Meet Me Where I Am

: Women's Practices in the Public Space in the South Bronx

Abstract

Public spaces hold layered histories and aspirations, yet not all voices shape their future equally. Meet Me Where I Am: Women’s Practices in Public Space in the South Bronx examines how women in the neighbourhood of Mott Haven experience and negotiate public space within a landscape marked by inequality and urban change. Focusing on women is crucial because their everyday encounters with public space are often shaped by gendered responsibilities, safety concerns, care practices, and unequal visibility within planning processes. Although gender-responsive planning has gained global momentum, it often remains detached from the everyday realities of those most affected by uneven development. This thesis responds by grounding feminist urbanism in lived experience, considering presence, movement, pause, and care as central to understanding how urban life is discussed and sustained.
The research emerged from extended ethnographic immersion in Mott Haven, South Bronx, between 2022 and 2025, engaging non-participant observation, observational photography, photomapping, photo-elicitation interviews, semi-structured interviews and informal conversations. This approach foregrounds embodied, affective, and sensory forms of knowledge. Across the material, women’s everyday practices reveal a fabric of mutual recognition, vigilance, informal exchange, and care that sustains neighbourhood life through acts such as looking after a streetside garden, pausing at a mural, selling food on the sidewalk, or walking together after dusk. These practices emerge as spatial strategies that maintain continuity, belonging, and resilience amid precarity and gentrification.
The findings demonstrate that women are not passive observers of urban transformation but active agents who cultivate social cohesion through daily gestures of maintenance, mutual support, and spatial awareness. Methodologically, the study demonstrates the value of integrating visual, embodied, and dialogic methods to access insights not always captured by conventional planning approaches. Conceptually, it reframes publicness as relational, affective, and enacted through gendered everyday practice.
Ultimately, the thesis argues that equitable and resilient urban futures begin with meeting people where they are: recognising lived experience as a vital form of urban intelligence and considering everyday practices as central to spatial justice, planning knowledge, and community-centred urbanism.

Date of Award	4 Jun 2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Portsmouth
Supervisor	Antonino Di Raimo (Supervisor), Pablo Martinez Capdevila (Supervisor) & Tarek Teba (Supervisor)