ABSTRACT
In analysing social construction of sites of consumption as 'contested spaces' in the city, this chapter argues that this enables a reading of how 'difference' and 'identity' are constructed and regulated within urban culture, with particular focus on gender and sexuality. This perspective suggests that the social construction of difference can be seen as a process which stretches over time and space, involving the manipulation of the resources that particular sites of consumption afford for the negotiation of identities in the city. The chapter discusses that the notion of reflexivity is employed to characterize the ways in which negotiations of spatial meanings are embedded in the constructions of urban identities. The spatial dynamics of how spaces are constructed as meaningful for social action is a complex interaction of these practices of negotiating multiple identities in the city.
