A research lab at ICTA-UAB
Un informe d’anàlisi i alternatives sorgit d’un taller organitzat amb l’objectiu de crear alternatives al projecte La Miralda basades en valors socials i ecològics. La Miralda és un projecte de l’Ajuntament d’Alella que pretén urbanitzar 12 ha d’antigues terres agrícoles per a diversos usos: comercial, turístic, universitari i residencial, entre d’altres.
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A Guide to Street Surveys
by Ana Terra Amorim Maia
In 2022, members from BCNUEJ undertook a comprehensive survey initiative in La Prosperitat, a culturally diverse working-class neighbourhood of Barcelona. Their mission: to collect 380 surveys on everyday experiences of climate change and coping mechanisms from the local population.
In this manual, our researchers share what they learned, with the aim of assisting fellow researchers in navigating street surveys in diverse neighbourhoods. The manual was written by Ana Terra Amorim-Maia, Alicia Vollmer, and Luiza Tamas. The surveys were part of Ana’s PhD project assessing intersecting vulnerabilities and coping mechanisms in Barcelona, the results of which were published in this scientific article. All efforts were supported by the Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability (BCNUEJ) of the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain (ICTA-UAB).
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The Ideal Climate Shelter
As climate impacts intensify, cities around the world are recognizing the urgent need to create climate shelters: spaces in public buildings or outdoors that offer thermal comfort during periods of extreme temperatures. But climate shelters are more than just a roof over someone’s head. In this policy brief, available in Spanish and English, our researcher Ana Terra Amorim-Maia lays out a series of recommendations on how to create climate shelters that are both effective and inclusive. Based on a comprehensive study conducted in Barcelona, it is focused on the intersectional vulnerabilities of marginalized populations, who most often suffer the effects of climate change.
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A Guide to Inclusive Greening in Barcelona
Executive summary by Amalia Calderón Argelich
This policy brief, based on the article Greening plans as (re)presentation of the city: Toward an inclusive and gender-sensitive approach to urban greenspaces aims to inform political authorities and urban professionals in the Barcelona area about the results of the research conducted within the framework of the author’s doctoral thesis.
The analysis focused on how Barcelona’s green policies, in an international context, take into account social and gender justice. Despite the increasingly widespread adoption of green strategic plans to address both social and environmental issues, our analysis reveals that these plans often consider justice in a superficial and narrow manner, which implies a risk of perpetuating existing social and gender inequalities within green spaces.
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Barcelona Research Summary
In this report, we compiled our latest and most relevant research on urban green justice in Barcelona. The report briefly summarizes and illustrates our published articles since 2017, and covers topics such as housing, child-friendly city planning, parks and gardens, ecosystem services, urban development and gentrification. The pdf includes copies of the compilation with texts translated into Catalán and Spanish.
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Policy and Planning Toolkit for Urban Justice
Our policy and planning toolkit created in partnership with ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability contains a series of tools to help municipal planners find ways of providing affordable housing while also improving green equity and ensuring that new green spaces benefit rather than displace local residents. Learn more about in our blog post.
The toolkit features:
- 30 anti-displacement/anti-gentrification policy tools organized by stakeholder type
- 20 equitable green development tools
- Simulations of possible applications of policy tools depending on urban context
- Recommendations for policy-makers in the EU, North American, and global contexts
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Metropolis Issue Paper #12
How can a greener metropolis also be a more just one for all its residents? In the 12th edition of the Metropolis Observatory issue papers, Galia Shokry and Isabelle Anguelovski address this question through an examination of the promises and social pitfalls of various greening agendas, using empirical and scholarly research to show how collaboration between governments and metropolitan residents can lead to more just and greener outcomes for all. Learn more about it in our blog post.
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Green Trajectories
Our Green Trajectories policy book examines the urban greening policy trajectories of 50 cities in Europe, Canada and the United States over the last 25 years. It identifies the main trends and strategies used and ranks cities along key criteria including the level of rhetoric, focus on health, and equitable access. The book is the result of the first stage of the GreenLULUs study, a 5-year research project examining the relationship between urban greening and social equity funded by the European Research Council. Learn more about it in our blog post.
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What is Heat Justice?
As part of our ClimateJusticeReady project, we explain how heat justice is becoming an increasingly important aspect within the wider issue of climate justice. Access to cooler, greener neighborhoods is often a feature and a privilege of wealthier communities, while marginalized and working class neighborhoods remain at risk to the impacts of a warming climate and severe heat waves. We interviewed key figures from urban research centers, city councils, and community associations from Barcelona and Boston illustrate how these two cities have become paradigmatic examples of heat injustice.
ArcGis StoryMaps Collections
Explore our ArcGis StoryMaps collections which document the adverse impacts of urban greening interventions in cities and highlight community struggles for equitable access to green space and housing in cities across N. America and Europe, including Barcelona, Nantes, Dublin, Atlanta and Washington D.C.
10 Drivers of Urban Injustice
As part of the UrbanA project, a Horizon 2020 funded project that aims to translate knowledge on sustainable and just cities into action, this series of videos identifies the 10 main drivers of urban injustice, explained by Isabelle Anguelovski and Panagiota Kotsila, researchers from the Barcelona Lab for Urban Justice and Sustainability (BCNUEJ) at ICTA-UAB. The videos are based on the open access book which can be downloaded here.
FEMPUBLICBCN: Stories of women from Sant Antoni and La Barceloneta during the Covid-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic had severe severe impacts on people’s health and on how residents perceived and used their neighborhoods’ amenities. In these testimonials, four women living in Barcelona–Lourdes, Maria Teresa, Alba and Nuria–explain their struggles during the pandemic and how their neighbourhoods changed during that period. The interviews form part of FEMPUBLICBCN a research project exploring how the pandemic changed women’s perception and use of public green space in neighborhoods of La Barceloneta and Sant Antoni and how this impacted their mental and general health. Changes relating to touristification and gentrification were also included in the study.
To Green or Not to Green
Our short documentary created by filmmaker Alberto Bougleux sheds light on the dilemma of greening cities. To Green or Not To Green: Four Stories of Urban (In)Justice in Barcelona showcases four neighborhood struggles against urban inequality in Barcelona, tracing how civic groups are mobilizing to demand better air quality, safe housing conditions, and access to health care facilities—all in relation to green space. Illustrated through the cases of La Fira, El Raval, Tres Turons, and Poblenou, the documentary addresses how issues of wealth, class, race, and unequal access to environmental amenities manifest in a city that has historically grown around a tourism and tech-based economy.
The Green Divide
Our interactive web documentary allows viewers to explore cases of green inequalities across six cities in Europe, United States and Canada. Created by Alberto Bougleux, the platform is based on field research from BCNUEJ’s GreenLULUs and Naturvation projects, Green and (Un)Just Cities and documents the challenges of building greener and equitable cities in Portland, Washington D.C., Boston, Montreal, Nantes and Barcelona. Each city presents three stories of residents mobilizing for equity and inclusion around projects that aim to renature cities and improve access to green infrastructure, as well as brief geo-spatial analyses and relevant references to community groups and struggles.
The “Good Food” Project
Understanding sustainability through immigrant perspectives
Project lead: Isabela Bonnevera, ICTA-UAB
Cities around the world are recognizing the urgent need to transform our food systems to align with climate and equity goals — in other words, to make our food systems more environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable. But in many cities, immigrants have been left out of decision-making processes related to the food system, and little is known about what “sustainable food” means to diverse communities.
The “Good Food” Project, led by ICTA-UAB/BCNUEJ researcher Isabela Bonnevera, seeks to understand the concept of sustainable food systems, or “good food”, through the perspectives of minoritized immigrant women in Vancouver, Canada. It uses Photovoice, a participatory action methodology which allows participants to highlight their lived experiences through photos and personal stories. Its findings demonstrate how immigrants actively engage with and reshape the concept of sustainable food, challenging the narrative that minoritized immigrant communities are uninterested in sustainability or “hard to reach”.
The “Good Food” Project was supported by the Community-Engaged Research Initiative (CERi) at Simon Fraser University, the Institute for Sustainable Food Systems (ISFS) at Kwantlen Polytechnic University (KPU), and the Pacific Immigrant Resources Society (PIRS).
Contours of Feminist Political Ecology
By Wendy Harcourt, Ana Agostino, Rebecca Elmhirst, Marlene Gómez, and Panagiota Kotsila
This open access book sets out the contours of feminist political ecology (FPE) as a major contribution to ongoing debates in the field. The conversations explore topics that range from climate change and extractivism, to body politics and health, degrowth, care and community well-being. he book foregrounds the ethics of doing feminist work inside and outside academe and brings to life the importance of doing reflexive research aware of situated historical and contemporary geographical contours of power.
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Injustice in Urban Sustainability: Ten Core Drivers
By Panagiota Kotsila, Isabelle Anguelovski, Melissa García-Lamarca Filka Sekulova
Using a unique typology of ten core drivers of injustice, this book explores and questions common assumptions around what urban sustainability means, how it can be implemented, and how it is manifested in or driven by urban interventions that hinge on claims of sustainability.
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The Green City and Social Injustice: 21 Tales from North America and Europe
By Isabelle Anguelovski and James J. T. Connolly
This book examines the recent urban environmental trajectory of 21 cities in Europe and North America over a 20-year period. It analyses the circumstances under which greening interventions can create a new set of inequalities for socially vulnerable residents while also failing to eliminate other environmental risks and impacts.
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“Verde Urbà i Gentrificació” Policy Event | Oct 5th 2022
A visual recording of our policy event on October 5th 2022 on urban greening and green gentrification in Barcelona, in which we gathered diverse institutional and community actors of Barcelona city, including representatives from the Ayuntamiento de Barcelona, to discuss pathways towards urban justice. Facilitated by Isabelle Anguelovski, Melissa García, Lamarca, Panagiota Kotsila, Amalia Calderon-Argelich and Emilia Oscilowicz, the presentations addressed green gentrification, real estate speculation, public health, maintenance of public space, research and indicators, self-managed green space and participatory intiatives. Illustrations by Delphine Boghos.
Urban Environmental Justice
A Visual Harvest of our Webinar on Urban Environmental Justice
How can we transform our cities into socially & ecologically just places? Check out this graphic harvest created by illustrator Carlotta Cataldi from our recent webinar on urban environmental Justice and green gentrification.
10 Drivers of Urban Injustice
A graphic outline of our 10 drivers of urban injustice, as part of our UrbanA project which aims to co-creatively synthesise and broker knowledge for sustainable and just cities and translate this knowledge into action. Make sure to watch our 10-part video series in which our director Isabelle Anguelovski and researcher Panagiota explain the main drivers of urban injustice related to sustainability.
Building an Ethics of Care in Academia
A Visual Guide to Building a Healthier Work-Life Balance
Our lab is committed to ensuring that its members are able to flourish both in their personal and professional lives. This is particularly important in the scientific community, which is highly demanding and has few formal structures or firm boundaries. In the face of such challenges, we have collectively designed a set of policies, practices, and guidelines designed to help every lab member—and other colleagues and fellow researchers—keep their work and life in balance and build a greater ethics of care. In doing so, we are building on the principles of the Jay Vanbavel lab at NYU, to whom we are grateful for their inspiration and support.
Emergencia Climática: Retos y Propuestas para la Ciudad
Un curso de CUIMP Barcelona (08/02/2022 – 09/02/2022)
Esta sección recoge el material producido por este curso sobre emergencia climática que fue impartido miembros de BCNUEJ. El curso abordó la emergencia climática desde una perspectiva urbana, enfocándose en los retos de mitigación y adaptación, en su relación con la salud medioambiental y humana, y desde un enfoque de justicia ambiental. Se enfocaró en varios sectores y dominios, desde la gestión del verde urbano y de los espacios públicos; movilidad sostenible y activa; vivienda y pobreza energética; producción y consumo sostenible de alimentos, entre otros, y presentó iniciativas que responden a estos retos así como propuestas de gobernanza urbana, ofreciendo también una visión crítica de sus limites y oportunidades de impacto mas amplio y justo.
We strive to build a more gender-balanced and feminist academia. In that process, we realize the importance of confronting unequal, unhealthy, and imbalanced practices within the broader research world and are inspired by transformative, radical practices in academia and beyond. Here is a list of useful resources related to gender, academia and practice produced by journalists, research collectives, research labs and civic leaders that we hope can support our work and that of others.
News articles & websites
Cómo incorporar la perspectiva de género en las políticas públicas – Institut de Ciències Polítiques i Socials
The Effects of Gender Discrimination on Women’s Mental Health – Sunshine Behavioral Health
Caribbean Feminisms: A Reading List – Black Women Radicals
Feminists Theorize COVID-19 – Signs Journal
Manifesto for a feminist perspective on new cycling infrastructure in Barcelona – Punt6
Estereotipos implícitos que frenan las carreras de las mujeres, por Marta Macho – elPeriodico
A City of Our Own: Urban Feminism for the 99% – Failed Architecture
Female scientists use less positive language about their work, study finds – The Guardian
La trampa del ‘trabajo doméstico’ universitario lastra la carrera de las profesoras – El Pais
There’s No Winter Break From ‘Publish or Perish’ – The New York Times
500 Women Scientists – Database to request a woman a scientist
Integrating under-represented scholars into my syllabi – Raul Pacheco-Vega, 2015
Seminario Interdisciplinar de Metodología de Investigación Feminista
Publications
Sexual-power gatekeeping within avant-garde academia – Lieselotte Viaene, Catarina Laranjeiro and Miye Nadya Tom
Changing the Plan: How “Feminist Cities” and Feminist Political Ecology Can Inform More Equitable and Climate-Just City Planning Practice – Critical Planning UCLA
The Effects of Gender Discrimination on Women’s Mental Health – Sunshine Behavioral Health
Caribbean Feminisms: A Reading List – Black Women Radicals
Feminists Theorize COVID-19 – Signs Journal
Manifesto for a feminist perspective on new cycling infrastructure in Barcelona – Punt6
Estereotipos implícitos que frenan las carreras de las mujeres, por Marta Macho – elPeriodico
A City of Our Own: Urban Feminism for the 99% – Failed Architecture
Female scientists use less positive language about their work, study finds – The Guardian
La trampa del ‘trabajo doméstico’ universitario lastra la carrera de las profesoras – El Pais
There’s No Winter Break From ‘Publish or Perish’ – The New York Times
500 Women Scientists – Database to request a woman a scientist
Integrating under-represented scholars into my syllabi – Raul Pacheco-Vega, 2015
Seminario Interdisciplinar de Metodología de Investigación Feminista