GEOGRAPHIES OF SEXUALITY, HEALTH AND WELLBEING
RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2006, 30th August - 1st
September 2006.
Health is mediated by a host of intertwined and complex social
factors, including sexual orientation. Sexual orientation therefore
has a potentially profound influence on an individual’s health and
wellbeing.
At a UK level, the current health discourse – relating to such things
as smoking cessation, good diet, moderate drinking and physical
activity – lays health firmly in the sphere of personal responsibility.
In a global context, lesbian and gay individuals and communities
face a variety of further challenges including religious, cultural and
political restrictions on their identity and hence their particular
spaces of health and wellbeing.
Health geographers have argued that the communities we inhabit –
be they territorially rooted or identity based – are implicated in
health outcomes. Furthermore, geographers have demonstrated
that everyday space – physical and social – is constructed and
experienced as both implicitly and explicitly heterosexual. Thus the
spaces of health and wellbeing might also be expected to reflect
exclusions and expectations around sexuality – in essence to be
‘sexed’.
This session aims to explore the range of spaces and places
where sexuality, health and wellbeing collide, together with the
implications for policy and the wellbeing of lesbian and gay
populations.
Papers are welcomed on any aspect of sexual orientation, health
and wellbeing. Please send abstracts of no more than 200 words to
Sara MacKian by 31 January.
Convenors: Dr Sara MacKian, Geography, School of Environment
and Development, University of Manchester; John Goldring and Prof
Paul Bellaby, Institute for Public Health Research and Policy,
University of Salford
Dr Sara MacKian
School of Environment and Development
University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester
M13 9PL
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http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/geography/staff/mackian_sara.htm
Tel 0161 275 3619
Fax 0161 275 7878
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