Spaces to be manoeuvred: Lesbian identities and temporality

Abstract

Discussions on queer spaces are not only limited to physical landscapes such as patterns of residential neighbourhoods, work locations, leisure sites or commercial establishments frequented by lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender. “Queer spaces” increasingly take into account various sites such as cyberspace, cultural forums and cognitive mappings. This paper briefly discussed social and leisure spaces and the issues in utilising these spaces as identified by women interviewed for this research. 14 women were interviewed on notions of sexual identity, family and peer relations, social and leisure spaces, social movements and love relationships. I chose to use feminist ethnography as the primary qualitative research method. I conducted life history interviews with lesbian women who engage in intimate sexual and emotional relations with other women. Life history interviews were selected because they illustrate the principle that ‘a self story is literally a story of and about the self in relation to an experience, in this case the development of a lesbian identity, that positions the self of the teller centrally in the narrative that is given’ (Stein, 1997)