This master’s thesis deals with some concepts and theories related to public space and everyday life and points to how neglecting women’s needs and preferences in public spaces can lead to the formation of gendered urban spaces which prevent women from earning their right to the city. Concepts such as quality of life, quality of place, living environment, residential perception and satisfaction, and place attachment overlap and have many interrelations. One cannot consider, for example, the quality of residential environment independent of residential satisfaction or ignore its influence on the quality of life. This study focuses specifically on the perception of residential environment quality, in the medium scale (neighborhood). Despite a wide range of studies in the field of perceived residential environment quality, the review of literature reveals that studies in this field lack sufficient attention to power relations which among others (cultural, ethnic, etc.), can be gender related. Given the mentioned issues, this study explores women’s perceptions of residential environment quality in the Lindängen neighborhood in Malmö, Sweden. Drawing upon the analysis of a questionnaire, the study presents four scales of REQ in which women’s perceptions have been different from men’s: Recreational services, Safety, Public furniture and Commercial services. In the next stage, a set of semi-structured interviews were done with five women living in the neighborhood. These interviews explore the way women’s ideas and perceptions about their neighborhood, more specifically about the four aforementioned scales, affect their daily lives. The findings of this study highlight the influence of the residential environment quality on everyday lives of women and indicates their different needs for urban facilities and infrastructures (such as recreational or commercial services, as this study indicates) as compared to men.

Este proyecto de investigación se caracteriza como estudio histórico-etnográfica basado en estudios de casos de la vida cotidiana de nueve mujeres en Valparaíso y Viña del Mar durante la dictadura chilena, analizando el testimonio de los efectos del régimen autoritario en la vida cotidiana de estas mujeres chilenas entre 1980 y 1987. La metodología se radica firmemente en el método etnográfico con entrevistas semi-abiertas y el análisis del discurso de los relatos. En la metáfora de la arpillera (un tapiz anónimo cosido en lona ensamblado a partir de piezas de tela que muestra escenas de la vida cotidiana o protesta la dictadura de Pinochet), trozos y pedazos de experiencia se juntan en el encima de la lona de la historia para dar forma al testimonio de vida la vida cotidiana. Este proyecto se centra en tres aspectos diferentes de la relación entre el Estado autoritario y la vida cotidiana: las técnicas de gobernabilidad (macro), narraciones de silencio y miedo (micro) y trayectorias narrados (espacial), el último inspirado por el ensayo Halbwachs en caminar por la ciudad. Para cerrar, la relevancia del estudio se destaca por el intento de comprender el efecto de un estado autoritario en el sujeto femenino y las respuestas y adaptaciones que las mujeres chilenas adoptaron en la vida privada y pública mediada por la violencia y el miedo bajo dictadura. La dialéctica del acontecimiento y la rutina de la vida cotidiana bajo la dictadura se unen en las memorias narradas, mediada por el presente vivido, lo cual permite una reflexión sobre la cuestión de la alteridad en la sociedad chilena. / The research project is characterized as a historical-ethnographic study based on case studies of the everyday lives of nine women in Valparaíso and Viña del Mar during the Chilean dictatorship, analyzing testimony of the effects of the authoritarian regime on the everyday life of Chilean women between 1980 and 1987. The methodology is firmly rooted in the ethnographic method with semi-open interviews and discourse analysis of the narratives. In the metaphor of the arpillera (an anonymous tapestry sewn on canvas constructed out of pieces of cloth showing scenes of everyday life or protesting the Pinochet dictatorship), scraps and pieces of experience are sewn onto the canvas context of history to shape the testimony of lived everyday life. This project focuses on three different aspects of the relationship between authoritarian state and everyday life: techniques of governmentality (macro), narratives of silence and fear (micro), and narrated trajectories (spatial) inspired by Halbwachs’ essay on walking the city. To close, the study’s relevance is highlighted by the intent to understand the effect of an authoritarian state on the female subject and the responses and adaptations that Chilean women adopted in private and public life shaped by violence and fear. The dialectics of event and routine of everyday life under dictatorship are thus stitched together in memory, mediated by the women’s lived present, facilitating a closing reflection about alterity in Chilean society.