Sophie Watson – författare

A Companion to the City provides the reader with an indispensable and authoritative overview of the key debates, controversies, and questions concerning the city from a variety of theoretical vantage points with an international perspective.

Originally published in 1988, Accommodating Inequality provides a basis for a radical re-think of housing policy and provision in Australia from a gender perspective. It explores the way that housing in Australia helped to produce patriarchal family structures and simultaneously contributed to the dependence of women on men. At the time the book was originally published housing policy at a theoretical or research level was less explored. Issues such as marginalisation, poverty and low income, domestic responsibility are discussed in relation to housing. The book raised new questions and challenged old debates and provides a clear framework within which feminist housing policy can be situated.

Originally published in 1988, Accommodating Inequality provides a basis for a radical re-think of housing policy and provision in Australia from a gender perspective. It explores the way that housing in Australia helped to produce patriarchal family structures and simultaneously contributed to the dependence of women on men. At the time the book was originally published housing policy at a theoretical or research level was less explored. Issues such as marginalisation, poverty and low income, domestic responsibility are discussed in relation to housing. The book raised new questions and challenged old debates and provides a clear framework within which feminist housing policy can be situated.

‘Houses do not simply represent a form of shelter; in addition they embody the dominant ideology of a society and reflect the way in which that society is organised.’

Originally published in 1986 and written by two leading authorities on the subject, this book tackles the problems of housing, homelessness, and women in the family, from a feminist perspective. It explores how housing helps to reproduce women’s role within the family, both today and historically. It looks at the way British society in particular (and western society in general) defines and creates housing ‘needs’. It discusses the way housing is provided and allocated to exclude specific forms of household, and describes the experiences of a particular group – single women – upon whom these processes have profound impact.

Making effective use of interview material, the authors analyse the experience and needs of women without secure accommodation. Their study will be a useful text on social policy and welfare courses, and – with its strong political implications – will also be of great interest to community workers and to local authority housing departments.

Some cities have grown into mega cities and some into uncontrolled sprawl; others have seen their centres decline with populations moving to the suburbs. In such times, questions of the public realm and public space in cities warrant even greater attention than previously received.

Concerned with the borders and boundaries, constraints and limits on accepting, acknowledging and celebrating difference in public, Sophie Watson, through ethnographic studies, interrogates how difference is negotiated and performed. Focusing on spaces where to outside observers tension is relatively absent or invisible, Watson also reveals how the boundaries between the public and private are being negotiated and redrawn, and how public and private spaces are mutually constitutive.

Through her investigation of the more ordinary and less dramatic forms of encounter and contestation in the city, Watson is able to conceive an urban public realm and urban public space that is heterogeneous and potentially progressive. With numerous photographs and drawings City Publics not only throws new light on encounters with others in public space, but also destabilizes dominant, sometimes simplistic, universalized accounts and helps us re-imagine urban public space as a site of potentiality, difference, and enchanted encounters.

Some cities have grown into mega cities and some into uncontrolled sprawl; others have seen their centres decline with populations moving to the suburbs. In such times, questions of the public realm and public space in cities warrant even greater attention than previously received.

Concerned with the borders and boundaries, constraints and limits on accepting, acknowledging and celebrating difference in public, Sophie Watson, through ethnographic studies, interrogates how difference is negotiated and performed. Focusing on spaces where to outside observers tension is relatively absent or invisible, Watson also reveals how the boundaries between the public and private are being negotiated and redrawn, and how public and private spaces are mutually constitutive.

Through her investigation of the more ordinary and less dramatic forms of encounter and contestation in the city, Watson is able to conceive an urban public realm and urban public space that is heterogeneous and potentially progressive. With numerous photographs and drawings City Publics not only throws new light on encounters with others in public space, but also destabilizes dominant, sometimes simplistic, universalized accounts and helps us re-imagine urban public space as a site of potentiality, difference, and enchanted encounters.

In the context of increasing division and segregation in cities across the world, along with pressing concerns around austerity, environmental degradation, homelessness, violence, and refugees, this book pursues a multidisciplinary approach to spatial justice in the city.

Spatial justice has been central to urban theorists in various ways. Intimately connected to social justice, it is a term implicated in relations of power which concern the spatial distribution of resources, rights and materials. Arguably there can be no notion of social justice that is not spatial. Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos has argued that spatial justice is the struggle of various bodies – human, natural, non-organic, technological – to occupy a certain space at a certain time. As such, urban planning and policy interventions are always, to some extent at least, about spatial justice. And, as cities become ever more unequal, it is crucial that urbanists address questions of spatial justice in the city. To this end, this book considers these questions from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Crossing law, sociology, history, cultural studies, and geography, the book’s overarching concern with how to think spatial justice in the city brings a fresh perspective to issues that have concerned urbanists for several decades. The inclusion of empirical work in London brings the political, social, and cultural aspects of spatial justice to life.

The book will be of interest to academics and students in the field of urban studies, sociology, geography, planning, space law, and cultural studies.

In the context of increasing division and segregation in cities across the world, along with pressing concerns around austerity, environmental degradation, homelessness, violence, and refugees, this book pursues a multidisciplinary approach to spatial justice in the city.

Spatial justice has been central to urban theorists in various ways. Intimately connected to social justice, it is a term implicated in relations of power which concern the spatial distribution of resources, rights and materials. Arguably there can be no notion of social justice that is not spatial. Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos has argued that spatial justice is the struggle of various bodies – human, natural, non-organic, technological – to occupy a certain space at a certain time. As such, urban planning and policy interventions are always, to some extent at least, about spatial justice. And, as cities become ever more unequal, it is crucial that urbanists address questions of spatial justice in the city. To this end, this book considers these questions from a range of disciplinary perspectives. Crossing law, sociology, history, cultural studies, and geography, the book’s overarching concern with how to think spatial justice in the city brings a fresh perspective to issues that have concerned urbanists for several decades. The inclusion of empirical work in London brings the political, social, and cultural aspects of spatial justice to life.

The book will be of interest to academics and students in the field of urban studies, sociology, geography, planning, space law, and cultural studies.