Mapping the ‘presency’ of women in cities

Originally published in the Ecocycles Journal on 19th October 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.19040/ecocycles.v5i2.144

Abstract

This paper explores how innovative ways of mapping both the presence and the agency of contemporary women in cities may support the emergence of emancipatory placemaking perspectives and previously unrecorded narratives. It starts by proposing ‘presency’ as a new concept, merging the meaning of presence, as a mindful way of paying attention to life; and agency, as critical awareness of the context and capacity to act. It examines the pace of urbanisation of the world and the revisited role of women in their mediation of space and making of place including efforts to forge a new framework of regenerative urban development. It proposes different mapping approaches to capture a mosaic of regenerative practices led by women addressing how cities of present and future can be green and inclusive. It concludes by suggesting that the act of mapping spatially and ‘from within’ the way women experience and act in the city may unleash women’s emancipatory place-making skills, moving cities systems up to higher orders of integrated expression.