This set of pages will, in time, feature a selection of my writing, including a version of the article I have recently had published in Rising East the journal of East London studies, as well as links to sites by others working in this field and some more general resources.

For now, here is a brief survey of some of the key themes that have been addressed by others studying the spatial expressing of (homo)sexuality and an outline of why, in thecontext of this work, I think it is useful to study the 'queer spaces' of the Tower Hamlets area in East London.

The last fifteen or so years have seen an increasing volume of work written about the spatial organisation of gay men and women's urban lives (Castells and Murphy, 1982; Knopp, 1992; Bell and Valentine et. al., 1995; Ingram, Bouthillette and Retter et. al., 1997) but much of this has focused on gay life in North American cities. Of the work that has explored the development of gay enclaves in British cities, a substantial amount has been written about the growth Manchester's 'Gay Village' and the concentration of gay businesses around Old Compton Street in London's Soho (Whittle, 1994; Mort, 1995; Quilley, 1997). There are, of course, exceptions to this trend such as Valentine's study of the spatialisation of lesbian lives in an unnamed provincial British town (Valentine, 1995) and Lewis's sociological study of the gay scene in Newcastle (Lewis,1994), as well as work by a host of writers who have considered the spatiality of specific aspects of the lives of sexual dissidents, such as the SM scene (Binnie, 1994) or the sexual health needs of men who have sex in cottages and other semi-public cruising areas (Woodhead, 1995).

While both Manchester's Gay Village and Old Compton Street are, in their own ways, quintessentially English, they follow a fairly international model of city centre gay districts, and have as much in common with areas of Amsterdam, San Francisco and Sydney as they do with other gay neighbourhoods in the British Isles. Through my current work I am attempting to begin to redress that balance, by exploring how the national and local political economy in East London has attracted, shaped and sustained a significant local gay population in the Tower Hamlets area.

A major aspect of the project will be an attempt to explain why a large number of gay men have chosen to live in Tower Hamlets, and it will explore the relationship between a range of factors such as the area's location, the type and cost of housing, employment opportunities and the area's gay history in shaping the contemporary gay population.

Tower Hamlets has sustained a working class gay subculture for much of this century, and I am interested to consider how this local history has contributed to the current shape of the area's gay population, both in material ways and symbolically - to what extent has the image of the sexually available but potentially dangerous 'East End lad' acted as a draw to the area for (middle class) gay men, and in what ways has it helped to shape the material landscape of the local gay scene?

That the area's gay presence can be said to pre-date the internationalisation of gay culture since the late 1960s is, I believe, an important factor that differentiates Tower Hamlets from many other areas of British cities where gay men now choose to live in significant numbers. That having been said, however, I am not blind to the fact that the internationalisation of gay culture, as well as broader shifts in the international political economy have undoubtedly had their effect the local gay population. Nor do I claim that Tower Hamlets is unique in having an long established gay scene within its boundaries. What does make the area of special interest (although again, not unique) is the presence of (a) sizeable 'gay' population(s) from a range of class and ethnic backgrounds within a relatively concentrated area which does allow for the study of 'gay men's' urban lives that is not exclusively white, middle class and based entirely around a commercial scene where disposable income acts as an unspoken social filter.

References:

Adler, S. & Brenner, J. [1992] 'Gender and space: lesbians and gay men in the city', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 16: 24-34 Bell, D. & Valentine, G. (eds.) [1995] Mapping Desire: geographies of sexualities, London: Routledge
Binnie, J. [1995] 'The Twilight World of the Sadomasochist' in Whittle, S. (ed.) The Margins of the City: Gay Men's Urban Lives, Aldershot: Ashgate
Binnie, J. [1996] 'Coming Out of Geography: towards a queer epistemology?' in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 15, 223-237
Castells, M. and Murphy, K. [1982] 'Cultural Identity and Urban Structure: The Spatial Organization of San Francisco's Gay Community' in Fainstein, N. I. and Fainstein, S. S. (eds.) Urban Policy Under Capitalism, London: Sage Publications
Hollister, J. [1997] Lollipop Heaven: A highway rest area as a socially-reproducible site;
Ingram, G. B., Bouthillette, A. & Retter, Y. (eds.) [1997] Queers in Space: Communities/Public Places/Sites of Resistance, Seattle: Bay Press
Knopp, L. [1992] 'Sexuality and the spatial dynamics of capitalism' in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 10: 651-69
Lewis, M. [1994] 'A Sociological Pub Crawl Around Gay Newcastle' in Whittle, S. (ed.) The Margins of the City: Gay Men's Urban Lives, Aldershot: Ashgate
Mort, F. [1995] 'Archeologies of city life: commercial culture, masculinity and spatial relations in 1980s London' in Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 13: 573-90
Quilley, S. [1997] 'Constructing Manchester's "New Urban Village": Gay Space in the Entrepreneurial City' in Ingram, G. B., Bouthillette, A. & Retter, Y. (eds.) Queers in Space: Communities/Public Places/Sites of Resistance, Seattle: Bay Press
Valentine, G. [1995] 'Out and About: Geographies of Lesbian Landscapes' International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 19: 96-111
Whittle, S. [1994] 'Consuming Differences: The Collaboration of the Gay Body with the Cultural State' in Whittle, S. (ed.) The Margins of the City - Gay Men's Urban Lives, Aldershot, England: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
Woodhead, D. [1995] "'Surveillant Gays': HIV, space and the constitution of identities" in Bell, D. & Valentine, G. (eds.) Mapping Desire: geographies of sexualities, London: Routledge