Mr Xavier Goldie1
1The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Considerable research has examined the relationships between queer communities and the city, particularly within a qualitative, North American context. As an extension of my work providing the first quantitative treatment of the spatial patterning of male and female same-sex couples in Australia’s two largest urban centres, I examine the changes to these patterns over the last five years and determine whether or not explanatory variables emerge which may explain both the current patterning, and shifts to those patterns over that period. As a corollary of this, I examine the appropriateness of quantitative methods and theoretical predictions in describing queer geographies, at the expense of methods which seek to understand urban queer Australians’ diverse and diverging life histories and experiences, which perhaps more comprehensively answer the questions of why they have chosen to live where they live, and the consequences of those choices on shared socio-spatial identities.
Biography:
Xavier is Outreach Manager at AURIN, and a PhD candidate at the Centre for Urban Research at RMIT University. His candidacy focuses on the relationship between urban structure, disadvantage and transport. He also has a strong research interest in bringing a quantitative focus to marginalisation and segregation in an urban context, and appraising the appropriateness of bringing quantitative methods to bear on the process of identity construction in cities
