Class, Migration, and Gender: Exploring Intersectional Perspectives of Female Students from a Marginalised Urban Area

Abstract

This qualitative study examines how spatial intersectionality manifests at the intersection of class, migration, and gender within perspectives of girls from migrant backgrounds in the district of Duisburg-Marxloh, a location heavily stigmatised in the media. Combining spatial intersectionality with performative concepts in feminist geography, the study demonstrates how experiences significantly shape subjective perspectives on space, sometimes leading to action-oriented counter-narratives that challenge dominant external attributions from the hegemonic discourse and open alternative spaces for interpretation. Moreover, the study provides new empirical insights into the spatial perspectives of a group that has been marginalised in geography education research to date. To this end, a qualitative content analysis was conducted, based on three semi-structured group interviews with participants aged 15 and 16. The findings of the analysis show that the interviewed girls are aware of the stigmatisation of their neighbourhood. At the same time, they begin to develop differentiated, everyday and emotionally charged spatial perspectives. This demonstrates that the public and subjective spatial perspectives of Marxloh are in a complex, reciprocal and dynamic relationship. The empirical findings emphasise the importance of educational approaches that are subject-oriented, sensitive to intersectionality, and take local knowledge seriously. Ultimately, this work opens new perspectives for critical, reflexive geography education research.