Space, Gender, and Fear of Crime: Some Explorations from Kolkata

Abstract

Disparate power equations are embedded in the various ways daily life is organized within social and geographical spaces and tacitly influences individuals’ use of space. This is particularly true for cities, where space is unequivocally premised through a male-centric approach, whereby the public spaces which harbor the legitimate basis of social power are kept out of bounds for women. City spaces are being increasingly masculinized and seem to restrict women’s use of public spaces in rearticulated socially coded ways, largely within the domain of domesticity. Physical intimidation is the most widely used means of keeping women out of masculine public spaces. However, the very identity of “women” perhaps plays the most important role in precluding their access to such spaces. In this context, this article attempts to understand the extent to which crime affects women’s negotiation of public spaces in Kolkata, a relatively safer city in the Indian social space, and explores how the intersectionality of heterogeneous socioeconomic characteristics affect women’s access to public space and its re-articulation. I argue that women’s restricted access to public space is a manifestation of socially produced fear that is constituted by the way space is perceived and imagined.

Key Words:

• Women
• fear of crime
• gender
• public space
• Kolkata