‘Negotiation and Navigation - an Exploration of the Spaces/Places of Working-class Lesbians’

This article draws upon my research on working-class lesbians, which explores therelationship between class, sexuality and social exclusion. Researchparticipants were drawn mainly from Scotland (Glasgow, Edinburgh and theHighlands), with smaller samples in Yorkshire and Manchester; in totalfifty-three women took part, most being interviewed individually, others as partof three focus groups, and a couple in ‘paired’ interviews. The significance ofsexuality and class position is highlighted across various social sites fromfamily background and schooling to work experiences and leisure activities. Thewomen's own identifications, understandings and vivid descriptions point to thecontinued salience of class as a factor in shaping life experiences. Thisarticle focuses primarily on the women's ‘sense of place’ and their relations tothe often devalued territories that they inhabit. The relationship betweensexual identity and class has received little academic attention - here the‘gaps’ in the literature pertaining to ‘lesbian and gay’ space, and to(de-sexualised) class space, will be identified. By including empirical data Ioffer a picture of the ways in which classed spaces is sexualised and sexualisedspace is classed and suggest that space is constitutive of identity in terms ofwhere it places people, both materially and emotionally.