Call for Papers: Right to the City, Public Space, Feminist Urbanism Vol. 4 No. 1 (2023): February

“The right to the city” is a concept first proposed by Henry Lefebvre in the turbulent political climate of the late 1960s Paris, shaken by the student movements. It wouldn’t be erroneous to seek the totality of the rights that impact the daily life of each and every city dweller and the origins of the discussion within this period. Following Lefebvre, thinkers such as David Harvey, Don Mitchell and Neil Brenner who worked on the right to the city, claimed that the components of urban life including clean air, clean water, housing, education, participation, infrastructure, transportation, and health services are necessity-based rights of the city dwellers and must be fought for. According to David Harvey, “The right to the city is, therefore, far more than a right of individual access to the resources that the city embodies: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city more after our heart’s desire. It is, moreover, a collective rather than an individual right since changing the city inevitably depends upon the exercise of a collective power over the processes of urbanization.” (Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution, 2012)

The primary aim of the right to the city is to establish public justice. It wouldn’t be possible to talk about the right to the city until public justice is ensured. The right to the city implies, first and foremost, the right to live in the city. However, it demands more: the right to live good and equal lives. Women’s fight for existing in the city becomes relevant at this particular point. It is not a coincidence that urban studies cross paths with gender struggles in the 1970s, along with the second wave of feminism. In the last quarter of the 20th century, we witness urban planners, political scientists, sociologists, and geographers increasingly dealing with questions posed from a feminist perspective about how the city and gender roles mutually shape each other. Gillian Rose, Susan Buck-Morss and Sasskia Sassen not only put forward the ways space redefines gender roles at various scales but also present clues to surpass these sexist categories.

In the last decade, studies that relocate the concepts of the right to the city and public space beyond the borders of patriarchy became widespread and furthermore this border violation includes efforts of merging strict academic conventions with informal essays and writings on personal experience. For instance, Lauren Elkin (Flâneuse: Women Walk the City, 2017) and Leslie Kern (Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man- Made World, 2020) offer fresh insights while investigating the 21st century identity of the city through their content and style of writing. In the introductory chapter of Feminist City, titled “City of Men” Kern quotes Jane Darke from 1996 saying “our cities are patriarchy written in stone, brick, glass and concrete” while in the last chapter titled “City of Possibility” she lists feminist achievements concerning the right to the city and makes inferences about the border violation, which may pave the way for future generations.

In this special issue of Reflektif, we will include writings from various disciplines, which dwell at the intersection of urban, public space and gender studies aiming to breathe new life into the perspective of feminist urbanism and deal with discussions on the right to the city in the light of current global crises (climate crisis, epidemics and pandemics, economic crises, etc.). We expect to receive works that may be inspired by yet not limited to the questions below:

• What are the links between sexist ideologies and gender relations and the topics like the organization of urban space, institutions, power and authority, family life, public-private space distinction, work and labor relationships, security, transportation, and housing?

• Assuming that cities have gender identities how can we reflect on the right to the city and the problematic of justice and equality?

• How can urban planning and design projects be tackled with in the light of gender equality?
• What are the ways to establish a relationship between the female body and the city? What types of obstacles do women encounter in the city; physical, social, economic, and/or symbolic?

• What kind of a relationship is there between patriarchy, women, and the city?

• How do women’s rights movements formulate the links between violence, security issues and the city?

• Cities and urban spaces change and get transformed. How do women find place for themselves in them? How can we think about women’s struggle to exist within changing neighborhood conceptions, mega-cities, streets, and other urban spaces?

• How can gender-sensitive urban policies (budgeting, housing, day-care facilities, public transportation etc.) play a part in the more active participation of women in urban life?

• What are the connections between the emancipation of women and the relationship established with the street?

• How is women’s existence in urban space is represented in cinema and/or popular culture?

• How are the patterns embedded in the news, social media, movies and TV series related to a perception of urban space shaped by sense of danger, general insecurity, and unease?

Issue Editors: Aslı Tunç, Feride Çiçekoğlu, Burcu Kütükçüoğlu
Deadline for article submissions: December 5, 2022