Dr. Deborah Thien

has organized, chaired, and served as a panellist on a special session:

"Gender Interventions in Research, Teaching, and/or Practice," to the Association of American Geographers, Chicago, during March 2006.

Session Description: Certainly, gender is no longer an unfamiliar concept -- within geography, the substantial and long-term efforts of feminist geographers have been particularly effective in addressing the array of gender-related concerns. But, despite this sustained feminist attention to gender conceptually and theoretically, there are still few resources for practical teaching or fieldwork exercises which address gender in geographical contexts (exceptions include Madge 1994; Oberhauser 2002). The members of this panel are all involved in developing such resources and will speak briefly to these projects to set the context for discussion. Bettina van Hoven will discuss experiences of teaching gender geography in the Netherlands. Joyce Davidson will address observation and auto-ethnography as tools for learning in feminist fieldtrips. Avril Maddrell will discuss role-play as method for integrating gender within a contextual history approach. Liz Bondi will discuss teaching reflexivity. Deborah Thien will discuss a workshop approach and the use of 'gender field logs' to facilitate gender awareness in a large- scale, multi-university research team. Helen Jarvis is the discussant for this panel. This panel session will present the opportunity for unfolding dialogues about the politics and processes of making gender interventions. The session will also provide a space for brainstorming about new strategic methods for geographic teaching and research.