At the junction of feminism and ecology, towards more inclusive urban public space
A la jonction du féminisme et de l'écologie, vers des espaces publics urbains partagés
Résumé
As more cities and local governments resort to gender sensitive approaches to urban planning, it is insightful to address gender and the environment as crosscutting issues (Levy, 1992). Indeed, the greening of cities is a widespread response to climate change, as mitigation and adaptation to its microclimatic effects in cities. This creates opportunities to reassess the gender inclusiveness of urban space, as projects of greening school yards show (Maruéjouls, 2014). Yet if the conversation on gender inclusive public space is not well rooted in the local government, policies to protect the biodiversity might impede the appropriation of the city by women and LGBTI people. Our paper is based on the empirical work conducted as part of a PhD thesis on that matter, in three French cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants. We question how gendermainstreaming translates into tools and solutions for urban green spaces, as well as re-vegetated public places. The paper will show how civil servants working on the conception and maintenance of such green spaces understand and familiarize themselves with the gender sensitive perspectives and the challenges they face doing so. We will describe what hinders the production of more gender inclusive public green spaces. We will also discuss how civil servants and elected officials regard at the right to the city for women and LGBTI people as a security issue, and its implications on the framing of the public problem and the solutions to it.
Domaines
SociologieOrigine | Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s) |
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