Shaping and being shaped by the city
A qualitative study of adolescent women’s spatial appropriation
In my master’s thesis under the supervision of Martin Emanuel, I set out to explore how adolescent women in Stockholm navigate and appropriate public spaces. While safety was not an initial focus, it emerged as a critical theme throughout the study showing its relevance in all aspects of young women’s appropriation. Despite growing mental health concerns for this group and urban planning attempts at emphasizing well-being, their needs remain under-addressed. Research shows girls start retreating from formal play areas by ages 8-12, yet the reasons and implications for their spatial behaviours as adolescents are unclear.
Following environmental psychology’s calls to explore the meanings and interpretations of places instead of physical characteristics, I aimed to identify barriers and facilitators to these girls’ spatial appropriation from their perspectives, linking their movements and habits to their emotions and thoughts. The study employed two phases of walk-along interviews: a short, randomized sample in busy public spaces and a longer, more targeted go-along version with a group of 3 friends that allowed me to join them in two of their hang out meetings.
One in their neighbourhood and one in the commercial city centre. Perhaps my most precious learning outcome after concluding this project, was precisely the design, adaptation and exercise of this qualitative methodology along with the tools I tested within it. I see great potential in further use and flexibility in its adaptation to multiple projects in the future.
Findings revealed that girls favour youth-friendly spaces like malls, parks, and playgrounds, with the feeling of (non) acceptance of their social identities strongly influencing their preferences or avoidances. The condition of safety was always guiding their choices. By contrast, their meetings in the privacy of their rooms were referred to as the most comfortable in terms of physical and emotional ‘non censorship’. The fluidity of perceived safety in public spaces was notable, as familiar social groups e.g. one’s friends, often transformed otherwise intimidating settings into comfortable and appropriable ones. On the flipside, the surrounding crowd could also act as a facilitator if it matched social identification of the girls e.g. teenagers, or as a barrier if it was perceived as unsafe in terms of scale (large crowds or absence of crowd) or composition (drunk men, group of older men etc.). The results emphasize the complex and nuanced ways in which these participants navigate, claim, shape and are being shaped by their environments reminding us that there is still work to be done for gender issues in cities.
The theoretical lens I used to frame my study was guided by constructivist theories of what is public space, modes that usually allow its appropriation and identity theories relevant for adolescence as it develops rapidly during this phase.
A realisation I came to after analysing the interview data was that perhaps social, spatial and personal identities can be conceptualized as 3 interconnected rooms much like thought, emotion and behaviour connect and affect each other. My curiosity about speech and its shaping of narratives ended up being the tool through which I understood how symbolic processes construct places. By focusing on the perspectives of the participants, I walked with them as they walked me through their meanings and perceptions, understandings and aspirations.
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My name is Elpida and I obtained my M.Sc. degree in Sustainable Urban Planning and Design from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Previously, I studied Architectural Engineering at the Technical University of Crete and, through the Erasmus program, at the Instituto Superior Técnico Lisboa. My profound interest in Urban Sociology is guiding my next steps as I aim to stay connected to academia and continue learning from experiences and collaborations I am involved in.
