Tracing women’s intersectional geographies of encounter in a Melbourne neighbourhood: the entanglements of discourse, perception and life-story narrative

Abstract Conceptualising discourse as an everyday practice which positions people in localised hierarchies of power, while simultaneously embedded in broader discursive landscapes, underscores encounter as an important site in which social structures produce and reproduce inequality. However, the interdependent role of discourse and encounter remains under-theorised within the field of intersectionality. Drawing on semi-structured interviews from a place-based case study, this paper examines the life-stories of three diversely positioned women to show how they construct, perform, and narrate their identities through encounter. Building on the emerging literature of intersectional geographies of encounter, this paper considers how, at the scale of encounter, dominant discourses become entangled with women’s life-story narratives to shape how they perceive themselves and others, and how they feel perceived by others which informs their situated and contingent relational positioning in hierarchies of power. This highlights the centrality of everyday encounters and discourses to the negotiation of hierarchal social structures and intersectional relations.


Introduction
The underlying principle of intersectional scholarship is interrogating hierarchies of power created by social structures which shape people's lived experiences and opportunities (see Cho, Crenshaw, and McCall 2013;Hopkins 2018;McCall 2005).Within geography, intersectional analyses explore the spatiotemporal construction and arrangement of these hierarchies, and the inequalities they produce and reproduce across multiple scales.Over the last 10-15 years an emerging body of literature has bridged intersectional geography and encounter literatures to consider how social structures and categories position individuals at the scale of everyday encounters.However, to date research has not considered the role discourse plays in relationally positioning individuals in hierarchies of power at the scale of everyday encounter.This paper contributes to this emerging literature and responds to the gap identified by examining how through everyday encounters, discourses become entangled with life-story narratives to contour individuals' situated and contingent relational positions.
Encounter literature develops understanding of situated and relational social interactions, often between racial and/or ethnic minority and majority groups (Valentine and Sadgrove 2012).The literature engages with processes of boundary-making and norms and expectations which govern belonging.Simultaneously drawing from encounter and intersectional geographies allows a deeper examination of the situatedness and contingency of intersectional relations -foregrounding the role place, encounter, and discourse play in relationally positioning individuals in hierarchical social structures.Drawing the concept of encounter into the field of intersectional geography has the potential, first, to underscore the significance of interpersonal relations to the broader interrogation of social structures which unevenly distribute power; and second, to deepen understanding of how discourse operates at the scale of encounter to produce and reproduce intersectional relations.
This paper focuses on the life-stories of three diversely positioned women, to examine how their identities are constructed, performed, and narrated at the nexus between dominant discourses about social identities and their own life-story narratives, which converge and diverge in encounters.This argument emerged from a broader research project which examines women's experiences of everyday neighbourhood places, their encounters with others, and their own life narratives to reveal the interdependencies between identity, encounter, and place.In this paper, examination of the women's stories reveals how they reference discourses about social identities; which influence how they perceive, and feel perceived by, others; and how, this in turn impacts their relational position within everyday encounters.
The remainder of this paper comprises four sections.First, I introduce the relevance of discourse and encounter to intersectionality.Then I outline my methodological approach.Following this I examine excerpts from narrative interviews with three women to establish the role of discourse in contouring their relational positioning within encounters and demonstrate how the relationship between discourse, perception and encounter influences the expression of identities.Finally, I explain the significance of this argument to the field of intersectional geography.

Theory: exploring the role of discourse in intersectional analysis
Intersectional literature derives from a long history of radical activism and research.In the u.S. activists and scholars interrogated interlocking systems of oppression which negatively impacted the lives and opportunities, particularly of Black women (bell hooks 1981;Combahee River Collective 1978;Crenshaw 1989;Hill Collins 1990).Simultaneously in Europe, Anthias and Yuval-Davis (1983) highlighted that social categories like race, gender and class were constructed in spatially, politically and historically contingent ways responding to the situated operation of structures such as colonialism and imperialism-meaning that Black women's experiences, for example, were not universal.The application of intersectionality has broadened to encompass a growing list of social categories which reflect locally significant structures and processes.More recently, feminist and postcolonial geographers adopting this analytical framework have brought a spatial sensibility which contributes to intersectional scholars understanding of the operation of power as situated and contingent (see Anthias 2013;Hopkins 2018;Johnston 2018;Mollett and Faria 2018;Rodó-de-Zárate 2014;Rodó-de-Zárate and Baylina 2018;Valentine 2007;Yuval-Davis 2015).
Feminist and postcolonial geographers' engagement with scale, spatial and temporal context, and place makes critical contributions to the field of intersectional studies -'as intersectionality works out in different ways in different places: geography always matters' (McDowell 2008, 504).While the broader field of intersectional studies attends to the ways that social structures intersect with and shape one another to produce complex intersectional realities, intersectional geographers emphasise how scale, space and time further inform these intersections (Rodó-de-Zárate and Baylina 2018).This is evident in different intersectional relations resulting from national colonial histories, for example (Johnston 2018), but also the production and reproduction of hierarchies which can shift across different places at local scales (Hopkins 2018;Kobayashi and Peake 1994;Rodó-de-Zárate 2014;Rodó-de-Zárate and Baylina 2018;Valentine 2007). McDowell's (2008) analysis of migrant workers experiences also illustrated that structures and processes intersect across multiple spatial scales (such as global capitalism, migration policies, gendered and classed divisions) to produce local practices which maintain or challenge inequality.Geography's analytical considerations of scale, context and place clearly articulate the situated and contingent operation of social structures.
In her theorisation of situated intersectionality, Yuval-Davis (2015) calls for simultaneous consideration of macro-structures and micro-relations to understand how power operates to position individuals.At a macro-scale, structures such as colonialism, racism, patriarchy, and heteronormativity create and naturalise hierarchies of power.These hierarchies are articulated through discursively constructed social categories -race, gender, class, ability, sexuality, etc. -which differentiate people and shape everyday relations (Anthias 2013;Hill Collins 2010;Wylie 2006).These hierarchies shift across time and space, responding to discourses operating and intersecting across multiple scales (Kobayashi and Peake 1994;Rootham, Hardgrove, and McDowell 2015).
In this paper, discourse is framed as everyday practices -'dialogues, ways of thinking and actions; bodily practices, habits, gestures, etc' (Wylie 2006, 303).Following this Foucauldian perspective, discourse conveys power by articulating norms, values, and possibilities which reinforce hierarchies (Dixon and Jones 2006).To attend to the way discourse informs concrete intersectional relations it is necessary to consider discourses intersecting across multiple spatial scales.For example, a national-scale discourse of migrants as cultural threat intersects with a neighbourhood-scale discourse of migrants as valued community members.How these discourses are reflected in personal narratives can reveal how, when and why they are internalised or disrupted.While there is debate in intersectional literature about whether focussing on individual experiences risks neglecting interrogation of the broader structures which produce and reproduce inequality (Anthias 2013;McCall 2005;Salem 2018), conceptualising discourse as an everyday practice which positions people in localised hierarchies of power, while simultaneously embedded in broader discursive landscapes, underscores the significance of encounter to this objective.
Geographies of encounter broadly deal with negotiations of difference (Valentine and Waite 2012;Wilson 2017) commonly referencing Allport's (1954) contact hypothesis which argued repeated contact across difference could reduce intolerance and prejudice.There is debate in encounter literature regarding the types of encounters which carry this transformative potential.This debate sets up a binary between planned encounters which involve a degree of social or emotional investment (Amin 2002(Amin , 2012;;Valentine 2008) and unplanned encounters which occur between strangers (Blokland and nast 2014;Peterson 2017;Wilson 2011).Beyond this binary encounter literature has focussed on: how normative codes of behaviour and attitudes are operationalised in everyday encounters (Valentine 2008); how dominant discourses can lead to stereotypes which inform individuals perception of one another (Askins 2015); how belonging can be developed through encounter across diversity (Hoekstra and Pinkster 2019); and how past experiences and anticipated futures shape encounters (Wilson 2017).There are valuable parallels between encounter scholars' focus on the transformative potential of encounter, and intersectional scholars' critical interrogation of processes through which difference and belonging are constructed, maintained and disrupted.
An emerging body of work bridges theories of encounter and intersectionality.Valentine (2007) shows how dominant discourses, about and within social groups, define norms and expectations governing belonging which impacts individuals expression of their identities in encounter; Valentine and Waite (2012) and Peterson (2021) argue individuals refer to their own complex intersectional narratives when they encounter difference, which can disrupt stereotypes and lead to tolerance without necessitating changes to attitudes, beliefs or values; O'Conner (2019) exposes how when international students' performance of their gendered and religious identities does not conform to local norms and expectations they are excluded from groups despite shared interests and common goals; and Sircar's (2021) autoethnography demonstrates how different aspects of her identity become salient depending on how she is positioned in relation to those she encounters.Together this body of work complicates the typical minority-majority framing of encounter and establishes the complex operation and negotiation of power and relational positioning which occurs through encounters.This highlights the latent potential in simultaneously drawing from encounter and intersectionality to examine the situatedness and contingency of intersectional relations -underscoring the role of place, encounter and discourse in the spatialised operation of social power structures.

Methods: examining life-story narratives to reveal the discursive construction of intersectional relations in encounter
While social categories often provide an entry point to examining intersectional dis/advantage, as discussed above categories are contextually specific and reflect local discourses (Anthias 2008;McCormack 2004;Mehta and Bondi 1999).To enrich insight into how discourses impact the situated construction of intersectional relations this paper examines women's narratives, specifically considering how women are positioned, and position themselves and their life-story narratives, within stories of everyday encounters.Women's narration of their life-stories provides context to understand how they make sense of relational hierarchies experienced in encounters (Chadwick 2017;Riessman 2005;Valentine 2007;Valentine and Sadgrove 2012).These hierarchies stem from discourses about social identities and contour women's experience of intersectional relations in encounter.
This paper draws on data from a place-based case study developed through ethnographic observation and narrative interviews with a group of women in the dense and diverse urban neighbourhood of north Richmond-Abbottsford in Melbourne.north Richmond-Abbottsford is characterised by its proximity to the CBD; economic diversity (resulting from a high concentration of public housing alongside recent gentrification); cultural and ethnic diversity (immigrants who came following WWII, the Vietnam War and more recently from across Africa and have remained in the neighbourhood, many in public housing); and stigma (associated with limited investment in 1964 Housing Commission high-rise towers, and increasing street drug trade and public injecting which led to Australia's much debated second supervised injecting facility opening in the neighbourhood).The dense and diverse neighbourhood was selected to reflect the complexity and multiplicity commonly experienced in a context of increasingly global migration and urbanisation.north Richmond-Abbottsford is a place of stark contrasts which shape everyday encounters across difference.The discourses experienced in this neighbourhood commonly reflect points of tension surrounding public injecting; street dealing and associated crime; children's safety; increasing visible homelessness; economic disadvantage and economic responsibility; gentrification; ethnic and cultural difference.I reflected on hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourses as they shifted and intersected across multiple spatial scales.
In 2018 I conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with eleven diversely positioned women, who lived or worked in the neighbourhood.Interviews elicited women's overarching life-stories and stories about living in the neighbourhood.Rather than focusing on a specific intersectional positionality as is common in intersectional research, participants were selected to reflect the breadth of diversity in the neighbourhood in terms of: age (20 to 80), ethnicity (Aboriginal; Pākehā; Settler-Australian; Canadian; Somali; Taiwanese; Turkish); employment status; residential tenancy in public or private housing; sexual orientation; and gender (cis-and trans-gender women).These women share lived experiences of the neighbourhood and exposure to the same hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourses about poverty as individual failure versus systemic; drug use as a criminal versus health issue; drug users as threat versus victim; migrants as an incursion versus part of vibrant communities; belonging based on origins versus place attachment; gendered norms about safety.These discourses circulated in local and state news media; social media; within community groups; and in stories that locals and outsiders told about their experiences of the neighbourhood.At state and national scales, discourses and counter-discourses were fixed in binary opposition but at the scale of encounter, individuals' engagement with discourses was more nuanced, responding to complex lived realities (Valentine and Waite 2012;Peterson 2021).
Recognising the diversity both within and between groups, the small qualitative sample was not intended to generalise broader intersectional experiences but instead to examine the discursive processes through which women are relationally positioned in encounters and in their own life-stories.Initial interviews (11 participants) focussed on overarching life-stories and were conducted in locations chosen by participants, commonly a café.I then arranged follow-up participant-led walking interviews (6 participants) and asked women to reflect on places in the neighbourhood that were significant in their everyday lives.Participants determined a meeting place and guided me on a tour of the neighbourhood based on their everyday experiences.These walking interviews elicited stories about women's experiences and encounters in specific places while simultaneously providing an opportunity to observe situated encounters.Three women's stories clearly demonstrated the relationship between hegemonic discourses, personal life stories, and everyday encounters in their neighbourhood.These three women's stories form the basis of this paper.
narrative analysis offers researchers a unique opportunity to foreground the experiences of the participant-'interactions, temporality, and situation,' expose the complexity through which an individual experiences socio-spatial contexts and their place within them (Clandinin and Connelly 2000, 50).Employing narrative analysis, I identified interview passages exploring women's identities and their relation to others (Riessman 2005, 2).I identified discourses about women's own and others' social identities in their descriptions of encounters with others.Discourses were evident when descriptions or comparisons of social identities assigned value or reflected common stereotypes, norms and expectations.I reflected on the continuity and discontinuity of discourses within women's life-stories, revealing how they made sense of their relational positioning (Clandinin and Connelly 2000, 131).listening to life-story narratives allows researchers to situate lived experiences within a broader context -of past experiences; social and cultural narratives; and norms and expectations.Situating lived experiences in this way exposes how individuals might at times be complicit in, and at other times resist, the hierarchies that dominant discourses construct and reinforce (Mehta and Bondi 1999).
The following section explores the life-stories of three diversely positioned women who live in the dense and diverse north-Richmond-Abbotsford neighbourhood.This study overlays the macro-temporal scale of women's overarching life-stories with the micro-temporal scale of their stories of encounter to analyse how they construct, perform, and narrate their identities through encounter where dominant discourse interacts with personal life-story.

Identity stories: entanglements of discourse, perception, and personal narrative
In this section, I first introduce the overarching life narrative that each woman shared with me.Then, using selected passages from their interviews, I consider three elements: discourses about social identities which inform how these women perceive themselves, perceive others, and feel perceived by others; how women position themselves in stories of past experiences; and women's sense of relational positioning within encounters.Each woman's story emphasises one way that discourse contours the negotiation of their own identity and their encounters with others.

Ruth
Ruth's life story explores how hegemonic discourses become entangled in how an individual makes sense of their own identity and positions themselves, particularly when they identify with discourses which marginalise them.Ruth, an Aboriginal woman in her sixties, grew up in the local area but moved away in adulthood.As an adult Ruth discovered her Aboriginality had been hidden from her. Growing up she'd felt as though something was missing-alongside but not part of the local Aboriginal community.She describes the severe poverty and violence she experienced growing up in inner-city Melbourne.After leaving home at seventeen to escape an abusive father, Ruth ended up homeless and sleeping on friends' couches.Despite significant disadvantage early in life, Ruth carved out what she described as a good life-a meaningful career, a long term committed relationship and a good group of friends.However, after a significant relationship breakdown, Ruth struggled with her mental health, became unemployed and eventually found herself back in public-housing in the neighbourhood where she grew up.now, she lives alone in public-housing, struggling with precarious employment, poor mental health, and addiction.The passages that follow focus on the way Ruth internalises hegemonic discourses about her own identity -particularly about 'real' Aboriginals and poverty as personal failure -and how these inform her positioning in relation to others.
The denial of Ruth's Aboriginality by her mother disconnected her from Aboriginal culture.Despite this disconnection, Ruth reflects nostalgically on growing up alongside Aboriginal families and foraging for food in the creek out of necessity.
As a teenager […] I just felt like I didn't really connect with a lot of stuff […] I felt there was something missing […] that nobody wants to tell me about my identity and I found myself drifting very strongly, but being an outsider, into the Aboriginal community in Melbourne […] finally, my aunty said to me, you know your mum is Aboriginal […] so I asked Dad […] he said you're not really Aboriginal 'you're an Octo-Roon.'It's not about the colour of my skin, it's about how I've always felt something inside of me and the way I have wanted to live my life was very quiet and very connected to nature […] when Mum was dying […] I did ask her about it once more and she just dismissed it, said no and turned away with her eyes and in her face there was shame […] Coming back here has brought up a lot of that.I grew up with […] all that mob and it wasn't that I've got white skin and you've got black skin, we just all did things together and helped each other.(Ruth,60s) Ruth's sense of her Aboriginal identity is complex and constructed with conflicting references-the reciprocity she experienced growing up in poverty alongside Aboriginal families, but also a feeling there was something missing; her mother's shame; and her father's dismissal of her Aboriginality.In her life-story, Ruth seems cautious about claiming her Aboriginality, referencing missing birth certificates and a lack of proof.Moreton-Robinson (2008) writes about the discursive construction of 'traditional' versus 'contemporary' Indigenous women that predicates authenticity on phenotypical features and traditional cultural practices which continues the settler colonial practice of erasure (Porter 2018;Wolfe 2006).Read together, these aspects of Ruth's story highlight 'the power of colonial past-presents' (Mollett and Faria 2018, 571) which shaped past oppressions and narratives passed down through families and the ongoing oppression of Aboriginal bodies.While Ruth expressed an inherent connection to Country, she was not encountered as an Aboriginal woman and as an adult, she felt her ties to community and cultural practice were more tenuous, all of which contributed to her sense of not belonging -not belonging to the hegemonic white majority and simultaneously not belonging to the Aboriginal community.
Ruth's historical connection to the once working-class neighbourhood, developed through memories tied to physical phenomena like walking down streets where her father laid bitumen-led to a sense of her right to and belonging in place.However, simultaneously, coming back to a place she experienced trauma early in life impacts Ruth's lived experiences and encounters in the neighbourhood.Ruth described feeling dread when she encountered a man who knew her father.my father had drunk in every fucking pub in Abbotsford and Collingwood.And so, I walk by these places and […] there was old Jack, who was 81, [and worked at one pub] he knew my dad and I was like fuck that's all I need (Ruth, 60s) Traces of Ruth's family's history lingered in place, carrying past trauma into the present and bringing with it a sense of shame.The tension between Ruth's sense of belonging and her shame about her family's history in this place were exacerbated by gentrification in the neighbourhood.Ruth's description of being placed in public housing in north Richmond-Abbottsford references long waiting lists, inflexible assignment of housing locations, and the urgency of precarious living all of which contribute to a feeling she had no alternative.Ruth makes sense of her position as a public housing resident in relation to the way she perceives gentrifiers.While her economic circumstances position her as marginalised, her historical roots which are tied to place, legitimate her belonging.In Ruth's comment about entitlement, discourses about the deservingness of working-class and gentrifying identities and their claims to belonging within the neighbourhood are clear.Ruth positions herself as a victim of the system but also someone with a valid right to place.By positioning the gentrifier as entitled, Ruth challenges the dominant discourse, emphasising how the focus on personal economic responsibility prevalent within a neoliberal system ignores and exacerbates the structural forces which reinforce intergenerational poverty (McCormack 2004).
Expanding on her economic position, Ruth spoke about poverty as something she could never fully escape, despite developing a career.
I was feeling a deep sense of failure to end up here, how did this happen, how did it all unravel?And yet, from a very young age I knew that I was going to end up living in housing commission, which is a self-fulfilling prophecy (Ruth, 60s).
Despite acknowledging the structural conditions which led to her economic circumstances Ruth still feels personal responsibility.She engages a discourse about public housing residents as failures which highlights the stigma attached to public housing in Australia.Further, her reference to unravelling implies the life she created lacked structural integrity.Despite her efforts to build strong social networks, the ripples of her past traumas and their continued presence in Ruth's life-story narrative, maintain this potential for unravelling.After the loss of her father and the breakdown of a long-term relationship, Ruth started gambling -a manifestation of past trauma.The discourse about the inherent immorality of gamblers became entangled in her personal life-story and exacerbated Ruth's shame.The anticipation that she would be perceived as 'bad' shaped Ruth's receptiveness to encounters, limiting her capacity to draw on social networks and reinforcing her isolation.The cycle of trauma and shame associated with Ruth's classed and racialised identities were continually reinforced by dominant discourses entangled in the stories she told about her life which in turn contributed to her embodied experiences of poverty and isolation.
Describing her encounters at the local gambling venue, Ruth engaged a discourse of gamblers as worthless and positioned herself accordingly.it's just full of Vietnamese people […] particularly older men and women […] my life is such where I don't feel a sense of belonging […] from the beginning, I thought, 'oh this is where I belong' .That's a place where all the fucking no hopers come and I'm one of them […] there is a shared trauma, grief, despair, it's written on everyone's faces.Probably written on mine.We all know something about the other without even having to talk.(Ruth, 60s).
While Ruth internalised a discourse about gamblers as worthless, the shared experience of trauma she felt with the older Vietnamese people allowed her to partially disrupt this discourse by acknowledging that, as with other addictions, gambling occurs as a symptom of trauma rather than a fault inherent in the individual.This convivial encounter bridges ethnic and racial difference and allows Ruth to feel empathy, both for the other gamblers and for herself (Valentine and Sadgrove 2014;Wilson 2017).This example shows how individuals' engagement with discourses in either planned or unplanned encounters can provoke an emotional response and thus hold transformative potential.As Ruth's earlier quote highlighted, something triggered an unravelling which bought past trauma into the present.For Ruth, this trauma left her feeling worthless and deserving of this place.The way Ruth makes sense of her identity as a gambling addict is symptomatic of the hegemonic discourses which have become entangled in her life-story narratives.
Evident in Ruth's stories is how despite internalising hegemonic discourses which position her as marginalised in relation to others, she simultaneously resists these same discourses by highlighting alternative discourses: the injustice of a neoliberal 'welfare' system; addiction as a systemic issue; the continued erasure of Aboriginal people.However, despite this resistance the intersection between Ruth's Indigeneity and class continues to undermine her capacity to resist the hegemonic discourses which marginalise her.The life-story Ruth tells shows how social structures, reinforced by broad hegemonic discourses -about indigeneity, class, and addiction -inform how she makes sense of her identity.But also, at the scale of encounter, her position responds to the geographically situated and contingent intersection of multiple discourses overlapping across spatial scales.Bringing intersectional geographers focus on scale and context into conversation with how discourses are engaged through encounter emphasises the complexity of situated hierarchies.

Maggie
Maggie's life-story explores how hegemonic discourses about others' identities can inform the way an individual makes sense of their own identity, positioning themselves in relation to others.Maggie spent her early childhood in a small rural village in Taiwan and her stories, particularly about village life, convey the freedom and safety she felt there.When she was nine Maggie's family immigrated to new Zealand, where she had to learn English from scratch.As an Asian migrant living in a lower socioeconomic area with a high proportion of Māori and Pacific Islanders, engaging in traditional Māori cultural practices with her peers allowed Maggie to feel welcomed and supported.later however, her parents, who she describes as typical of Asian parents wanting the best for their children, moved her to a private school where 'everyone was very competitive, and everyone came from very wealthy backgrounds.'Maggie describes this as a turning point when she realised she needed to work harder to 'keep up' -reflecting the shifting impact of her classed and racialised identity.After completing an undergraduate degree in new Zealand, Maggie migrated to Melbourne and completed a post-graduate degree.Shortly after, she and her husband bought a house in north Richmond-Abbottsford where she described feeling confronted by visible poverty and the street drug culture.Despite this, Maggie's stories emphasise her investment in getting to know her neighbours and becoming part of the local community.As a young Asian migrant with a desire to belong, adaptation is a significant part of Maggie's overarching life-story.The passages that follow focus on the way Maggie perceives others and how she understands and positions her own identity accordingly.
As a new resident in the neighbourhood, Maggie described the sense of welcome she associated with being recognised.
when you shop locally the aunties and uncles in the shop […] they're so friendly and even the bakery […] sometimes I don't have enough coins and she'll just be like oh that's OK just give it to me next time, like she knows me […] I feel like wow this is special treatment (Maggie 30s) Maggie's reference to 'aunties and uncles' reveals a comfort derived from being Asian in this neighbourhood.This highlights a shift in discursive racial hierarchies from the national-scale hegemonic white majority to the neighbourhood-scale migrant majority -producing a sense of racialised belonging contingent on spatial scale.
Maggie also makes sense of her identity as she navigates a tension between care and risk associated with her perception of people who use drugs in the neighbourhood.Maggie described having been unaware of the presence of street drug culture in the neighbourhood until shortly prior to settling on the house she and her husband had bought and panicking about whether to proceed.Without past encounters with drug users to draw on, Maggie initially relied on dominant discourses to guide her.
When I first moved into the area it was already on my mind that when I walk around, I need to be aware and that was the advice given to me, to know what's happening around you in your peripheral vision, to make sure that everything is ok (Maggie 30s) Maggie described being on high alert in response to the dominant discourse of 'dangerous drug users' .In contrast, when Maggie sought out other residents' lived experiences, she encountered a residents' group who supported a harm reduction approach including a supervised injecting room.
I actually went door knocking […] regarding the opening of the injection centre with Victoria Street Drug Solutions and I asked [people] about experiences and maybe tips of living around the neighbourhood.So yeah, I feel kind of confident that it's ok because there are elderly people and there are mums [and] dads and they're living here and a lot of them have been living here for a long time.So, I was like, oh ok don't be so dramatic and overreact.(Maggie 30s) listening to other residents' lived experiences, Maggie was exposed to a counter discourse which positioned drug users as victims of trauma needing care and support.This challenged the risk discourse presenting an alternate position -caring as opposed to threatened.However, these conflicting discourses continued to inform how Maggie positioned herself -navigating the tension between care for marginalised others and risk to herself with reference to the particular social and spatial context of each encounter.This tension between discourses of care and risk is also evident when Maggie encounters a homeless man living on the porch of their new home.before we moved in, we had a homeless person living in our front porch.And so being kind of naive and compassionate, we told him […] because at that time it was winter, so if you need a shelter feel free to stay here.The issue was that he kind of started congregating all his friends to our front porch and started using needles […] and it was affecting and impacting our neighbours.So, we didn't like that […] we still have to look after our neighbours (Maggie, 30s) Maggie's desire to belong within the neighbourhood is expressed in alignment with a discourse of Asian migrants as model citizens.At first, Maggie aligns herself with the residents' group and the narrative of care for marginalised others-demonstrating compassion for the homeless man living on her porch through winter.However later, perceiving a negative impact on her neighbours, a mix of older long-term residents and young gentrifiers like herself, Maggie's care for the homeless man was transferred to care for and duty to her new neighbours.This shift reflects conflicting discourses which position the homeless man as a victim of structural forces needing care, and conversely, a drug user who represents a blight on the community.Maggie's desire to meet the expectations of the residents' group and her new neighbours, reflects a politics of belonging (Yuval-Davis 2006) as she attempts to position herself, as both model Asian migrant and new gentrifying resident, and develop a sense of belonging in the neighbourhood.In highlighting the situated and contingent navigation of identity and belonging, this example emphasises how discourses play out across scales to shape spatially contingent intersectional relations.
While Maggie positioned herself as caring for, rather than threatened by, the man living on her porch, she described how her mental map of the neighbourhood constantly evolved in response to encountering other homeless people living on the street.my experiences in the neighbourhood are very fluid, because sometimes I see a homeless person based in a certain corner or pocket, then I kind of want to avoid that pocket for a little bit and use an alternative route (Maggie 30s) Maggie's perception of homeless people on the street as a potential threat references a discourse about 'stranger-danger' which positions them as strange and out of place (Ahmed 2000), despite being a familiar everyday part of the neighbourhood.Expanding on this Maggie described how gender impacted her position in these encounters.
depending if I was walking with my husband, I would take different routes actually […] if I was walking by myself, I normally take the main streets but with my husband we can take the laneways.(Maggie 30s) Despite Maggie's earlier comments about re-evaluating her initial perception of risk in the neighbourhood after speaking with other locals, highlighting how she altered her route Maggie engages a discourse of safety as gendered (Phadke, Ranade, and Khan 2009), and contingent on the presence of her husband.In contrast to the freedom she associated with village life, Maggie feels the need to constantly evaluate her safety in this urban context.
In making sense of her identity and her relational position Maggie more often referenced discourses about others' identities rather than her own.Maggie's experiences as a migrant arriving in and adapting to new sociocultural contexts were significant in her overarching life-story narrative and shaped an underlying desire to belong.This desire manifests in Maggie expressing her identity reflexively.This underscores the power inherent in the dominant discourses which inform Maggie's perception of others and positioning of self.Maggie's stories reveal the expression of her identity to be situated, relational and contingent on sometimes conflicting discourses about groups of people; safety and risk; and roles and responsibilities.

Jacqui
Jacqui's life-story explores how hegemonic discourses impact the ways individuals feel perceived by others which informs how they navigate their relational positioning in encounters across different contexts.As a young trans-person growing up in rural new Zealand Jacqui experienced a small-town culture in which she felt marginalised.Jacqui described witnessing people she knew lure and then violently assault a transwoman.Recognising the threat inherent in this culture and hopeful of finding an accepting community, she immigrated to Australia as a young adult.Prior to transitioning, Jacqui led a double life in which she was married and had three kids.When she eventually resolved to transition, her marriage broke down and she experienced a period of homelessness.During her transition Jacqui experience workplace bullying which eventually led to her leaving her career, an artistic pursuit she was proud of.Jacqui then volunteered hoping it might lead to paid employment but later recognised barriers which made this unlikely.now, as a white transwoman in her seventies, Jacqui says she 'feels like [she's] been a lot of different people' but now would describe herself as nana Jacqui, a post-op transwoman.The passages that follow focus on the way Jacqui feels perceived and her anticipation of others' views and attitudes in encounters, and how depending on the context she acknowledges and/or challenges hegemonic discourses which position her as marginalised.
As a transwoman, the experience of 'being read' is a significant factor in Jacqui's everyday lived experience.Jacqui spoke about doing her hair as a way to express her gendered identity as woman but being simultaneously betrayed by her voice.While she said she didn't care what others thought, the way she was perceived by others was something she considered when inhabiting public spaces.Jacqui described the moment in an encounter when her expression of self-identity met the perception of others.
voice makes transsexuals life difficult […] half the time I'm read, half the time I'm not […] maybe a week ago, I just got on a tram and then somebody got out of the way and I just thanked them for giving me a spot […] and then she just spun around to look at me, because you see everybody just kind of registers everybody in a really superficial way, who's around them.And see if I've got my hair kind of bobbed and then I just might have said 'oh thank you,' […] that's enough for somebody to go that's a man's voice, and they'd already registered that that was a woman just walked on and sat there.(Jacqui, 60s) Jacqui's description of this encounter emphasises the disjunctions between her own identification and the ways she is categorised by others (Anthias 2013).How Jacqui feels perceived reflects hegemonic discourses about cisand trans-gendered identities (nash 2010).This reflective perception references the dominant discourses Jacqui has heard about her social identity.The disjunction causes discomfort because it emphasises the situated hierarchies which position her as out of place.
Jacqui described her sense of (dis)comfort and safety when inhabiting gendered places, such as male dominated public bars or lesbian spaces.
You've got lesbian women […] who think that trans women are not legitimate […] and so I can a little bit nervous around a lesbian setting because I know there's always going to be one or two in there that fucken don't like me because I'm trans (Jacqui, 60s) And men in a public bar in a pub, I probably feel the same way, it's like it's not worth being there (Jacqui, 60s) The perception of Jacqui's gender identity as neither male nor 'legitimately' female left her feeling unsafe among men and unwelcome among lesbian women.The threats Jacqui identified in these spaces reflected her anticipation of what might occur (Valentine 2008;Wilson 2017).Jacqui's past experiences of witnessing trans-people targeted and violently assaulted, reinforced her sense of risk and led to her avoidance of these types of gendered places where she felt she did not belong.In contrast, Jacqui describes the library as a safe and inclusive place.
down at the library every Wednesday morning all the mothers take their kids […] I'd probably feel safest with them because […] a mother has to consider so many possibilities […including that their child might question their gender identity] They've already come to the conclusion that that is acceptable because it's life.(Jacqui, 60s) Jacqui's perception of these mothers references what Valentine & Waite refer to as 'gendered ideologies of motherhood and care/compassion ' (2012, 486).This perception, which stems from a preconceived idea about imagined rather than concrete others -from dominant discourse rather actual encounters -relationally positions Jacqui in a way that allows her to feel safe expressing her trans-identity.Importantly, Jacqui's white body confers a feeling of safety which might not apply for a trans-person of colour in the same situation.In these three spaces hegemonic gendered discourses inform how Jacqui expresses her own identity and navigates her encounters with others.
Describing her encounters at protests, Jacqui foregrounds her shared identification as a caring human over specific aspects of her identity.it's non-identity politics [… the protest's] actually not really that contingent on me and my identity, either […] you started talking about my identity, how I see my identity […] it's not really relevant.And I think that's good.I'm just another human being, just somebody who wants to see a future for the young people (Jacqui 60s) In the micro-public of the protest people shared a common goal (Amin 2002).When Jacqui encountered others in this space her identity was defined through what Yuval-Davis refers to as ethical and political belonging (2006).In this context Jacqui felt free from other's perception of her and as a result she develops a sense of being in place as opposed to out of place -her belonging contingent only on her identity as caring.
In contrast, Jacqui talked about encountering older wealthy conservative people who live in the neighbourhood and how she felt out of place when they conflated her trans-identity with economic struggle.In her description of this encounter Jacqui describes disrupting the hegemonic discourse about trans-people as failures she anticipated.While this produced discomfort and conflict in the encounter, it simultaneously allowed Jacqui space to resist others' categorisation of her and reassert her position as (also) privileged.Critically, Jacqui's capacity to reposition herself in the relational hierarchy is contingent on her raced, gendered and classed positions.While Jacqui's post-transition gendered identity marginalises, race and class continue to confer some privilege.
Jacqui's stories show how she embodies her gendered and classed identities in relation to how she perceives and feels perceived by others.These perceptions draw on her own history, as well as the collective narratives she hears and tells.These perceptions, entangled with preconceived ideas and Jacqui's resistance to these ideas, shape the way she makes sense of her position in relational hierarchies.While Jacqui's overarching life-story encompassed significant points where she felt marginalised and out of place, her story shows how in certain contexts her resistance to hegemonic discourses and her raced and classed position allowed her to reposition her identity.

Discussion
In this paper I have argued that women construct, perform and narrate their identities through encounter where dominant discourses interact with life-story narratives.My findings reveal women reference hegemonic and counter-hegemonic discourses in encounters in three ways: how they perceive themselves; how they perceive others; and how they feel perceived by others.These three modes of perception contribute to how individuals become positioned in hierarchies of power in their everyday lives.Ruth's story showed the impact of hegemonic discourses on the ways individuals perceive and position themselves both within their life-story narrative and in encounters, especially when marginalising discourses are internalised (for example, poverty as an inescapable fact and simultaneously a sign of failure).Maggie's story showed how discourses about the identities of others can inform the situated ways individuals make sense of their own identity, positioning themselves reflexively (for example, as a model Asian migrant and someone to offer care versus a woman and potential victim of violence) depending on the social, cultural and spatial context.Jacqui's story showed how hegemonic discourses can inform the way individuals feel perceived.While discourses can privilege and/or marginalise individuals (for example, Jacqui's need to avoid places where discourses positioned her as out of place and at risk), it is simultaneously possible for discourses to be disrupted and challenged through encounter (for example, disputing others' perception that her trans-identity must be accompanied by economic struggle).In this paper, each woman's story reveals a predominant focus on one mode of perception, however perceiving self, perceiving others, and feeling perceived by others occur in complex synchronous ways.
Situating these stories of encounter within women's personal life-story narratives revealed the dominant discourses women referenced in encounters were those already entangled in their life-story -discourses they referenced to make sense of their relational positionality in past experiences and encounters.However, the ways these women positioned themselves with reference to these discourses was situated in diverse and fluid ways, open to reinterpretation in response to different encounters and contexts.While discourse contours the boundaries women position themselves (and others) in relation to, those boundaries are inhabited and transgressed in situated and contextually specific ways: referencing memories of past experiences, personal and collective histories, and encounters with others.
Encounters have been largely overlooked as a site of intersectional analysis.However, as my findings suggest, discourse and perception operate through encounter to position individuals in hierarchical social structures (e.g.colonial, racist, patriarchal, heteronormative).Writing on identification and belonging, Yuval-Davis argued 'Identities are narratives, stories people tell themselves and others about who they are (and who they are not) ' (2006: 202).Examining the stories people tell -to explain their life and positionality; and of their encounters with others, both within and between social groups -illuminates the reflexive process of perception which draws on discourse to position identities in relational hierarchies.In examining women's stories, this paper illustrates how the transformative potential inherent in encounter is not limited to a specific type of encounter but produced across multiple sites of encounter, with diverse characteristics, spread across spatial and temporal contexts and in reflexive response to discourses which relationally position individuals.This paper contributes to the small but emerging field of intersectional geographies of encounter, offering insight regarding how social structures and categories are operationalised and negotiated at the scales of life-story narrative and encounter.
To date, intersectional scholarship has predominantly interrogated privilege and oppression through studies which analyse the dis/advantage experienced by groups of people who share a specific intersectional positionality (for example, Black women).This paper adopts an alternative approach, engaging deeply with three diversely positioned women's life-stories.This narrative approach achieves two outcomes.First, it illustrates how relational positioning in hierarchies of power occurs at the scale of everyday encounter responding reflexively to social, spatial, historical, and political contexts.Second, through comparative analysis it reveals three different ways that processes of perception, which occur in encounter, impact people.Doing intersectional analysis at the scale of encounter offers researchers the opportunity to interrogate how macro-scale social structures are contoured across scales, through the interplay between encounter, discourse and perception -sometimes in ways which challenge or disrupt macro-scale social structures.
This paper contributes to broader discussions in intersectional scholarship regarding the scales at which privilege and marginalisation are produced, reproduced and disrupted.Following critical intersectional geographers who have demonstrated power dynamics shifting across spatial and temporal scales (McDowell 2008;Mollett and Faria 2018;nayak 2017;Valentine 2007), this paper opens space for future research regarding the complex ways discourse contours everyday encounters to create spatially situated and contingent hierarchies of power.Despite the limited size of this study, it underscores the critical role narrative intersectional geographies of encounter can play in responding to Yuval-Davis (2015) call for situated intersectionality.
Mum and her family, and dad and his family all lived here […] And so, I feel like I have a right to live here because I'm from this place.But […] it would be interesting if I came back to live here through choice […] I came back feeling shame, I'm here because I needed housing, and this is where I've been put.And what if I came back as someone who bought a million-dollar house, you know chose to buy a property here.And that sort of entitlement, I see a lot of entitlement in Abbottsford.(Ruth,60s) they'll sense something in me is bad.Because of the stigma of [gambling…] what's wrong with your character, your moral fibre […] I can't make friends because I'd have to tell them what I've done […to have] an honest friendship (Ruth 60s).
They would think I was from the Housing Commission flats because I'm transsexual, obvious loser living in the flats.Yeah, because they'd say, what do your kids say about it?[…] Or they'd say well, you've had a hard, you know.It's like fuck off, what are you talking about?[…] just presuming that I'm a particular way, my life has gone a particular way because I'm transexual.That's not very fair.It's like no, I've had jobs, I probably earned more than you in my life (Jacqui 60s)