Though she was a life-long Liverpool FC fan, Doreen Massey felt like a “space invader” whenever she attended matches, as she’d often be one of the few women on football terraces. Inspired by Massey’s usage of the term, sociologist Nirmal Puwar developed it into a sociological concept to understand “what happens when women and racialized minorities take up ‘privileged’ positions which have not been ‘reserved’ for them”. What kind of bodies are the somatic norm? What are the conditions of inclusion? Spatial Delight host Agata Lisiak speaks with Nirmal Puwar about her book Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies Out of Place (2004), and about the postcolonial acts of space invading that Nirmal and her collaborators staged in Coventry’s iconic cathedral.We’d love to hear your stories too. Are you a space invader? Please share your experiences with us hereEpisode Credits Host: Agata LisiakGuest: Nirmal PuwarAlso Featured: Doreen MasseyWriter and Producer: Agata LisiakSenior Editor: Susan Stone Sound Producer: Reece CoxProduction Assistant: Adèle MartinMusic: Studio RArtwork: Bose SarmientoSpecial Thanks to: Nitin Sawhney, Kuldip PowarIn partnership with: The Sociological Review FoundationFunded by: Volkswagen FoundationFind more about Spatial Delight at The Sociological Review. Episode ResourcesDoreen Massey’s work quoted or mentioned in this episode:Space, Place and Gender (Polity Press, 1994)When Theory Meets Politics, Antipode, 40.3 (2008)Nirmal Puwar’s selected works:Space Invaders: Race, Gender and Bodies Out of Place (Bloomsbury, 2004)The Noise of the PastUnraveling, a film directed by Kuldip Powar, music by Nitin Sawhney, produced by Nirmal Puwar and Sanjay Sharma, 2008Meetings: John Berger in the Library, an essay from A Jar of Wild Flowers, 2016 Walking Through Litter in Life Writing ProjectsIndomitable Mint in The Garden Zine Compiling Maxwell Street by Tim Cresswell, Sociological Review Magazine, 2019 In Memoriam: Tree Felling at The Plaza and In Transition: Comrades for the City – films by Adele Mary Reed in collaboration with Nirmal Puwar and Paul ChokranPuwar, N. and Sharma, S. 2011. Introduction: War Cries, The Senses and Society, 6:3, 261-266.

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