Geographical Imaginations is at once a profound and penetrating reading of geography as a discipline and a discourse, and also an imaginative and sustained attempt to situate that discourse within the fabric of contemporary social theory. Its focus is on understanding the ways in which social life is variously embedded in place, space and landscape. In the fulfillment of this objective, historical imagination, textual exegesis, philosophical scrutiny, sociological interpretation, and geographical sensitivity are interwoven in such a way as to move (...) spatial discourse to new levels of sophistication and subtlety. In mapping human geography into contemporary social theory, the author addresses, reinterprets and questions key theoretical debates and issues - postcolonialism, structuration theory, feminism, deconstruction, postmodernism and poststructuralism - and explores the crucial connection between space, power and knowledge. Deftly argued and illustrated throughout with pointed examples, Geographical Imaginations is both a lucid critique of contemporary social theory and a fundamental contribution to the understanding of social life and its intrinsic spatiality. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the problematic relation between sex and gender in parallel with the equally problematic relation between nature and science. I also offer a provisional analysis of the political dynamics that work to polarize both kinds of discourse, focusing especially on their intersection (i.e., on discussions of gender and science), and on that group most directly affected by all of the above considerations (i.e., women scientists).