The women who invented the method, which is in the intellectual protection process, highlighted the importance of outreach and collaboration with diverse actors to design and construct spaces for all.
By: Iván Tobar Bocaz – Journalist Vice-Rectorate for Research and Development ivtobar@udec.cl
Images: Courtesy of the project
Five years ago, researchers from the University of Concepción and the Federico Santa María Technical University formed the Gender and Territory Collective (GyT). One of its most recent results is the ‘Gender and Urban Design Methodology,’ which is in the intellectual protection and packaging process for its transfer to society.
This innovation seeks to contribute to reducing the high rates of harassment and violence in public spaces, understanding that urban planning is not based on neutral technical processes, but rather hierarchies and priorities are established in them from a patriarchal logic and, in turn, making invisible or underestimating the reproductive and care tasks, which women have historically performed.
In this sense, according to the diagnosis of the team behind the methodology, urban planning and the design of public spaces in our country lack a gender approach in their methods, and this is the space that is expected to be filled.
The project team comprises the first female Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism and Geography (FAUG) of the University of Concepción, Dr. Mabel Loreto Alarcón Rodríguez, who explained that this methodology “has proposed identifying spaces in our cities that produce fear and insecurity, particularly for women, but also for all people who live in the city, as well as those spaces that allow them to take care of themselves and others”.
The methodology is innovative for three reasons: its intersectional gender approach, the spatialization and generation of place typologies, and the definition of relevant urban design elements to generate strategies to address these problems. The ‘Gender and Urban Design Methodology’ includes conceptualization, training relevant actors, collecting perceptions and experiences, and data analysis to develop improvement proposals.
The information is collected in mapping processes and is integrated and systematized in a matrix to obtain geospatial locators of the places that generate fear and care in the study population. Thus, it seeks to guide urban planning and design processes for better social integration.
Dr. Rosa María Guerrero Valdebenito, a researcher in the collective, commented on this work, which has been conducted since 2019. “The research project emerged in 2021, funded by VRID UdeC, and allowed us to develop different methodologies to collect information about the place of fear and care and what urban design elements affect those perceptions.”
Collaboration and transfer
Dean Alarcón stressed that the initiative has allowed them to link up with different actors, first within the University, such as the Gender Equity and Diversity Directorate, and also with public organizations, such as the Ministry of Housing and Urbanism (MINVU), the Urbanization Housing Service (Serviu), and with “leaders and people who work from the neighborhoods trying to improve living conditions in public space.”
Dr. Guerrero added that they have observed the territory with networks of women’s organizations and diversities that work on the issue of gender violence or gender approach. “We hope to contribute to improving the quality of life of the people who inhabit this territory and any other where the methodology can be applied and reduce gender gaps, which are important and are associated with issues of harassment and violence in public space,” she said.
Part of the ’Gender and Urban Design Methodology’ has been validated and used in regional public policies, as is the case of the SISTER Project (Territorial monitoring System with a gender focus) approved by the Metropolitan Regional Council and financed by the Regional Government of Santiago. It has been implemented in thirteen (13) communes. It has had the participation of more than 600 people, managing to register and evaluate more than 2000 places to define where it is necessary to intervene and apply the gender approach. In this case, the project has been led by Dr. Montserrat Delpino Chamy, a professor at the Federico Santa María Technical University and co-founder of the Gender and Territory collective, and coordinated by Rodrigo Peña Roa MSc., a professor at FAUG.
Several professionals also collaborate in this Gender and Territory collective, supporting projects, studies, and research and dissemination through social networks and citizen action platforms.
Last modified: 31 de enero de 2025
