On 7 March 2024, Geanina Zagal Ehrenfeld presented at the UAB the doctoral thesis “Feminist geographies of public space: urban safety and gentrification in the municipalities of San Miguel and Pedro Aguirre Cerda, Chile”, from the PhD Programme in Geography, and directed by Maria Prats (UAB).
This research analyses the socio-spatial practices of women in public space in the communes of San Miguel and Pedro Aguirre Cerda, in the Metropolitan Region, Chile. It identifies the relationship between neoliberal urban planning and experiences of gender violence. The analysis of the results is organised by looking at the emotional dimension of well-being, where the spatial knowledge through which women negotiate their spatial practices of safety and prevention of gender-based violence in public space is analysed. It considers women’s experience of loneliness in the city and the relational practices of social reproduction work. It analyses the production of place by the real estate market, through the processes of creative destruction of multifamily single-rent real estate assets, showing how real estate capitalism sophisticates and produces dynamics of bodily and sensory control that gentrify neighbourhoods and deepen women’s experience of insecurity and inequality in public space. Finally, feminist spatial practices of territorial organisation and activism are documented.
