Key points
- Social relations are geographical: moving through the city does not cost everyone the same.
- A place has no fixed essence: it is the crossing of relations running through it at any moment.
- Globalisation connects everyone, but some decide the flow and others merely receive it.
Space has a gender. That is the thesis of Doreen Massey (1944–2016), the British geographer, in Space, Place and Gender (1994): power relations and gender shape how space is built and organised, and so space is neither fixed nor natural but a social product, moulded without pause by interactions between people and groups. Space and place are tied to structures of power that decide who has access to them and how they are used, and that changes the way geography and social relations are understood.
A central point of her work is that social relations are deeply geographical: the ways we move through and occupy space carry the mark of power, and in particular of gender. Tradition associated women with private space, the home, and men with public space. Massey questions that dichotomy and shows that the division reinforces patriarchal structures and limits women's access to power and to participation in the public sphere: the street, the square and paid work.
Power geometries
Hence her concept of power geometries, which describes how people and groups experience space differently according to their position in social hierarchies. Those geometries apply not only to gender but also to class and race. While some have the freedom to move between spaces and reach resources, others meet barriers because of their gender, ethnicity or economic condition; and some, moreover, control the mobility of others. The analysis explains how spatial organisation reinforces social inequalities rather than merely reflecting them.
Place is not static
Massey also reflects on space and identity. Place is not static but in constant change, defined by the relations that unfold within it and that cross it from outside. Places have no fixed identity: they are formed by the experiences of those who inhabit them and the interactions that happen there, and so identities are relational too, built in dialogue with space. Her favourite example was Kilburn, her London neighbourhood, made of connections with half the world.
Unequal globalisation
Another important contribution is her critique of the idea of time-space compression associated with globalisation. Although technology and globalisation have shrunk distances and increased interconnection, not everyone experiences those changes in the same way: for some the world has become accessible; others still face considerable barriers, or are moved without having chosen it. That inequality in access to space and to the benefits of globalisation is the clearest expression of the power geometries.
Space, Place and Gender thus offers a framework for understanding how space, power and gender are connected. Her analysis challenges the conception of space as a passive backdrop and shows how social relations produce and reproduce it, giving a critical tool for examining spatial inequalities and their effect on people's lives. Much of the gender-sensitive planning now applied by cities such as Vienna or Barcelona starts from this reading.
Frequently asked questions
What are Doreen Massey's power geometries?
The idea that people and groups experience the same space differently according to their position in social hierarchies: some control the flows, some make use of them and some simply endure them.
Why does Massey say place is not static?
Because a place has no identity of its own to preserve; it is defined by the relations running through it at a given moment, and those relations change constantly.
