a means of enriching migration studies with recent theorizations in embodied, emotional and affective geographies.IntroductionThis article considers the relationship between cooking, eating and mixed feelings about home for a group of migrant women in Hamilton, Aotearoa New ...

In her new book, Transforming Gender, Sex, and Place, feminist geographer Lynda Johnston provides... more In her new book, Transforming Gender, Sex, and Place, feminist geographer Lynda Johnston provides a multiscalar and transnational scope on trans and gender variant embodied experiences of the everyday in Aotearoa New Zealand and Australasia. Johnston begins by setting the current scene with a powerful anecdote about the everyday negotiating gender and identity in today’s world. She juxtaposes “gender reveal” parties that reify gender binaries fixed at birth, with Facebook’s proliferating gender identities, which portray an increasing number of representations of trans and gender variant people in popular culture all the while legal documents fix female and male bodies. Out of these contradictions, Johnston poses the central questions of her book: “how are place and space transformed by gender variant bodies, and vice versa? Where do some gender variant people feel in and/or out of place? What happens to place and space when binary gender is unraveled and subverted?” (p.4). The broad...

Dialogues in Human Geography, 2017

This commentary on Boyer et al.’s (2017) article reflects on producing knowledge on regendering c... more This commentary on Boyer et al.’s (2017) article reflects on producing knowledge on regendering care at different geographical scales. I begin with my own story about my partner being a stay at home father as a contrast to the authors’ focus on regendering care at the scale of the nation – United Kingdom. Different things are gained and lost by focusing on different scales and yet geographers, traditionally, have tended to pay more attention to broader scales constructing them as more rigorous and scientific than intimate scales. One of the things that can be gained by focusing on the intimate scales of bodies, home and community, however, is a deeper understanding of the emotions and affects that surround caregiving. The commentary also raises two additional points: First, that there is a need for conceptual and empirical work that dislodges the simplistic alignment of women with motherhood and men with fatherhood; and second, that there is a tendency for work from outside the Angl...

Social and Cultural Geography, 2018

This research brings together two key areas, ‘embodied geographies’ and ‘accidental ethnography’.... more This research brings together two key areas, ‘embodied geographies’ and ‘accidental ethnography’. ‘Embodied geographies’ involve making bodies central to geographical studies. ‘Accidental ethnography’ involves researchers having to (re)negotiate the initial terms of engagement in their fieldwork. By bringing together these two areas, we aim to enrich both. In order to do this, we focus on a research project that examines Bhutanese women and girl former refugees’ experiences of settlement in Aotearoa New Zealand. When one of us – Sunita – visited participants in their homes for an interview, three families insisted that she stay overnight. Unexpectedly staying one or more nights meant that the researcher ended up getting closer – bodily and emotionally – to the participants than originally planned. This triggered some ethical issues, new research fieldnotes and research questions, added new layers of meaning to the project and created moments for the unspeakable to be spoken.