Gendered place-making in superdiverse neighbourhoods and the role of civil society: relationships, resources and resistance

Place-making is a contested concept that has traditionally focused on physical dimensions of the built environment created by urban planners. However, recent work has emphasised place-making as an iterative process involving a much wider set of actors and which has emotional and experiential dimensions. This paper explores the challenges of place-making for women with a migration background living in superdiverse areas in Birmingham (England), Bochum (Germany) and Gothenburg (Sweden). It highlights the importance of gendered discrimination and associated challenges for such individuals to connect with neighbourhood diversity and ‘make place’. This paper also critically evaluates the role of civil society in facilitating place-making processes and develops a conceptual framework of gendered place-making identifying three important dimensions: relationships; resources and resistance to place stigmatisation. In so doing, this paper provides a gender-sensitive, superdiversity-informed framework that explains how civil society supports place-making through relationships, resources and resistance in highly diverse urban neighbourhoods.