ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the author’s personal introduction to this book and explains the origins of his interactions with Bears and Bearspaces. Drawing on academic and non-academic scholarship and writing, it introduces readers to Bears and their history, as well as research on Bear lives and communities. In particular it notes connections with three broad academic literatures relating to (1) Men and Masculinities Studies, (2) Fat Studies, and (3) Sexuality and Queer Studies. It then positions this book within the author’s discipline of Geography. Finally, this chapter outlines the Bearspace research project on which the book is based. It concludes by stressing this book’s three key interventions in scholarship on Bears: first, the significance of achieving a ‘critical mass’ of bodies; second, engaging with the instability of the term ‘Bear’; and third, a challenge to universalist accounts of Bears.
