Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Women experience, in a vaster extent than men, unsafety in urban
public spaces. This is a structural phenomenon, based on unequal
power relations. The theoretical starting-point for my thesis is that how
we choose to express ourselves shape the ways we can think about and
understand society. In my thesis I study depictions of safety in six of
Malmö city’s action plans and guidelines towards increased safety. I
analyse depictions in order to see how these documents deal with
women’s fear, and how gender, ethnicity and class can be constructed
or reproduced through the safety discourses. I also discuss what possibilities
to accomplish change these discourses have. I do so by
observing underlying connections and discrepancies between how
problems, causes and actions are depicted, and by examining what
power relations these discourses are based on.
In my thesis I find three major directions in the safety discourse:
The safe, nice and exciting city, The dangerous city and The little inside
the big city. All documents studied, are written in the purpose of
increasing experienced safety, but only a few acknowledge structural
inequalities. Also actions tend to be of both structural and individual
character.
I acknowledge the importance of analysing what (problem), why
(causes) and how (actions) in order to accomplish the intended changes.
I recognize a repeated lack of causes, which can lead to discrepancies
between worded problems and actions. Only one of the documents
studied clearly express all three levels of what – why – how. All studied
documents are dominated by discourses that may reproduce unequal
power relations (gender, class and ethnicity). By some discourses
marginalized groups are at risk to be stigmatized, since the discourses
acknowledge unequal power distribution, but don’t offer any
possibilities to act.
My conclusions are that a more clear analysis of power is necessary
to accomplish change, and that the causes of the experienced unsafety
must be further examined and more clearly presented in the document,
in order to evaluate the effects of the actions.