TY - JOUR
T1 - Homemaking and mature age gay men 'down-under'
T2 - Paradox, intimacy, subjectivities, spatialities, and scale
AU - Waitt, Gordon
AU - Gorman-Murray, Andrew
PY - 2007/10
Y1 - 2007/10
N2 - The article investigates homemaking processes of mature age gay men living in a provincial Australian town. All too often the experience of older gay men living in non-metropolitan centres has slipped the attention of scholars. The article draws on interview data collected in Townsville (Queensland, Australia) from ten men over 40 years of age who self-identified as gay. These men were asked to explain why they live in Townsville, their understanding of home, and if they understand Townsville as home. We investigate the spatialised understandings of home articulated by these gay men, focusing on two mutually constituted geographical scales: Townsville-as-home and house-as-home, including the material objects within domestic space. For older gay men to call a provincial town home is an ongoing, complex process of reconciling multiple and contradictory subjectivities across different geographical scales. How older gay men constitute Townsville-as-home provides important insights about both non-heterosexual life in provincial centres and how to conceptualise home - as a paradoxical space, contested site, and as multiscalar.
AB - The article investigates homemaking processes of mature age gay men living in a provincial Australian town. All too often the experience of older gay men living in non-metropolitan centres has slipped the attention of scholars. The article draws on interview data collected in Townsville (Queensland, Australia) from ten men over 40 years of age who self-identified as gay. These men were asked to explain why they live in Townsville, their understanding of home, and if they understand Townsville as home. We investigate the spatialised understandings of home articulated by these gay men, focusing on two mutually constituted geographical scales: Townsville-as-home and house-as-home, including the material objects within domestic space. For older gay men to call a provincial town home is an ongoing, complex process of reconciling multiple and contradictory subjectivities across different geographical scales. How older gay men constitute Townsville-as-home provides important insights about both non-heterosexual life in provincial centres and how to conceptualise home - as a paradoxical space, contested site, and as multiscalar.
KW - Australia
KW - Homemaking
KW - Mature age gay men
KW - Paradox
KW - Spatial
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=34648837037&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/09663690701562305
DO - 10.1080/09663690701562305
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:34648837037
SN - 0966-369X
VL - 14
SP - 569
EP - 584
JO - Gender, Place and Culture
JF - Gender, Place and Culture
IS - 5
ER -