Abstract
This research investigates how individuals’ migration, gender, cultural, and religious backgrounds impact the use and experience of urban spaces within the city by explicitly looking at the lives of migrant Muslim women living in Dunedin, to understand how they interact with their new environments after migration, and how the design and planning of public spaces shape their spatial practices. A phenomenological approach is employed to build an intimate understanding of how migrant Muslim women make sense of their urban environment in light of their personal experiences within public spaces. An insight into how this sub-cultural group uses public space helps uncover how well planning policies or initiatives address the needs of ethnic minorities.
The research demonstrates that despite the increasing multiculturalism within New Zealand, the planning measures lack responsiveness or awareness towards the needs of multi-ethnic groups. Although New Zealand has tried to resolve the marginalisation of the indigenous Māori by making positive strides in addressing their planning needs and aspirations, the planning system still primarily reflects the dominant cultural values and fails to accommodate the specific needs of other ethnic minorities like the migrant Muslim women. The planners largely following modernist rhetoric assume the sameness of everyone’s needs. However, the research demonstrates that ethnic groups like migrant Muslim women may have different planning needs and requirements to engage in public consultations based on cultural and religious predispositions. Therefore, given the current demographical reality of New Zealand, the study (using the example of migrant Muslim women in Dunedin) recommends that the planners must allow for reasonable accommodations to address the specific needs of the diverse cultural groups in New Zealand and educate themselves about the cultural groups and multicultural planning.