A Living Room in the City: The Place of Public Space in the Everyday Lives of Middle Eastern Women in South East Queensland

With the first step people take out of their homes they enter into public territory. Creating the feeling of comfort for each urban dweller in this wide territory of many is one of the significant visions urban planners tend to consider in production of urban spaces for public life.

This study is an investigation of everyday experiences of Middle Eastern women in public spaces of South East Queensland (SEQ); an investigation into the understanding of these women of the quality and suitability of these public spaces. The aim is to answer questions about the roles that urban spaces play in their daily lives and to find ways of making better connections between their everyday experience as migrants and public spaces as a constituent element of social life. The region of interest for this study is South East Queensland which hosts a multitude of immigrants from an array of cultures and ethnicities thus providing an ideal template of a multicultural city. Phenomenology is the research approach adopted in this study as it well suited to study of the phenomenon of public space for particular group in a particular context.

Advisors:  Dr Dorina Pojani, Dr Iderlina Mateo-Babiano