Description
Medellín's approach to urban development, within a historical setting of extreme violence, is widely celebrated for innovation in planning and managing a challenging urban environment. In acknowledging institutions, such as the local government, as significant sites for that reflect and (re)production of gender norms (Mackay and Krook, 2011; Kenny, 2014), they also become key sites of potential change and transformation. In a government that is celebrated as having facilitated transformational change, questioning the incorporation and treatment of gender within the urban development agenda is significant. Medellín champions their adoption of gender mainstreaming, but in outlining how gender and gender relations are framed in policy and across the local government, this paper shows that a lack of tools and a coherent understanding across the institution leads to a fragmented incorporation and continued separation of gender as a particular concern left to sympathetic individuals and gender experts. In particular, the separation of gender-based violence as distinct from the wider context of violence further highlights the relegation of women, and gender, from the city's security priorities, in ways that undermine the broader discussion of urban transformation.
