Trygghet i stadens offentliga rum
diskurser, makt och möjligheter till förändring
Women experience, in a vaster extent than men, unsafety in urbanpublic spaces. This is a structural phenomenon, based on unequalpower relations. The theoretical starting-point for my thesis is that howwe choose to express ourselves shape the ways we can think about andunderstand society. In my thesis I study depictions of safety in six ofMalmö city?s action plans and guidelines towards increased safety. Ianalyse depictions in order to see how these documents deal withwomen?s fear, and how gender, ethnicity and class can be constructedor reproduced through the safety discourses. I also discuss what possibilitiesto accomplish change these discourses have. I do so byobserving underlying connections and discrepancies between howproblems, causes and actions are depicted, and by examining whatpower 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 insidethe big city. All documents studied, are written in the purpose ofincreasing experienced safety, but only a few acknowledge structuralinequalities. Also actions tend to be of both structural and individualcharacter.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 discrepanciesbetween worded problems and actions. Only one of the documentsstudied clearly express all three levels of what ? why ? how. All studieddocuments are dominated by discourses that may reproduce unequalpower relations (gender, class and ethnicity). By some discoursesmarginalized groups are at risk to be stigmatized, since the discoursesacknowledge unequal power distribution, but don?t offer anypossibilities to act.My conclusions are that a more clear analysis of power is necessaryto accomplish change, and that the causes of the experienced unsafetymust be further examined and more clearly presented in the document,in order to evaluate the effects of the actions.