This PhD seeks to investigate the social geographies of women’s safety, specifically the relationships between fear, urban design and neighbourhood segregation in Stockholm, Sweden.
The intersecting causes of female fear of crime have been identified as a significant gap in the literature and this remains the case despite the abundance of research on safety and perceived safety. It is particularly under-studied in Stockholm owing to the widespread assumption that the city is safe. However, my undergraduate research and peer-reviewed publication with Professor Ceccato demonstrate that factors underpinning women’s low fear of crime in Stockholm are problematic for others, such as spatial and social segregation. Therefore, informed by an intersectional framework, this research will explore how gender, race, class and place of residence fold into perceptions and likelihood of victimisation in different built (CPTED and non-CPTED) and social environments. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups will be conducted with female citizens as well as key stakeholders. These will be used alongside a pre-existing quantitative dataset collected by Stockholm police, to investigate, first, how spatial patterns of perceived safety vary across Stockholm, and second, what interconnected processes within neighbourhoods influence perceived safety
