%0 Thesis
%9 Master
%A Witschaß, Eleonore
%D 2022
%F theses_frw:4081
%P 61
%T Everybody welcome?  How popularity limits the access to public parks
%U https://frw.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/4081/
%X Urban Environmental Injustice appears in public parks as a reflection of societal issues, limiting the accessibility of green spaces for different social groups. Factors of park design, functionality, and discourse impact the image and use of the park. Using a Feminist Political Ecology lens, this paper unwraps the underlying structures in the contrasting cases of the Clamart-Park and the Kurpark in Lüneburg (GER) from a past and current perspective. The experience of socio-natural relationality in the material context of the two parks is thereby at the core of the research. Social groups vulnerable to crime and queer people feel more comfortable in the strictly regulated and purposefully designed Kurpark. Social groups vulnerable to stigmatisation and socio-spatial exclusion use the Clamart-Park as a meeting point in the city centre. Conflicts occurring in the latter resemble deeper societal issues. The Clamart-Park’s narrative as a space of fear and the Kurpark’s regulations reinforce distributive injustice, reflecting exclusionary patterns for the affected groups. The low recognitional justice for marginalised groups intensifies this conflict. Procedural justice is partly achieved through round tables but faces limits of making everybody feel heard. Commoning practice, acknowledging both the needs of vulnerable users and their proposals to ease the tension in the parks, can help to overcome this issue. Finally, there is a need for more public spaces responding to the diverse needs of the citizens, as well as an increased flexibility in the social system’s structures to enable all groups to participate in creative commoning projects.