Gendered spatial realities - Exploring the complexity of gendered space and place in Rosengård through a feminist application of GIS

Abstract: This thesis is an exploration of the complexity of gendered spaces and places. Grounding in feminist geographical theory and an understanding of space and place as gendered, the experiences and emotions of six young women from Rosengård, Malmö, connected to space and place are problematized and contextualised. The thesis is also a call for a qualitative, critical and feminist usage of GIS and an exploration of how GIS can contribute to a feminist analysis of gendered structures in space and time. Through a thematic analysis, it has become evident that these young women’s spatial realities in a high degree are gendered. In the public eye, Rosengård is mainly given attention for criminality, this is however not the main concern for the young women whose experiences of exclusion, unease and unsafety rather are connected to experiences of sexist harassment and abuse. Because of this, the young women have developed different forms of protective strategies such as avoiding certain spaces and places. These strategies clearly shows how gendered structures affect the way in which the young women claim and move through space and how they because of these structures are restricted in their everyday lives. Further, by implementing GIS in a participatory and feminist manner, and through methodological transparency and a critical examination of GIS as a positivist “power-tool”, it is in the thesis concluded that feminist geographical theory and qualitative critical GIS can mutually strengthen each other.