Nuances, boundaries and subjects of the fear in the city. Women’s experiences in Milan

This paper investigates how women experience urban environments and the role of fear in their perceptions and behaviours. Drawing on a qualitative research based in Milan (Italy), this study focused on how different cognitive and emotional representations of the city enact and constrain the places and the ways in which women experience their daily life. From our findings emerged that fear is a recurrent and multifaceted feeling connected to different emotional states, such as insecurity, uncertainty, uneasiness and a feeling of threat related to something or someone. Within this scenario, fear plays a crucial role in shaping female perceptions and decision-making processes regarding what is possible to do, where and when. Indeed, the analysis highlighted the presence of physical and symbolic boundaries - between different neighbourhoods and moments of the day. The outcome is an emotionography of a fragmented city, made up of inhibited places, complex relationships with the Other and areas that become mentally forbidden, especially in the night. This systematic avoidance of specific places is connected to long-lasting gender, racial and social inequalities and can entail the risk of a chronicization of discrimination and stigmatization logics, within a city texture that tend to exclude minorities, to hide social issues and that appears difficult to freely live by women.