« Estudios sobre la noche/Night Studies/Etudes sur la nuit » (18/02/2021)

CISAN-UNAM (México), Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Montreal, McGill (Canada), Institut de Géoarchitecture & IDA-Brest (Francia). Coordination: Edna Hernández González, Alejandro Mercado Celis, Will Straw, Jess Reia, Yolanda Macías, Michaël Spanu.

Program

Emily Nicholls (University of Portsmouth), «“I don’t like to feel out of control”: Young women’s negotiations of risk, safekeeping and femininity in the Night Time Economy.»

Abstract: Drawing on research on the ‘girls’ night out’ in a post-industrial urban context in Newcastle, UK, this paper will explore the ways in which young women negotiate dimensions of gender and risk in the contemporary Night Time Economy (NTE). The NTE offers specific ways of engaging with city centre spaces at night that might be simultaneously experienced as both exciting and dangerous. The depiction of the NTE as a site for the carefree pursuit of pleasure and hedonism demands further examination through a gendered lens, as women continue to experience city centres after dark as spaces of potential risk and danger. After considering the ways in which gendered understandings of ‘appropriate’ feminine behaviour are often bound up with safekeeping and risk avoidance for women, this paper will draw directly on data from young women themselves highlighting examples of the tensions and contradictions apparent in their participation in late night leisure opportunities. The desire for the escapism and abandonment that the NTE can offer – particularly through alcohol consumption – must always be tempered by the need to keep the self ‘safe’ as a gendered condition of performative femininity. Such tensions have real consequences in terms of the ways in which women negotiate risk, safety and pleasure in bars, clubs and pubs. 

Sara Ortiz Escalante (Col·lectiu Punt 6), «Nocturnas: Women nightshift workers planning the everyday/everynight city»

Abstract: Cities are increasingly implementing nightlife economic revitalization through leisure activities. These night policies are often exclusionary and ignore people, especially women, who use the city after dark due to productive and care work. Women restrict their movement in cities at night because of fear of sexual violence. Although women’s fear has strong social components, the way cities are planned also impact women’s safety. I conducted participatory research with women night workers to analyze the barriers they face in their neighborhood-city-workplace. Women suffer discrimination and sexual harassment at home, in the public space and workplace due to gender, class and migration status. Fear of violence, the design of public spaces, and deficiencies in public transportation limit women’s night mobility. Women also highlight health and family consequences. I propose to shift from a night-life planning focused on leisure to a participatory planning approach that responds to everyday/everynight needs and values women’s experiences.

Access via Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/99290218509?pwd=NmdPT2JPSU9yYlpCNEZCdWZKS0hpZz09

ID : 992 9021 8509
Password : k07R2U

Horario/Time:
9AM (CDMX); 10AM (Montreal); 4PM (Francia)

Informes/Information: spanu.michael@gmail.com

Link to our blog: https://noche.hypotheses.org/323

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