I receive this award as a form of recognition of the efforts made not only in my PhD, but as a young researcher. It encourages me to continue my work with women in the favelas and to diversify my case studies to other urban and national contexts. I hope that receiving this award will serve as a testimony to the seriousness of my commitment and the rigour of my work.
Anne-Marie Veillette
Ph.D. in urban studies, 2022
Centre Urbanisation Culture Société
Supervisor: Julie-Anne Boudreau
2023 Best doctoral dissertation awardee
Anne-Marie’s research is a remarkable transdisciplinary contribution to feminist and decolonial debates. Her dissertation “The City of Women: Understanding Urban Transformation from the Perspective of Women in the Favelas of Rio de Janeiro” is an ethnographic research with 60 women from favelas. The result is captivating because of its rigour, the depth of its reflections and its engaging writing style. The look at urban transformations from the perspective of women and their bodies is of major importance for the field of urban studies.
What brought you to INRS? What do you take away from your experience?
I was attracted to the Centre Urbanisation Culture Société at INRS because it is unique in Quebec. Few research centres attract such a wide range of researchers on urban issues. The centre corresponds well to my own desire to do research in a transdisciplinary perspective.
What I remember most about my experience at INRS is the dynamism of the research. There is always a wide range of projects underway, with a strong involvement in their field.
Can you describe the challenge and impact of the research presented in your doctoral dissertation?
In Brazil, favelas are subject to many stereotypes that combine those of the poor, women and Afrodescendants. In this context, women's contributions to the city—and especially to the women of the favelas—remain largely invisible. This is reflected in the way they are treated in academic research. As women from the “slums” of the global South, it is often through issues of violence and poverty that we find them in urban studies research. In research that focuses directly on favelas, women are rarely the protagonists, let alone from a perspective that allows for the analysis of this protagonism in light of gendered and racialised power relations. Taken together, these social and scientific representations of favela women do not allow them to be seen as agents of transformation, even though in reality they support entire families, communities and urban networks.
This is why, in my thesis, I insist on the importance of reviewing the ways in which we produce knowledge about the city, in order to take into consideration the impacts of “other” knowledge on urban transformations.
What does it mean to you to receive this award?
Working in the favelas is a big challenge for an outsider. I receive this award as a form of recognition of the efforts I have made not only in my PhD, but as a young researcher. It also encourages me to continue my work with women in the favelas and to diversify my case studies to other urban and national contexts. I hope that winning this award will be a testament to the seriousness of my commitment and the rigour of my work.
What is the next chapter for you now that you have graduated?
I hope to use the foundation developed during my PhD to continue my research and open it up to other cities across the Americas. This is what I am currently doing as a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania and what I hope to continue doing in the long term.