Past, present, and future of feminist geography: a bibliometric analysis

This article presents a bibliometric analysis to offer a comprehensive knowledge map and identify future research avenues in feminist geography, thereby addressing the limitations of conventional reviews in handling large datasets. Utilising VOSviewer as a quantitative tool supplemented by qualitative interpretation, this study examines past, present, and future trends in feminist geography using 1158 documents extracted from the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection database to map the evolving landscape. Three science mapping strategies are employed here: co-citation analysis uncovers past intellectual structure; bibliographic coupling examines current developments; and co-occurrence analysis predicts future research. This study yields the following findings: (1) there has been a growing trend in research on feminist geography since the 1980s, but geographical distribution is somewhat unbalanced; (2) The five foundational thematic links are emphases on differences and intersectionality, politics of knowledge, the link between personal and political, bodies and embodiment, and the interplay between space and identity; (3) The five current themes are feminist geographies of emotion and affect, methodological/theoretical/epistemological discussions, the intersection between feminist geography and environmental studies, geographies of differences, as well as queer geographies and geographies of sexuality; (4) The four developing trends are methodological innovations, expanded geographical scope, embodied geopolitics and critiques of violence and conflict, and intersectionality and transnational geographies of mobility and belonging. This study proffers a comprehensive profile of feminist geography, enabling a more systematic understanding of its theoretical, methodological and empirical engagements, and thereby solidifying its position as a multidisciplinary and evolving field.