Positioning a feminist geographical perspective during doctoral research at a french academic institution can be quite a challenge. Even if feminism has found its way in french geographical discussion, french geopolitics are still not fully charmed, making it more difficult to open the reflexivity to more sensitive and emotional production of knowledge (Rose 1993).
While making fieldwork in Patagonia, in a quest to understand the boundary between chilean and argentinian southernmost territories, feminist geographies emerged naturally. The contemplation of magnificent landscapes and also the complexity of everyday life revealed through ethnographie, contributed to define a position as a female geographer (Sharp 2005). The égo-géographies (Calbérac & Volvey 2014), life experience, origins, race, and gender of the researcher made sense and helped realise that sensitivity and emotions should not be overlooked (Nast 1994, Volvey et al 2012) when searching to understand the geographic criteria that justified the line which forced the displacement of population and divided national identities.
Patagonia has been historically exposed as a masculin region. An important number of male explorers, naturalists, writers, and geographers, have contribute to the construction of a masculin narrative around Patagonia’s myth of origin. Additionally, geohistory arises from historic and diplomatic archives analysis confirming that the boundary in this region was also drawn by white male geographers from a dominant position of power under the influence of the Royal Geographical Society.
What would be different if this boundary was demarcated today integrating women geographers in the decision making ? How can we deconstruct boundaries created with a military objective ? How can we validate researchers emotions in highly delicate geopolitical case study ? From the field experience to the methodologies of analysis this paper propose new questions to discuss feminist geographies.
Mots clés : feminist geographies |boundary |emotions |geopolitics|Patagonia
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