Rethinking urban safety. Gender, care and public spaces in Córdoba, Argentina.
Anna BEDNARCZYK, Graduate School for Social Research, Poland
Under the lockdown in Argentina, there was a 30% increase in reporting gender-based violence (GBV) and 256 femicides were registered in 2021. At the same time, in the sanitary regime, the movement for women’s reproductive rights organized massive protests across the country successfully pushing for changes in the national abortion law. All of this social dynamic takes place in cities as Argentina is one of the most urbanized countries in South America, with 91% of its population living in urban areas. In my research, I explore the intersection of gender, urban spaces, and urban safety from the perspective of care. In my presentation I will explore the questions:
- how do practices of voluntary and reciprocal care shape strategies of resisting GBV in urban spaces?
- how girls and women active in the women’s rights movements in Argentina has been redefining the concepts of care and safety?
The gendered concept of “care” is often used in relation to the unpaid work of women, based on the division of labor. Care has been affected by the neoliberal system and assigned to the private sphere (Lawson 2007). However, in the proposed presentation I will be exploring how practices of voluntary and reciprocal care shape strategies of resisting GBV in urban spaces. Following Linda Peake’s call for a new feminist urban theory that takes into consideration women’s everyday struggles and challenges the binaries (2015), I aim at analyzing the concepts of ‘care’ and ‘urban safety’ as an intersection of daily practice and political strategies.
The presentation is based on the data from an ongoing research project in Argentina. During two visits (six months in total) I participated in the 33rd National Meeting of Women in Trelew and I conducted in-depth interviews and observations of local feminist initiatives in Córdoba.
Mots clés : voluntary care |Argentina |gender-based violence|cities
A104561AB