Call for Membership “Gender and Spatial Transformation”
We establish the international Information and Initiative Group “Gender and Spatial Transformation” and are looking for participants!
Current crises such as climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis, which has been exacerbated by the Russian war in Ukraine, highlight the need for socio-ecological transformation towards sustainability. The realisation that social and ecological crisis phenomena – such as poverty and access to resources – are inextricably linked, poses a challenge for science and practice: In the orientation towards real-life problems, it is necessary to abandon disciplinary as well as sectoral thinking and to enter into new inter- and transdisciplinary cooperation.
In the still relatively young debates on the importance of space and planning for these transformation processes (cf. e.g. the results of the ARL working group "Nachhaltige Raumentwicklung für die große Transformation"/"Sustainable spatial development for the great transformation", Hofmeister/Warner/Ott 2021), it becomes clear that the spatial level has an integrative function in understanding the socio-ecological crises (system knowledge), in formulating alternative future designs (target knowledge) as well as in implementing these goals (transformation knowledge) (Mölders/Levin-Keitel 2021).
The gender perspective as “eye-opener”
Gender perspectives (in the form of gender-differentiated data, the consideration of structural inequalities between women and men, intersectional approaches, etc.) have so far hardly been taken into account in the debates on spatial transformation towards sustainability. This is surprising insofar as extensive work on the integration of gender perspectives in (spatial) transformation processes exists both in the field of "gender and sustainability" (for an overview, e.g. Hofmeister/Katz/Mölders 2013) and in the field of "gender and spatial development" (for an overview, e.g. Zibell/Damyanovic/Sturm 2019). This shows that the category of gender enables the change of perspectives and, with its potential for innovation, is able to make significant contributions to a conceptual and normative concretisation of transformation debates.
The international IIG (iIIG) pursues the goal of demonstrating both conceptually and exemplarily how and where the category of gender can serve as an "eye-opener" in the debates on spatial transformation towards sustainability.
Aims of the iIIG
The iIIG aims to provide a platform for examining current issues in spatial development from a gender perspective. The aim is to make innovative contributions of gender-related approaches to sustainable spatial development visible at both conceptual and practical levels.
The aim is to formulate and document socio-ecological positions on spatial development from a gender perspective in order to make them usable for further work of the ARL as well as for the discourse with the (expert) public/political (consultation) outside the ARL.
To this end, the iIIG uses, among other things, the ARL's new international knowledge and communication platform: arl-international.com, by making the results of its work available here for discussion and, for example, by supplementing the existing country profiles of different European countries in a suitable manner.
The iIIG also aims to provide suggestions for the ARL's research planning or for new research topics as well as for new working groups by identifying both research gaps and desiderata and by developing research questions.
Application
The Call for Membership (CfM) addresses an international community from science and practice of spatial development in cities, rural areas and regions. Members of the iIIG are members of universities, non-university research institutions, planning departments, other administrative institutions, associations, chambers of commerce and industry, and civil society organisations.
If you feel appealed and are interested in joining the iIIG, please send your written application until 15.09.2022.
Please send your application in digital form to Kathrin Kube: kathrin.kube@arl-net.de
Questions regarding the topic and objectives of the iIIG can be send to Tanja Mölders (tanja.moelders@arl-net.de) and Barbara Zibell (b.zibell@igt-arch.uni-hannover.de).
