O

Power is implicit in the notion of territory, which describes a portion of land controlled by some form of authority. Gendered discourse is used to assert control over territory at the scale of the nationstate. Colonisers have frequently represented conquered territories as feminine. Feminist and post-structuralist geographers examine how texts and discourses naturalise gender, sexuality and race, while at the same time caution that post-structural approaches may reinforce androcentric viewpoints and may not lead to changes in the material conditions of women and peoples of colour. The act of making women visible within history is taken by Blunt and others as an opportunity to remake the categories through which the past is discursively constituted. Research on British women travelers suggests that they were empowered to travel and to transgress in the empire while away from the feminised domesticity of living at home.