The design, architecture and uses of cities have been historically created by and for men, within a patriarchal, colonialist and capitalist matrix. An approach to urban regeneration through the lens of gender opens up opportunities to promote respect for diversity, the acceptance of complexity and improved conditions of participation. Furthermore, an eco-feminist perspective in relation both to climate change and to environmental justice is essential to the rethinking of approaches to urban projects in relation to current city models – models which contribute greatly to environmental degradation, high levels of pollution and the waste of resources. Simultaneously, the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic cause us to reflect on new urban paradigms from a critical feminist perspective that prioritizes responses to the environmental crisis and the care crisis.
The intention of feminist co-creation is to include different experiences and knowledge of women’s needs, ambitions and activism in the urban regeneration planning process and in the co-creation cycle of nature- based solutions (diagnostic, design, implementation and monitoring). It consists in applying the lens of women*'s (defined as all persons identifying as such) specificities as they intersect with other specificities such as age, gender, ethno-racialism, socioeconomic status, and functional diversity, amongst others. By focusing on the causes of discrimination and exclusion relating to a diverse group of women, feminist co-creation tackles issues of access to and the implementation of rights, with the aim of combating racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, ableism, ageism, adult-centrism and climate change, among others. Women offer specialized insights on the reconciliation of urban uses, and the needs and ambitions for production, reproduction and care work.
Valuable insights, interventions and policies are being put into practice by women. Women’s historical footprint, eco-feminist design and the inclusion of gendered considerations in public budgets have been promoted by feminist and activist groups, as well as by women’s grassroots movements. These are important and empowering alliances to forge in urban regeneration processes. Co-creation with and by women of all ages, including girls and older women, enables the contexts for urban regeneration processes to: 1) embrace specific and intersectional needs and ambitions; 2) consider the impact of urban design on women’s lives, including perceptions of security and insecurity, equal access, use and care of facilities and public spaces; 3) generate equal opportunities for socialization, for developing social and solidarity initiatives and for resource redistribution in public budgeting.
This session is dedicated to debating the challenges and opportunities for the co-creation of NBS through the lens of gender in the context of inclusive urban regeneration. Proposals, which may come from different geographical, governance and participatory realities and cultures, are expected to identify case studies, experiences and guiding principles that contribute to the framing and consolidation of a gendered perspective, working to achieve an inclusive urban environment and public space for all. This may include contexts where active co-design and co-implementation by women was made possible and demonstrated its value, or where frictions due to the exclusion of women arose and what these made visible.
Access to habitat as a human right, the growing awareness of integrating gender issues into the design and re-design of cities and the multiplication of actions aimed at making visible the contributions of women in the built environment, constitute a social, cultural and political context that both erodes traditional forms and calls for new pedagogies with a gender perspective when training students in the field of architecture, urbanism and landscape.
Architecture is not a neutral discipline and historically it has been thought, legitimised and teach from an androcentric, binary - female/male, private/public - and racist vision that has suppressed the voice of women and minority and/or minoritised groups in spatial design: LGTBQI+, children, elderly, disabled, migrants, aboriginal communities. In this context, architecture schools find the opportunity to integrate a feminist, gendered and intersectional perspective into their didactic strategies as a theoretical and methodological underpinning. This allows students to actively engage the diverse realities, identities and needs of the community as a fundamental part of the design process in order to think about caring and democratic cities.
In this context, the platform LINA -Laboratory Intervention + Architecture- opened the Feminist Architecture Design Studio in 2020. It is hosted by the GADU Programme -Gender, Architecture, Design, Urbanism- of the Institute of Human Spatiality at the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism of the University of Buenos Aires. LINA is an inter-university virtual course that involved 275 students from 15 architecture schools in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay and Peru during 2020 and 2021.
LINA's main objective is to stimulate future professionals who base their spatial practices with a true sense of inclusion, equity, diversity and innovation. It´s organized into three thematic laboratories: Registers + Women Architects dedicated to making visible the work of women in urban planning and architecture, (De)Constructed Architecture(s) in housing and gender and (Inter)Sectional Landscapes focused on public space.
The (Inter)Sectional Landscapes Laboratory proposes to reflect and research from a feminist approach the rehabilitation of collective landscapes. Each group of students selected a public space as a case study: squares, boulevards, parks, urban voids in marginal areas, block centers, mass housing estates and their own university campuses.
First, the students re-mapped from a gender perspective the physical conditions - density, morphology, transport, care infrastructure- that produced imbalances in full use by the whole community. As the context of the pandemic prevented personal interviews with residents, information available on the internet - crime maps, statistics, reports - was used, and surveys were conducted through social media to gather people's opinions. In most cases, profound conditions of symbolic and spatial discrimination were detected, even in recognized and preserved heritage sites.
On this basis, concepts and operations were explored for re-use. One of the most important aspects of the proposals was to recover the political role of architecture. In this sense, some interventions included cultural itineraries to tell the story of the transsexual community, spaces for LGTBQI+ marches or social assistance facilities for gender violence. It should be noted that in Latin America a woman dies every two hours as a victim of feminicide.
Democratization and equitable access to public space were other topics of project research. Although each case study had particular challenges, common themes emerged when defining rehabilitation strategies: safety (lighting, signage), accessibility, the creation of areas for all ages and genders, places for play that promote children's autonomy, among others. In addition to spaces for leisure, recreation and sport, the projects also combined productive landscapes such as urban allotments and community gardens. Especially in low-income areas, these places strengthen the social network and the popular economy.
The importance of gender dimensions in the development process and its key relation to environmental justice and public health is increasingly focused upon interdisciplinary research (Bell, 2016). It is also acknowledged in the Sustainable Development Goals (UN, 2016) and explicitly addressed in the New Urban Agenda (UN-HABITAT, 2017). The gender aspects of urban development were addressed by the URBINAT project (Nunes et al, 2019) and traced within the inclusive urban regeneration initiated at the north-western periphery of Sofia, which mobilized local institutions, academic researchers, and community actors to undertake public debate, policy-making procedures and co-planning and co-design activities for implementing nature-based solutions (NBS) in the existing public space of the housing estates of Nadezhda District. The urban analysis of the local process in Sofia also included inhabitants’ use and perceptions of urban space, problems perceived, existing motivation and readiness for practical action, etc. The project resulted up to present in building communication channels among diverse actors, discussing inhabitants’ needs and values, and co-designing a set of interventions, forming a Healthy corridor in the public space.
The paper presents an overview of the multi-faceted women’s participation in the URBiNAT process in the diverse roles of researchers, administrators, inhabitants, policymakers, local planning experts, community activists, workers in the fields of education and culture, business actors, and homeowners’ representatives. While building on a gender-sensitive perspective, the analysis relates publicly available data to the URBiNAT study results in Sofia obtained through desktop reviews, direct observations (incl. behavioral mapping), and self-reported data (survey, interviews). Additional interactively generated information was also compiled during task force meetings and communication, exhibitions, URBiNAT events, a walk-through, focus groups, cultural mapping, workshops, advisory board composition, and sessions. The paper discusses estimated women’s capacity for leadership and their contribution to the selection of nature-based solutions (NBSs) to integrate into Sofia Healthy Corridor. General tendencies and peculiarities of the actors involved, their activities in public space, their perception of public life, and their contributions to organizing public space are identified.
The authors outline general challenges to overcoming the traditional power-dominated planning approaches and the existing local capacity for doing it. Specific strengths and opportunities stemming from the national and local socio-cultural context are conceptualized. Conclusions are drawn about the importance for achieving complementarity of gender roles in the process. Recommendations are made on the further conceptual development and the practical implementation of gender- and context-sensitive studies and the effective practical implementation of relevant co-planning and co-design methods in public space.
References:
UN (2015) Sustainable development goals, https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals
United Nations (2017) The New Urban Agenda. Available at https://www.habitat3.org/the-new-urban-agenda
Bell, K., 2016, Bread and Roses: A Gender Perspective on Environmental Justice and Public Health. In International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. October, 13(10): 1005, doi: 10.3390/ijerph13101005
Nunes, Nathalie; Caitana, Beatriz; Silva Carvalho, Sandra; Esteves, Denise; Canto Moniz, Gonçalo; Pessina, Gloria (2019), URBiNAT - Deliverable 1.5 - Compilation and analysis of human rights and gender issues (Year 1), Centre for Social Studies, Coimbra, Portugal.
In Portugal and around the world, the right to housing has been key to face COVID-19 pandemic. Women still handle most household chores, historically and socially assigned to them. They have better knowledge about housing issues and family demands.
In Portuguese families, women are the main caregivers, spending most of their time at home and suffering from frequent house precariousness. Still dependent on others for refurbishment works and improvements.
In times of crisis, unemployment firstly affects women, who already earn lower wages than men and are more exposed to the informal economy and poverty. Simultaneously, Portugal faces a workforce shortage in the construction industry with delays being noticed on site. Hence, empowering socially vulnerable and unemployed women to succeed in this field is a way to leverage their economic, professional and personal autonomy.
The Portuguese association Mulheres na Arquitectura, within the public program Bairros Saudáveis, designed a pilot project to train women of Aveiro in different jobs of the construction industry. Mulheres em Construção! (Women in Construction!) asserts theory and practice with direct participation and cooperation between several partners.
With progressive growth since the moment of application, the partnership network gathers public, private, cooperative, associative and social solidarity organizations. Local partners ensure a situated work focused in Santiago neighborhood; national scope institutions provide the resources and knowledge of systemic public policies; private partners provide trainees the confrontation with construction sites and possible routes of employability; academic and scientific organizations guarantee an exceptional complement for the training plan and direct dialogue between social and cultural spheres that still hesitate to work together.
The female trainees group is diverse and eager to learn technical (plumbing, electricity, masonry, painting) and civic (gender equality, digital literacy, health and safety) skills.
Personal empowerment, training for employment and reinforcement of community networks supported by the principle of mutual care, are the main project goals, showing that jobs do not have gender.
The certified training plan is complemented with workshops, given by partner organizations, providing administrative tools, conservation technical skills, knowledge about building materials and the industry’s sustainability issues and practices.
A refurbishment work at a local association store creates an opportunity for trainees to acquire skills and experience that only working in a construction site can provide. As a way of promoting a circular economy, the store will finally serve as a community toolbank, making donated construction goods gathered along the project available to residents. The bank’s management by a local partner will allow longer viability and good management of donations and loans to residents.
The final step of the project will be an evaluation of results and impact. Mulheres em Construção! is a demanding project that attempts to make scientific and public policy analysis and reflection operative and transformative for a specific urban context. In Jane Jacobs’ line, MA’s role, as an organization that reflects and intervenes at the crossroads between gender equality, space and territory, is to create seeds of its own regeneration in Santiago neighborhood and within each woman it works for.
In South Korea, the state has played a minimal role in social provisioning, and as such care provisions have been dependent on women’s unpaid labour. Women’s unpaid labour, especially in terms of voluntary activities, have played an important role in the sustenance of the community. However, women’s voluntary work is often devalued as a free and readily available resource in public policy. Over the last few decades, a series of innovative policies on building community and promoting social economy were implemented in South Korea to address problems of low economic growth, an aging population and polarisation of the society owing to neoliberal restructuring. While Korean women played pivotal roles in these innovative community building projects, the socio-political connotations of their voluntary work, including appropriate public recognition and rewards, have rarely been discussed. This paper examines Korean women’s role in the government-funded neighborhood community building project (maeulmandeulgi) in South Korea.
From the mid 2000s, a series of policies including voluntary activities, social and solidarity economy emphasized "citizen's participation". However, the nature and the meaning of the "participation" differs. Voluntary activities are often described as "citizen's duty" by the government. "Dutiful citizenship" describes the government’s approach towards voluntary activities to meet its policy needs. But actualising citizenship describes the citizen’s actions driven by their own needs in everyday life. The social function of voluntary activities is not different, but they are different to each other in terms who controls one’s life. In this regard, the policy on voluntary activities have more to do with dutiful citizenship, while actualising citizenship can be better understood with the help of Social and Solidarity Economy and community building which emphasises citizen’s participation.
Community building projects can be seen as an opportunity to recognize and reward women’s role in community-building and maintenance and institutionalizing care responsibilities as social jobs. However, this paper shows that the current way of executing the projects may result in appropriating community activists into cheap labour in the highly informal labour market. Although the funding for the community projects seems like a great idea to enhance citizen’s participation, it may result in creating a highly informal labour market for the execution of government projects, whether they are individuals, or those who belong to small groups, NGOs, cooperatives or social enterprises. With women still constituting a majority in these spaces, this entrenches devaluation of women’s labour and women’s marginalized position in the labour market. Moreover, the activists’ autonomous and voluntary actions are increasingly subordinated under administrative processes and policy needs, not only exploiting the voluntary labour of the citizen but also bureaucratising the social spaces of actualising citizenship. In the end, materialising institutional social recognition – such as recognition of activist’s work as social jobs – cannot be separated from the policy design and action plan. The guiding question would be how the administrative process can be designed to reflect the ideas that voluntary activities are counted as citizen’s participation. More specifically, financial transactions including allocating budgets need to be embedded in the socio-political context of citizen’s participation.