City Research Online

Abstract

Personal safety apps provide new ways for crime data to be utilised by citizens within the context of urban mobilities. Yet, high-profile stories reveal the fear many women continue to experience in their daily lives. Operating as locative media, personal safety apps seem to imply environments can simply be avoided. This is not always possible. Women students attending a city-based university, for example, might have to move through various urban spaces to get to their institution. Using a bespoke chatbot app for recording the experience of environments rather than avoiding them and semi-structured interviews, the purpose of this article is to examine the experiential fear of crime women students attending a city-based university experience in their daily lives. Between May and June 2022, 24 students who identify as women and attend a London-based university took part in this project. Our research first explored the question, how does experiential fear of crime frame the experience or moving through a city-based university? Second, how does experiential fear of crime frame the experience of ambulating the wider urban environment beyond campus? The article contributes to the wider field of locative media, by revealing how fear can shape extant understandings of digital wayfaring.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Copyright © 2023, the authors.
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GA Mathematical geography. Cartography H Social Sciences > HM Sociology H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science T Technology
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs > Sociology & Criminology
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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