Equipo / Personal docente e investigador
Blanca Valdivia
Post doctoral fellow Juan de la Cierva
Blanca holds a Ph.D. (2021) in Urban and Architectural Management and Valuation from the Barcelona School of Architecture from the Technical University of Catalonia. Her thesis is “Caring City: Urban Quality of Life from a Feminist Perspective”. She has a degree in sociology from the Complutense University of Madrid.
She has been co-founder of the Cooperativa Col·lectiu Punt 6, a reference entity in the field of feminist urban planning in Catalonia and internationally. With Col·lectiu Punt 6 they have published an essay “Urbanismo Feminista. Por una transformación radical de los espacios de vida” and 7 guides on urbanism and mobility with a gender perspective.
Between 2009-2015 she was researcher in the Center of Land Policy and Valuations from the Barcelona School of Architecture (UPC) in different projects about housing, public space and immigration.
She has given numerous trainings on urbanism and care from a gender perspective for technical staff of public institutions and several Universities in Spain and Latin America (Universidad Complutense, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Universidad de Córdoba, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Universidad de Concepción, Universidad de Montevideo…). She has been associated professor in the Department of Geography at the UAB.
She has published scientific and informative articles on the concept of the caring city, for which she was one of the first initiators.
In 2021 she won the Francesca Bonnemaison award from the Diputació de Barcelona for the project “Urban ecosystem of care support in the municipalities of Barcelona”. Awarded as selected idea in the open call of Future Architecture Platform 2021, with the project “The Caring city”. In 2020 her project “Creation of a network of environmental and care shelters in the Prosperitat neighbourhood” was awarded with the Premi 8 de març de l’Ajuntament de Barcelona 2020.
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Departament de Sociologia
Campus UAB- Edifici B
08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès (Barcelona)
Spain
Areas of specialization
Her main line of research focuses on analyzing the link between urban characteristics and the social organization of care. She has contributed to the construction of the conceptual framework of the “Caring City”, as a concept that seeks to articulate the needs of people to be able to care in urban spaces.
The research she is carrying out at QUIT is “Urban public and community care support infrastructures”. The starting point is the theoretical discussion around the social organization of care and the empirical evidence of the last decades that suggest a crisis in the public care system, due to the increase of the population in need of care on a continuous basis and the structural deficiencies of the welfare system.
The research proposes to deepen the study of urban infrastructures as a fundamental element to provide a physical support for the management and provision of care, both from the community dimension, as well as from the public policy.
Selected bibliography
Valdivia, Blanca & Ortiz Escalante, Sara (2024) Feminist Urban Planning: Women Transforming Territories through Participatory Action Methods. In: Miguel Martínez: Research Handbook on Urban Sociology Ed: Routledge
Valdivia, Blanca (2024) Recursos urbans de suport a les cures als municipis de Barcelona. Diputació de Barcelona
Valdivia, Blanca (2023) Territorios cuidadores. La propuesta de la bioregión desde la dimensión de los cuidados. In: Nerea Moran & José Luis Fernández: BIORREGIONES. De la globalización imposible a las redes territoriales ecosostenibles. Editorial Icaria
Valdivia, Blanca (2022) Ciudades que cuidan: transformar el espacio para priorizar la vida. Barcelona Metropolis
