Introduction: Anticipating feminist futures of spatial practice

Abstract

Attentive to the spatiality of social struggles, this book can be understood within a critical feminist tradition examining how power, in the form of political hegemonies and social injustice has been resisted and reconstructed through spatial practice. Feminist Futures of Spatial Practice wants to contribute to developing new forms of activism, expanding dialogues, engaging materialisms, transforming pedagogies, and projecting alternatives. Contributing authors trace experiences and examples, theoretical dimensions and practical tools. We enquire generally and collectively: What knowledges and imaginaries are necessary for engendering social change? How do we develop and mediate these to create more gender sensitive, just and environments? What are implications for what we learn and teach in architecture and academia, what roles can education have in questions of difference and equality? How can we direct our future spatial practices to meet challenges posed by climate change, economic crises and uneven global development? Such questions require rethinking our basic assumptions and concepts as well as our practical skills and projects. We do not want to defer this necessary task to an indefinite future nor to sit back and ‘wait for the revolution’. We are concerned with exploring and shaping feminist futures in the here and now. Contributions in the book query the presence, temporalities, emergence, histories, events, durations – and futures – of feminist spatial practices. 40 established and emerging voices have contributed here, writing critically from within their institutions, professions, and their activist, political and personal practices