Le discours international sur l’approche Femmes et Villes et sa traduction au Vietnam

Since the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements in 1996 (Habitat II), the women and cities approach, which involves intervening in urban environments by taking gender issues into consideration, has become part of the discourse of various actors, including numerous international organizations (Michaud 1997; Biarrotte 2017). The discourse around this approach has been circulating all the more internationally since organizations working in international development are increasingly taking note of rapid urbanization in the South by reorienting their work towards cities (Clerc 2005). At the same time, a growing concern for gender issues has resulted from the impetus of transnational feminist movements who are campaigning, notably within international forums, for these issues to be taken into account in the way cities are planned (Brown 1997; Gabizon 2016). Today, we can observe what might be called an “urban gender agenda” (Chant and McIlwaine 2015, 14) that is embodied, for example, in global normative frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the New Agenda for Cities (Moser 2017). Various actors are circulating this international discourse around the world, including in Vietnam, where we’ve been seeing a number of initiatives in line with this approach in recent years. Contributing to the feminist literature in urban studies by drawing on work on the mobilities of urban policies and those on the circulation of the international norm of Gender Equality, this thesis revolves around the following research question: how is the international discourse on the women and cities approach translated in Vietnam, and through which passers-by? Adopting a multi-scale conceptual approach focused on actors, the thesis analyzes this translation using interview data with international and Vietnamese organizations, a documentary analysis and a press review. This analysis first characterizes the international discourse on the women and cities approach, and sheds light on the mechanisms underlying its circulation around the world. Secondly, the thesis analyzes the way in which the women and cities approach takes shape in Vietnam, thanks to the translation processes carried out by the approach’s intermediaries. This analysis also highlights the influence of the Vietnamese context, in its political and social dimensions, on the translation of the women and cities approach in this country. The analysis of the Vietnamese case highlights the decisive role of translation processes in the circulation of international discourse on the women and cities approach throughout the world.