Engendering Public Space

Engendering Urban Public Space

The Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research (PUKAR) Gender and Space project has been researching the relationship between women and public space for the last two and a half years. We are currently at the writing stage of our research and would like to share our observations and analysis as well as receive inputs from the experiences of others who have been working on similar lines. To that end, we invite researchers, activists, advocates, journalists, architects, pedagogues and others working in the area of gender in relation to urban public space to a roundtable discussion of questions of engendering safety, infrastructure and citizenship.

We refer to public space as a part of the public sphere. Public spaces for the purposes of this roundtable refers to streets, market places (across class contexts - that is including bazaars and malls); recreational spaces such as parks, theatres, restaurants, coffee shops; infrastructure such as subways, foot-over-bridges and public toilets; and modes of public transport including railway stations and bus stops.

What we are looking for are presentations of research papers / studies / explorations that have engaged with questions of gender in relation to space, particularly urban public space. Each presentation is intended to be not longer than 15 minutes to leave more time for discussion. Presenters will receive an honorarium but the costs of travel and boarding will have to be covered by participants themselves.

Please mail queries and abstracts of presentations to genderspace@pukar.org.in by March 10th, 2006.

Date: 12 April 2006
Location: Mumbai, India

Potential areas of focus could include:
a.. Shrinking Public Spaces
b.. Safety
c.. Questions of Morality and Culture-policing
d.. Sexuality and the City
e.. Woman-friendly design
f.. Legal concerns
g.. Policy related matters
h.. Infrastructure

For more information on the PUKAR Gender and Space project please see:
www.pukar.org.in

PUKAR (Partners for Urban Knowledge Action and Research)