A campus far removed: affect, genders, and space at Argentina’s largest public university

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the ways of inhabiting the university from the affective experience of those who spend time there daily, using the University of Buenos Aires campus as a case study. The article focuses specifically on what places make students or professors feel unsafe and what relationship that perception has with their gender identity. A second aim was to analyse what spaces the university community would like to modify to produce a more inclusive campus. Specifically, this article explores the affective experiences of using non-binary, gender-neutral bathrooms, what emotions people experience when walking around the campus at night, what places need improvements according to students and professors, and how gender influences what places are experienced as a source of pleasure or fear. Findings showed that different spaces generate a wide arc of emotions that range from comfort and pleasure to discomfort and fear, and that gender influences these emotions. The data obtained indicate that spaces such as bathrooms, outdoor spaces, and rest areas are experienced in terms of gender identity, topophilias – place attachment, and topophobias – place rejection, and they organise the everyday life of the university community.