Sara Larrabure is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. From September to November 2023, she will be part of the INTERMAPS group as a visiting researcher. We will collaborate and work together by sharing insights, experiences, and knowledge.

About her predoctoral research, she shares the following: "My PhD project aims to investigate the effects of tourism in Lisbon city centre by promoting a conversation between the literature on the impacts of urban tourism and feminist urbanism. The hypothesis is that the marketing of the city as a tourist commodity linked to patriarchal structures can reinforce gender inequality and offer even more challenges to vulnerable groups such as women and elderly people, as tourism transforms spaces and services necessary for social reproduction. More specifically, I use feminist epistemologies to incorporate the distinct lived experiences of women, through an intersectional study. The project explores in detail 3 themes: public spaces, retail and social capital. How overcrowding of public spaces, tourism-induced retail change and transformations in the social capital of the area are experienced by women residents? I argue for the incorporation of feminism urbanism as a social justice theory and praxis in urban policy strategies in tourist cities. The reason why I am so interested in this study is because I feel that I belong to it, not only because I am a woman, but also because I am a Brazilian immigrant living in Lisbon. And my study is about the influence that visitor mobility (tourists but also short-term residents or new residents, like me) has on the changing dynamics of the city."

We are sure that her research stay will be very beneficial for both the INTERMAPS project, as well as her own PhD research.