infonet-economy

Understanding the study of sexual spaces as heterotopological, this article argues that, in the context of sexual minorities, new forms of sexual identity that contest the dominant forms are generated and practiced in specific, 'other', spaces and timings, so-called 'heterotopias'. To develop and illustrate this argument, the garden and gardening practices of Derek Jarman are described and analysed as a heterotopic space and practice. To theoretically establish the relationship between sexual difference and (other) space, the notion of heterotopia is connected to the concept of the care of the self that is simultaneously understood as an existential, aesthetic and political activity of (creating) difference. Stressing the dimension of resistance, the care of the self is interpreted as a queer practice that turns a spatial politics of (sexual) difference into one of queering spaces.