Sanchali Sarkar, Passau Univ. and Jessica A. Albrecht, Univ. of Heidelberg

Proposals by: 15.09.2023

The editors are proposing a collected edition on the topic of gender, the urban space (especially its cis-heteronormativity) and the environment. They want to study this space from local and global perspectives to examine shared histories and presents, and reflect on intersections and differences to challenge and expand the existing conceptualizations of the gendered urban space.
In their 2023 article, “Women and Cities: The Conquest of Urban Space”, Letizia Carrera and Marina Castellaneta write how women’s presence in the urban public space is a revolutionary act in itself as it “disrupts the domestic condition in which they have been confined” as the “typical user of urban space has, since the advent of modernism, been the young, professional, […] male” (Gardner, Begault; 2019); a unidimensional perspective that Dolores Hayden elaborates on in one of her seminal essays, “What Would a Non-Sexist City Be Like?” (1980) on the topic of urban planning in the United States of America. Spatial structure and social structure are contingent upon each other and together help us “understand how gender relations play constitutive roles in the production and reproduction of social relations as well as of social space” (Samanta, Sil; 2020). Built space and environment affect gender, and this particular relation has been studied by researchers in fields of anthropology, geography, mobility, architecture. Broadly speaking, women’s access to different parts of the city, especially public spaces, is more limited compared to men’s access to the areas making the “discourse of safety not an inclusive one and tends to divide people into ‘us’ and ‘them’” (Phadke, 2013). However, safety is only one aspect and other factors to consider to build a gender-inclusive city are “improving mobility, hygiene, access, climate resilience and security of tenure” (Lee, 2023). Even though there is a body of literature concerning women and the urban space, it is still important to study the influence of the physical environment as a significant factor in women’s access to urban public spaces, alongside exploring one of the other important identity markers — sexuality. While researches have been carried out on the LGBTQ+ community’s access to the public spaces in the US (Doan, 207; Sanschagrin, 2011), UK (Doderer, 2011; Spruce 2020; Smith 2023) Canada and Australia (Nash, Maguire, Gorman-Murray; 2018); not much has been written specifically focusing on the urban public space in the Global South and how accessible it is to the queer community. Since the legal status of the homosexual, the transsexual varies widely from country to country (be it the Global North or the Global South), what is imperative at this point is to study whether or not heteronormative urban public spaces resist dismantling the dominant gender arrangements and address the unbalanced and inequitable urbanization. A sustainably built environment can only be created successfully when everyday needs of diverse users are taken into account.
Therefore, this volume aims to bring together essays concerning this triadic relation among (the fluid definition of) gender, urban space (a cis-heteronormative space) and environment focusing on different parts from the Global South as well as the Global North (also, migrations and movements between the two) to investigate how the urban public spaces “are places where embodied meanings and experiences of gender are not necessarily reproduced according to dominant norms, but can be challenged, reworked and reshaped” (Bondi, 2006).

For this volume the editors are inviting papers concerning the topics and questions raised above. Please send your abstract (300 words) and a short bio (max. 150 words) until 15 September 2023. Final papers will approximately be due in January 2024.

Editors:
Sanchali Sarkar, Passau University: sanchali.27@gmail.com (Web)
Jessica A. Albrecht, University of Heidelberg: Jessica.Albrecht@ts.uni-heidelberg.de (Web)

Source: H-Net Notifications