Between Beauty and Fear: Women's Experiences in Barranco
Proving Valentine in Barranco
What is the Geography of Fear?
The geography of fear is how certain places can make people feel scared or uneasy because of how they look, the time of day, what people have heard about them, or personal experiences. Spots like dark spaces or lonely spots tend to make people feel unsafe, so they avoid them. For example, a lonely park might be peaceful and calm during the day but look scary and dangerous at night. Fear is also about what we associate the place with. For example, if a neighborhood has a bad reputation, people might be scared to go through it, even if they don't have any personal experience with it. Geography of fear helps designers and police think about how to make those spaces safer by adding more lighting or opening up the spaces.
Valentine's research from 1989 suggests: "When a woman is in an area beyond her local environment she makes judgments about her safety in public space based on preconceived images she holds about that area and its occupants, as well as from cues she receives about social behavior from the actual physical surroundings." This quote further explains how women will be scared of certain places depending on what other people say about the place. Another quote that can explain the Geography of Fear is "I feel uneasy here because you may well have noticed there are very few people around. I mean the housing estate has been up for nearly seven years and three houses in this particular close have been broken into in daylight hours." This quote explains how certain amounts of people in places can give you an idea of how the place is. Also, past stories about the place can give people a very bad image of it, lowering its popularity and visitors.
Gender violence in Peru
Gender violence is one of the biggest problems in Peru. It usually involves young girls and women in general. Women are scared to speak up about violence because you can never know whether they will take you seriously, or completely ignore the problem. In 2023, according to https://www.gob.pe/en/institucion/inei/noticias/1003631-el-peru-registro-146-casos-de-feminicidio-en-el-ano-2023 , 146 cases of femicide (murder of women/girls) were registered in Peru, and '35.6% of women from ages 15 to 49 had been victims of domestic violence in the last 12 months.' https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/24/vicious-circle-femicides-in-peru-reveal-crisis-of-violence , explains the story of a girl who went through trauma and violence with her boyfriend. This article briefly explains what happened after she decided to break up with him, and how dangerous his actions were. Additionally to telling her story, this article also shows statistics on gender violence in 2023, stating "Between January and February of this year, there were 21,194 reported cases of violence against women and girls. Sixteen percent were girls between the ages of 12 and 17, according to data from the Ministry of Women and Vulnerable Populations."
Why is Baranco a good location to visit?
Barranco is a good place to visit because it is a good place to explore. Known for its vibrant arts, it also presents areas where contrasting feelings of safety and unease coexist. Barranco's brightly colored streets and tourist hotspots like el Puente de los Suspiros feel welcoming during the day, but some less maintained alleys and quieter spots might evoke fear or caution at night. Because Barranco is a tourist attraction, meaning that there are going to be a lot of people to question. Also, the geography of fear is linked to graffiti, which is a big part of Barranco, so Barranco is a good place to visit if you want to collect data. Barranco's graffiti is also fascinating to look at. It has a wonderful ocean view and many restaurants to try.
Barranco description-locations visited
Barranco is a vibrant and artsy district in Lima, Peru. It's located by the Costa Verde, so, you can get a view of the Pacific Ocean. From the locations visited, we could observe how the streets are filled with colorful graffiti and creative murals making the place cheery. Many restaurants serve traditional Peruvian dishes, and it's home to parks and green areas where you can enjoy the peaceful atmosphere. Even though the locations we visited had many positive aspects, it's important to acknowledge the not-so-positive parts. One noticeable issue was the strong, unpleasant odor of dog waste, which often overpowered the pleasant smell of food and the ocean. As we walked through grassy areas, we observed that there were dog feces that had not been cleaned up, distracting from the overall pleasant experience.
This map shows a preview of the four locations that we visited. We walked through them, analyzing their aspects. Each of them had interesting views to look at.
Graffiti was a noticeable part of Barranco. There was a lot of graffiti art that covered big building walls. All of the graffiti was very colorful and attractive. These are two of many graffiti art works that could be seen.
There will be more women than men during the daytime in public spaces.
Valentine's first hypothesis was proven wrong. When we were in Barranco we saw more men than women walking around. The statistics of the 312 students show that each student recorded approximately 9 women seen per site, while 10 men were seen on each side by each student. Men were seen more because there were no parks to take their children to, men were also there selling and Valentine's statement was made in 1989, women work much more nowadays.
She made this prediction because women are less scared to go out during the day than at night and also because most men will work in offices while women run errands.
Graffiti makes people feel unsafe
Valentine's second theory is proved wrong. From the graph shown here, we can see how people felt positive about their surroundings. The question from these results was: "How does the graffiti make you feel." This shows how graffiti does not affect how people feel in certain places.
This theory was made in 1989 when graffiti was mostly vandalism acts and it was not considered art. The fact that it was vandalism could have been what made people feel unsafe, but now it can be admired as art.
Areas of decline make people feel unsafe
This theory is correct because areas of decline can be associated with areas of crime or places where people can easily hide. It looks like no one takes care of the place, which makes it seem that bad things could happen there, like crime. When a place looks messy or abandoned, people naturally avoid it because it feels dangerous.
How I used Survey123 to collect results
Survey123 helped us collect results because it was an easy way to have the recordings of each person who took the survey. It was an easy way to see all the graphs, data, and images people took from the places we visited. Also, it was effortless to work with. This enabled us to get many results from many people, making the graphs more accurate and reliable.
Test-Safe spaces in Barranco
Conclusion
Based on our results, it seems that Barranco might not be the best place to study the geography of fear. Even though we were able to collect important and useful data, we could have done more to make it better. Two of Valentine's hypotheses turned out to be incorrect, which suggests that the geography of fear doesn't apply to the areas of Barranco we visited. However, it's important to note that we went to Barranco during the day. It's well known that both men and women tend to feel safer during the day than at night, so this might have influenced our results. To get a clearer idea of wether Barranco is a good place to study the geography of fear, we should conduct surveys at different times, during the day and at night. This way, we could better understand how people's feelings of safety change depending on the time of day.
