Experiences and practices in Parisian public spaces

Sarah Jean-Jacques (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne / UMR Géographie-cités) will present her thesis, supervised by Catherine Deschamps and co-supervised by Nadine Cattan, on

Thursday 7th December
14 h
Université Paris Cité
Olympe de Gouges building
Room 202, 2nd floor
8, place Paul Ricoeur
75013 Paris, France

Abstract

Over the past ten years or so, in response to the inequalities in access to public spaces that particularly affect women, Paris City Council has made the “right to the city”, i.e. the right to move around without hindrance or violence, the main focus of its urban policy. More recently, Paris has also taken a symbolic stance in favour of a more inclusive social and urban environment for LGBTQI people, by making the fight against violence and discrimination against them one of the city’s new priorities.

It is in this context, and from an intersectional perspective, that this thesis invites us to question the “right to the city” and to observe how differences are expressed and accepted today, based on the singular place of lesbians in Parisian public spaces. Based on a field study carried out between 2016 and 2019 with 47 lesbians living in the Paris region, this research examines the norms at the intersection of gender, sexuality and “race” that structure public spaces and the violence that these norms have on lesbians’ experiences and practices in the city.
It endeavours to present the different ways in which lesbian visibility unfolds in urban space. It shows that self-­‐presentation (appearance) and the staging of the couple (gestures of love) are two markers of this visibility. The couple, in particular, allows us to understand the spatial dimension of coming out.

Analysis of the experiences of visible lesbians reveals the specific forms of violence to which they are exposed. The harassment that targets lesbian couples is situated at the intersection of different power relations that sanction their deviation from gender norms and their public rejection of the constraint of heterosexuality. It helps to regulate heterosexuality in public spaces and hinders the free movement of lesbians in the city.
This is why they tend to adjust their behaviour so that they can live out their relationship in the open, trying to see the costs and risks involved in putting their relationship on public display. They therefore have to make themselves invisible by not showing affection anywhere, at any time, in front of anyone. The couple’s visibility thus depends on taking into account a range of parameters in the external environment (neighbourhood, time of day, context, profile of co-­‐presenters) which act as guidelines for public displays of affection. This strategic skill underlines the constant tension between visibility and invisibilisation. While sexual orientation plays a part in unequal access to the city, this skill represents a real know-­‐how that highlights the way in which lesbians appropriate public spaces despite everything and negotiate their place in Paris.