Shannon Philip
(University of Cambridge)
Garima Jaju
(University of Cambridge)
Manali Desai
(University of Cambridge)
Chair:
Kammila Naidoo
(University of Johannesburg)
Discussant:
Kammila Naidoo
(University of Johannesburg)
Format:
Panel
Streams:
Gender & generation
Technology & innovation
Sessions:
Thursday 7 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Gendered Violence and Urban Transformations in the Global South II.
Panel P16b at conference DSA2022: Just sustainable futures in an urbanising and mobile world.
In this panel, we invite ethnographically or qualitatively informed papers that look at women’s everyday negotiations of interpersonal violence, in the larger context of the changing urban landscapes of the Global South.
Long Abstract:
Gender based violence – its actual occurrence, its looming possibility or its structuring force – acts upon already existing gendered social worlds and women’s positioning within them. It is important to move away from focusing on singular ‘acts’ of violence, and instead look at the whole of gendered social worlds that women occupy in which violence is managed within negotiated social relations, aspirations and social performances. It is these social worlds that create the conditions for violence, that absorb the shock of violence and get reinterpreted and renegotiated in the wake of violence. Focusing on social worlds, we look at conjugal relations, kin relations, friendships as well as the relational creation of personhood. These relations are significantly shaped by the urban context, which provides a distinctly urban moral, ethical as well as cultural and socio-economic framework within which they operate. Questioning the roles of gender and its inequalities and violences marks important possibilities for sustainable and just futures for urban contexts around the world.
In this panel, we invite ethnographically or qualitatively informed papers that look at women’s everyday negotiations of interpersonal violence, in the larger context of the changing urban landscapes of the Global South. We are keen to explore the relationships between masculinities and femininities and their many changing cultures and embodiments in various social contexts. We are particularly keen to engage with scholars working on urban contexts in South Asia and Southern Africa that speak to the themes of the panel. This panel will also bring together insights from The GendV Project led by Prof Manali Desai at the University of Cambridge which looks at gendered violence and urban transformations in India and South Africa.
Methodology - This is a paper based panel. Papers can be supported with PowerPoint presentations that use photo, audio or video material. All panellists will work with the panel conveners to think creatively about engaging audience participation for an inclusive and interactive session.
This paper reflects on the socio-spatial experience of being a middle-class woman from three vantage points, namely 1. City Roads and Middle-Class Woman; 2. Middle Class Neighbourhood and Middle Class Woman; and 3. Domestic Space and Middle Class Woman.
Paper long abstract:
Gurugram , National Capital Territory of Delhi, India has seen rapid changes to the city-space during 1990-2010. The almost "steroidal" urbanisation of the region is conspicuous for its roots in politically endorsed exemptions and mobilisation of legal and extra-legal strategies (Donthi, 2014; Gururani, 2013). The urbanisation process of Gurugram represents the characteristic post-liberalisation urbanisation that is not leading to expansion of existing major cities but urbanisation at peri-urban fringes (Ghertner, 2013; Gururani, 2013; Searle, 2016; Subramaniam, 2011) through relaxation of FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) restrictions for the real estate and construction sectors (Ghertner, 2014).
The outcome of this peri-urban urbanisation through integration into global circuits of capital results in the neo-urban context. The neo urban is marked by islands of globality alongside peri-urban rural socio-spatial dynamics. Neo-urban spaces therefore are increasingly becoming the common phenomena and therefore critical to the understanding of urbanisation in Indian context. This paper reflects on the socio-spatial experience of being a middle-class woman from three vantage points, namely 1. City Roads and Middle-Class Woman; 2. Middle Class Neighbourhood and Middle Class Woman; and 3. Domestic Space and Middle Class Woman.
The paper builds upon field diaries, anecdotes from the field, and interactions with respondents to develop insights about gender in the neo-urban context. It uses incidents as a way of reflecting on implicit norms and unspoken assumptions about being a middle class woman in Gurugram within the broader framework of spatialising gender and feminist geography.
Keywords: Gender-based violence, Sandton, Alexandra Township, Intersectionality.
Paper long abstract:
Gender-based violence continues to escalate in South African communities despite various interventions and consciousness-raising efforts. Women, children, queer societal members are often at the receiving end of the violence that is more often than not perpetrated by heterosexual men, denoting the discriminative heteronormative culture that persists in spite of the progressive constitution and its assurance of gender equality. While it is true that gender-based violence has been a burning issue in South Africa, it is important to recognise that the current COVID-19 pandemic and the consequent lockdowns have unearthed the need to examine the context in which gender-based violence is normalised in intimate unions and in communities. Subsequently, there is a need to understand how gender-based violence travels in ways that frame spaces as safe and/or unsafe - shaping the background in which vulnerability is experienced in contextual ways. It is this objective that this paper seeks to address by unpacking lived experiences of gender-based violence among women in two socio-economically contrasting albeit closely located South African spaces. Through ethnographic voices, this paper indicates that gender-based violence is deeply entrenched in intersectional and patriarchal localities. It is reproduced through economic agencies that are shaped by internalised views of safe and unsafe spaces. Safe in this context refers to perceptions of spaces as prone to violent encounters - a perception that is commonly associated with township spaces as opposed to suburbs that tend to be viewed as 'safe'.
'Epidemic' and 'crime' are ways to create, categorise and relate spaces, places and people - in this instance to 'the urban' and 'becoming urban.' The paper traces how these historical processes have united in place-based projects of governance seeking to conjoin rape and AIDS.
In this paper I will be looking at the female experience of safety in a university campus. The paper focuses on a South African university with its context being the greater environment's much discussed gender-based violence.
Paper long abstract:
Habitual walking to experience places is an understudied area of phenomenological experience. Furthermore, habitual walking as one of the ways to experience the tertiary education landscape's numerous built up and decorated environments is close to non-existent. However, events such as the 2015 #MustFall moment in South Africa have highlighted the need to study the experience of places through habitual walking as such moments bring forth what may be thought of as the phenomenological experience of walking the university as a place. This is a study of how female students at a South African university phenomenologically experience safety realities and concerns as part of their experience of the university campus.
This study draws from the in-depth mobile interviewing of 10 female students from Rhodes University. The study finds that females at the university experience safety in a highly targeted manner that brings to the fore the subjective realities of the area of emplacement in a manner that is both present and reflexive as individuals are also always present, engaging and engaged by the environment within which they are habitually walking. Safety concerns and realities are catered to each individual and the individual must use resources (physical and psychological) in their negotiation of
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Garima Jaju (University of Cambridge)
Manali Desai (University of Cambridge)
Short Abstract:
In this panel, we invite ethnographically or qualitatively informed papers that look at women’s everyday negotiations of interpersonal violence, in the larger context of the changing urban landscapes of the Global South.
Long Abstract:
Gender based violence – its actual occurrence, its looming possibility or its structuring force – acts upon already existing gendered social worlds and women’s positioning within them. It is important to move away from focusing on singular ‘acts’ of violence, and instead look at the whole of gendered social worlds that women occupy in which violence is managed within negotiated social relations, aspirations and social performances. It is these social worlds that create the conditions for violence, that absorb the shock of violence and get reinterpreted and renegotiated in the wake of violence. Focusing on social worlds, we look at conjugal relations, kin relations, friendships as well as the relational creation of personhood. These relations are significantly shaped by the urban context, which provides a distinctly urban moral, ethical as well as cultural and socio-economic framework within which they operate. Questioning the roles of gender and its inequalities and violences marks important possibilities for sustainable and just futures for urban contexts around the world.
In this panel, we invite ethnographically or qualitatively informed papers that look at women’s everyday negotiations of interpersonal violence, in the larger context of the changing urban landscapes of the Global South. We are keen to explore the relationships between masculinities and femininities and their many changing cultures and embodiments in various social contexts. We are particularly keen to engage with scholars working on urban contexts in South Asia and Southern Africa that speak to the themes of the panel. This panel will also bring together insights from The GendV Project led by Prof Manali Desai at the University of Cambridge which looks at gendered violence and urban transformations in India and South Africa.
Methodology - This is a paper based panel. Papers can be supported with PowerPoint presentations that use photo, audio or video material. All panellists will work with the panel conveners to think creatively about engaging audience participation for an inclusive and interactive session.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 7 July, 2022, -