Feminist struggle over urban safety and the politics of space

Abstract

This article explores safety and politics of space in two ways. First, it reviews research on women’s fear and calls for safer cities, identifying four contradictions in the geography of fear discourse. Second, it elaborates on how including various forms of fear may repoliticize the contemporary depoliticized and co-opted safety discussion by focusing on sexist and racist threats rather than exclusively on the white middle classes. Here, threats to veiled Muslim women and their experiences in public spaces are, in particular, emphasized as exemplifying fears that are neglected in the safety debate. The article concludes that, rather than the whole safety issue being dismissed as ‘neoliberal’, there is an urgent need to strengthen the analysis of power and illuminate experiences of pain and fear in sexist and racist violence.

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