Lauren Costello

Queering the Terrain: New Geographies of Sexuality Lauren Costello

Homosexuality was once considered to be the forgotten half of the sexuality equation in theories of geography. To date geographical explorations of sexuality have been concerned with gay and lesbian sexuality, thereby obscuring heterosexuality. Lauren Costello examines the complex processes whereby homosexuality is constituted as deviant and heterosexuality is unproblematically constructed as a normative expression of desire. Using a diverse set of empirical case studies, including the Australian Defence Force bans on sexuality and treatment of women; State laws criminalising homosexuality and; the spatial regulation of public spaces, the author provides innovative and original theories to open up the possibility of seeing sexuality outside of a binary structure. Dr Costello offers new perspectives that reposition heterosexuality as no longer secure and normative and recasts traditional understandings of sexuality. The author has produced an engaging and scholarly monograph relevant to those concerned with producing discourses of space and place or narratives of sex, gender and sexuality that destabilise privileged notions of desire.