Andrew Gorman-Murray

Western Sydney University · Geography and Urban Studies, School of Social Sciences and Psychology

Public spaces influence the health and safety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, asexual and other sexual and gender-diverse (LGBTQIA+) communities. However, there is minimal research to demonstrate the link between inclusive urban policy and planning and the wellbeing of LGBTQIA+ communities. Consequently, in this perspective, we r...

This essay considers the experience of international students, contemplating their identity and agency in Australian society. Thinking through the potential experience of gay Chinese students, we argue that the community of international students is not homogenous. Working with and against the literature on studentification, we suggest more conside...

Following calls to engage more directly with the materiality of sex in geographies of sexualities, we draw on our overlapping research to explore how sexual desire and social intimacy were entangled in the emergence and consolidation of lesbians’ and queer women’s social spaces from the 1980s onwards in Sydney, Australia. Though largely applied in...

The spatial studies of both sexualities and gerontology have been established as subfields within the discipline of geography, but there are few studies that combine both strands of literature and examine old age and sexualities from a spatial perspective. Our aim is to highlight the contribution geographers can make to this research, which is base...

In a world of colour, monochrome images break through the monotony of visual saturation, creating a sense of nostalgia in the present. As an aesthetic rooted in the past, black and white photography when applied to the present lends an authority to images by visually coding them as archival. Drawing on photographs taken by young people as part of a...

This chapter argues that the historical geographies of Toronto’s Church and Wellesley Street district and Sydney’s Oxford Street gay villages are important in understanding ongoing contemporary transformations in both locations. LGBT and queer communities as well as mainstream interests argue that these gay villages are in some form of “decline” fo...

International emergency management and disaster risk reduction policies and planning have rarely included lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ) people’s specific health and wellbeing concerns, despite increasing research showing that these groups face some specific vulnerabilities and additional challenges. Emerging stud...

In this paper, we focus on friendship as a significant interpersonal relationship that has not prominently figured in geographic discussions of mobile work. Taking friendship as our object of analysis we explore how wellbeing becomes compromised for mobile workers and their friends. Responding to concerns outlined by our research participants durin...

Losing touch is a pervasive bodily experience that has received surprisingly little geographical attention. Developing geographical thought on mobility and touch, our article aims to provide a more comprehensive account of the geographies of losing touch. Conceptually, we propose that enclosure and exposure are two spatial metaphors that can help t...

The economy is entrenched in the domestic and the domestic enables the economy. We consider this dialectical relationship between the economy and ‘home’ through a case study of coliving, a new type of privately delivered shared housing emerging in response to increasingly precarious economic conditions. We examine how the proliferation of coliving...

This paper develops our geographical understanding of the gendered politics of (im)mobility by exploring the hidden politics of waiting experienced by some mobile working households. Reflecting on qualitative fieldwork with female partners of mobile workers in Australia who remain at home, we explain how ‘stuckness’ is a specific form of waiting th...

This article develops cultural geographical understandings of exhaustion through an exploration of the bodily pressures induced by mobile working practices. Through analysis of semi-structured interviews with resource sector workers in Australia who work away from home for periods of time as well as ‘left behind’ partners, we argue that exhaustion...

Freedom of speech is a key way in which sexual and gender politics are contested. Heteroactivism names the ways that these discourses seek to open up space to push back against sexual and gender equalities,We focus on three different countries where distinctive framings about freedom of speech are deployed in diverse ways . Taking a transnational a...

In this chapter, we examine three distinctive and alternative conceptual or theoretical approaches to how we might understand life at the intersections of queer subjects, queer place-making and technologies. To begin, we examine contemporary feminist digital geographies which provide important insights into how social categories such as sexuality a...

Corresponding with Gender, Place and Culture’s twenty-fifth anniversary, this country report surveys geographies of gender and sexuality in Australia over the last twenty-five years, from 1994 to 2018. It is a necessarily selective, rather than comprehensive, review. We map out some broad areas tackled by geographers of gender and sexuality in Aust...

Much has changed since the first mapping of single-sex couples and families from the 2006 Australian census. An increasing willingness to allow their identification in the census has accompanied increasing public acceptance of same-sex couples culminating in significant support for legalising same-sex marriage in a 2017 national survey. Technologic...

This paper develops the concept of disorientation as a constitutive but overlooked dimension of mobile life, and it explores the significance of disorientation for geographical thought. Conceptually, the paper argues that disorientation is a productive geographical concept for acknowledging how, at times, bodies can lose their orienting relations t...

This paper develops the concept of disorientation as a constitutive but overlooked dimension of mobile life, and it explores the significance of disorientation for geographical thought. Conceptually, the paper argues that disorientation is a productive geographical concept for acknowledging how, at times, bodies can lose their orienting relations t...

This chapter articulates Gorman-Murray’s ‘art-geography’ practice, with specific reference to one of his artworks, Material Conditions in the Post-Human City (2015). Art-geography describes this practice, which is situated at the intersection of contemporary art and cultural geography, drawing together conceptual and methodological approaches from...

Geographical work on men and masculinities has expanded and diversified since the 1990s. Gender, Place and Culture has been, and continues to be, a significant outlet for this research. Geographies of masculinities now range across diverse sub-fields – social, cultural, economic, health, post-colonial, urban and rural geographies. We provide a brie...

This edited book engages with the rapidly emerging field of the geographies of digital sexualities, that is, the interlinkages between sexual lives, material and virtual geographies and digital practices. Modern life is increasingly characterised by our integrated engagement in digital/material landscapes activities and our intimate life online can...

Identity and Belonging examines the interplay between self and society and in doing so explores the complex nature of 'who we are' and 'how we come to be' as individuals and as members of various social groups. Investigating issues of identity and belonging as they emerge in contemporary social life and under conditions of globalisation, the book f...

While the links between contaminated sites and adverse effects on human health and well‐being are being increasingly recognised, some argue that the magnitude of the health problem is inadequately addressed because it is largely invisible. Health geographies literature has sought to highlight this invisibility by focusing on the link between contam...

Legislative and cultural changes have produced significant shifts in sexual and gender rights. Although this has been extensively studied in relation to those who have “won” and in relation to the normalisations that these changes create, there is little scholarship on the emergence of new resistances to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans equalities....

In this essay, we argue that assemblage thinking has much to offer geographers attempting to conceptualize the interrelationships between sexualities, subjectivities and contemporary urban spaces. In our current research on queer mobilities, we found that despite the explanatory weight provided by mobilities approaches, two fundamental questions re...

This article situates queer mobility within wider historical geographies of trans-Tasman flows of goods, people and ideas. Using case studies of women’s and men’s experiences during the early twentieth century and the twenty-first century, it shows that same-sex desire is a constituent part of these flows. Conversely, antipodean mobility has foster...

This article gives voice to trans experiences of disasters, investigating their specific vulnerabilities and resilient capacities. We draw on findings from a project on lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) experiences of recent Australian and New Zealand disasters. We present and analyse trans voices from a survey conducted across multiple case...

This commentary responds to Boyer, Dermott, James and MacLeavy’s examination of the post-recession regendering of care in the UK. My response is informed by my geographical position in Australia. I first discuss what I see as the key contributions of the paper: the socio-spatial dynamics of male care giving, and the significance of economic structu...

This paper examines recent transformations in consumer landscapes and leisure spaces in inner-city LGBT neighbourhoods in Sydney, Australia and Toronto, Canada. In doing so, we rethink orthodox positions on neoliberalism and homonormativity by considering practices of sociability and commensality. We contend that closer attention to interactions be...

This commentary responds to the papers comprising the themed issue ‘Geographies of Sexualities: Bodies, Spatial Encounters and Emotions’. I position the themed issue at the intersection of geographies of sexualities, embodied geographies and emotional geographies, and suggest how the papers collectively contribute to geographies of sexualities and...

This article introduces a themed section of Gender, Place and Culture on ‘Sexual and Gender Minorities in Disaster’. This introduction frames the articles constituting the themed section, which together contribute important insights to the growing body of research, policy and practice on the experiences of sexual and gender minorities in disasters....

This paper takes the form of a photo-essay that documents Over the Ditch, a sitespecific photomedia installation in the On Islands exhibition, held in 2014 in Sydney, Australia. Over the Ditch is an outcome of collaboration between a geographer and an historian, who are also an artist and a designer, working together at the nexus contemporary art p...

Recent accounts of sexual commerce have drawn attention to the proliferation of online and sexual consumption. Yet the mediated exchange of sexual images and content folds into the spaces of the city in a variety of complex ways. Drawing on a variety of social science perspectives, this paper provides an introductory overview of a collection of pap...

Memory is increasingly understood as a source of both vulnerability and resilience within the experience of disasters associated with natural hazards. In this article, we investigate how members of marginalised populations impacted by disasters in Australia and New Zealand drew on forms of memory tied to their minority identity. Gay men, along with...

This essay examines the recent controversy surrounding ‘Safe Schools', a federally-funded education program designed to reduce anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) bullying in Australian schools. Although LGBTI students are known to experience homophobic, biphobic and transphobic verbal and physical abuse at school, opponen...

Consideration of gender in the disaster sphere has centred almost exclusively on the vulnerability and capacities of women. This trend stems from a polarised Western understanding of gender as a binary concept of man-woman. Such an approach also mirrors the dominant framing of disasters and disaster risk reduction (DRR), emphasising Western standar...

The media plays a significant role in constructing the public meanings of disasters and influencing disaster management policy. In this paper, we investigate how the mainstream and LGBTI media reported-or failed to report-the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) populations during disasters in Brisbane, Australia...

This paper examines intersections between space, materiality, memory and identity in relation to lesbian and gay experiences of recent disasters in Australia. Drawing on interviews with lesbians and gay men in two disaster sites, the paper argues that disaster impacts may include the loss of sites of memory that inform and underpin the formation an...

Vulnerability to disasters is not inherent to particular social groups but results from existing marginality. Marginalisation from social, political and economic resources and recognition underpins vulnerability and impedes recovery. Yet concurrently, disasters can reveal the resilient capacities of some marginal groups, who often develop specific...

This paper undertakes a systematic critical review through a ‘queer lens’ of the emergency management response and recovery plans in New South Wales, Australia, in order to determine how the needs of sexual and gender minorities (LGBTI people) are considered and met. We also document the outsourcing by the NSW government of emergency response and r...

Queer geographies overlap with the geographies of sexualities, but the two fields are not entirely interchangeable. Queer geographies offer an approach that combines queer theory with spatial analytics to describe and analyze the social coconstitution of sexuality and space. This article discusses the contributions of queer geographies to scholarsh...

This paper argues that the historical geographies of Toronto`s Church and Wellesley Street district and Sydney’s Oxford Street gay villages are important in understanding the contemporary transformations currently ongoing in both locations. LGBT and queer communities as well as mainstream interests argue that these gay villages are in some form of...

Publisher's description "Provides a broad overview of the contributions of social psychologists and sociologists to the study of sexual relationships and sexual expression across the life course Includes analyses of the dynamics of several types of contemporary sexual relationships Provides excellent resources for anyone interested in research on s...

This special issue responds to a growing body of literature at the nexus of studies on queer/sexuality and home/domesticity. It builds on this existing research that seeks to destabilize the heteronormative ideology of home and domesticity, while also opening up this important space—and its constituent practices—for a plurality of identity formatio...

This article examines contemporary lesbians' (and queer women's) urban geographies, drawing from empirical research on Toronto, Canada and Sydney, Australia. Our argument is grounded in research highlighting lesbians' distinctive urban experiences: lesbians have both participated in gay villages and gay male spaces and, importantly, carved out thei...

Publisher's description Although the last decade has seen steady progress towards wider acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals, LGBTQ residential and commercial areas have come under increasing pressure from gentrification and redevelopment initiatives. As a result many of these neighborhoods are losing...

There is growing concern with the experiences of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transsexual/transgender and queer identifying subjects (GLBTQ) living in and visiting rural areas. Simultaneously, rural studies scholars across various disciplines argue that the meaning and experience of ‘rural’ changes with variations in residence, gender, class, ethnicity,...

This article examines young men's (aged 18-25 years) meanings of home and practices of homemaking, comprising material and social relations. The discussion contributes to three areas of geographical interest: home, masculinities and youth. Both geographies of home and masculinities have begun to consider men's experiences and meanings of home, but...

The solicitation and provision of sexual services for material compensation is played out across the (sub)urban landscapes of our cities, with solicitation and provision for a single transaction often occurring in different locations (Prior et al. 2013). Provision of direct sex services, those involving direct physical contact between the client an...

This article seeks a queering of research and policy in relation to natural disasters, their human impacts, management and response. The human impacts of natural disasters vary across different social groups. We contend that one group largely absent from scholarly and policy agendas is sexual and gender minorities, or lesbian, gay, bisexual, transg...

Since the 1950s neighborhoods associated with lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) subjects and communities have become part of the urban landscape in many cities of the Global North. In Australia this is evident in Sydney, where particular inner-city suburbs are bracketed with 'gay', 'lesbian', and 'queer' sexualities. These sexual-spa...

This article examines lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) experiences of displacement, home loss, and rebuilding in the face of natural disasters. LGBT vulnerability and resilience are little studied in disaster research; this article begins to fill this gap, focusing on LGBT domicide—how LGBT homes are “un made” in disasters. To do this, we c...

This collection considers how religious identity interplays with other forms and contexts of identity, specifically those related to sexual identity. It asks how these intersections are formed, negotiated and resisted across time and places, including the UK, Europe, North America, Australia, and the Global South. Questions around ‘queer’ engagemen...

In this article we apply insights from ‘new mobilities’ approaches to understand the shifting sexual and gendered landscapes of major cities in the global North. The empirical context is the purported ‘demise’ of traditional gay villages in Toronto, Canada and Sydney, Australia, and the emergence of ‘LGBT neighbourhoods’ elsewhere in the inner city...

Abstract. Since the 1950s neighborhoods associated with lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) subjects and communities have become part of the urban landscape in many cities of the Global North. In Australia this is evident in Sydney, where particular inner-city suburbs are bracketed with ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’, and ‘queer’ sexualities. These...

Equalities landscapes for sexual minorities are not achieved by formal legal and political change alone. This paper examines everyday friendships between straight- and gay-identifying men in Sydney, Australia, articulating the relational constitution of ‘pro-gay’ heterosexual men and equalities landscapes. Utilising interview and media data, I argu...

Gender is a key lens for interpreting meanings and practices of home(making) in urban neighbourhoods, but while there is a rich understanding of women's experiences, there is a paucity of work on men's. To advance insights into gendered dimensions of home in urban contexts, this paper discusses men's embodied experiences of home in inner Sydney, dr...

Neil identifies himself as an older gay man.1 He is in his mid-60s, retired, and lives alone in a semi-detached one-bedroom villa in Sydney’s inner southern suburbs. He wrote the following entry to conclude the reflective diary I asked him to complete as part of a study on the relations between men and the home in inner Sydney: Tuesday 16 June 2009...

Sexuality is fundamental in individuals' experiences of home. Discourses of the house-as-home are steeped in expectations about sexual subjectivities and relationships. However, the multiplicity of sexual subjectivities means the entwinement of domesticity and sexuality is complex. This article surveys multilayered relationships between sexuality a...

Gender is a key framework for understanding meanings of home. The residential home is normalised as a woman’s domain, but nuanced interpretations account for both masculine and feminine domestic correlations. These gendered meanings of home are pliable, moreover, since gender is socially constructed and individuals negotiate shifting masculine and...

Australian education policies advocate equal opportunities and non-discrimination through legislation that people with disabilities willing to attend ‘main-stream’ schools must be accommodated for. In this paper, people with mobility disabilities talk about their high school experiences in New South Wales, Australia. We are particularly interested...

While idealised as a private space, the residential home is embedded in public relationships, and a critical aspect of homemaking is managing the public/private boundary. Geographers of sexualities show this is fraught for sexual minorities, with gay men having a heightened need to control the public/private boundary, fearing discrimination from ne...

This special issue, ‘Revisiting Geographies of Sexuality and Gender Down Under’, corresponds with the 2008 themed issue of Australian Geographer, ‘Geographies of Sexuality and Gender Down Under’. This introduction reviews some existing literature on sexual and gender geographies in Australia and New Zealand, seeking to further decentre the dominanc...

Doctoral education is central to both the production of knowledge and the reproduction of disciplines—producing the next generation of researchers. This paper considers the doctoral and supervisory experiences associated with the ‘the PhD by publication’—in which a dissertation comprises a number of stand-alone ‘publishable’ papers, along with intr...

A review of David L. Brown and Kai A. Schaft, Rural People and Communities in the 21st Century: Resilience and Transformation (Polity, 2011) and Rob Garbutt, The Locals: Identity, Place and Belonging in Australia and Beyond (Peter Lang, 2011).

This paper advances scholarship on ‘lesbian and gay rural idylls’. A growing literature examines how ‘lesbian and gay rural idylls’ are not only produced in opposition to the urban, but are themselves urban constructs. We extend these contentions by exploring the processes of idyllisation suffusing lesbian and gay festival tourism in Daylesford, a...

This article explores intersections of home, mobility and sexualities. We draw on the narrated journeys of young lesbian‐ and gay‐identified people who left and then returned to their hometown of Townsville, Queensland, Australia. Their stories of journeys and returns rupture boundaries that fashion both regional Australia as a closeted space and m...