Safe space: Black "Third World Women” forms of kinship in Zürich since the 1970s.

safe space: remembering Treffpunkt Schwarzer Frauen in Zürich (1980s-2010)

From the 1970s, migration from African countries began to notably increase in Switzerland. Whilst the social, economic, physical and political ramifications of the white Swiss nuclear family ideal have been dire for women, “Third World Women" have persisted to create liveable geographies for themselves, as evidenced by projects such as the Treffpunkt Schwarzer Frauen in Zurich (1990–2010). The research reclaims the contested term “Third World Woman”, to describe racialised Black foreign women, as a means of distinguishing intersectionalities of risk perpetuated by Western imperialism. 

Whilst many initiatives that emerged in the 1970s were critical for the progress of women’s liberation, these projects often treated the intersectional experiences of racialised migrant women in Zurich as subordinate. What forms of kinship have Black “Third World Women” constructed to make liveable geographies for themselves in the wake of racial-sexual violences in Zürich since the 1970s until today? The Treffpunkt Schwarzer Frauen in Zürich stands out as an exceptional case in the history of the women’s libration in Switzerland in that by providing a meeting place and resource centre for women of Black heritage, it served as an opening for often isolated women to access a wider constellation of social and cultural infrastructure, all at once facilitated by the provision of a physical space. This research proposes to understand the Treffpunkt Schwarzer Frauen in Zurich as a safe space infrastructure, illuminating how resources such as domestic labour, social support, finance and legal aid were assembled, channeled and shared by Black foreign women in the city. What lessons might we learn from these forms of kinship that liberate and emancipate women from conditions of hostility and violence, reimagining safe space as affirming and empowering?

Since 2010, the Treffpunkt Schwarzer Frauen in Zürich no longer exists and no perceivable architectural traces can be found where it stood. The archive of it’s life sits in the mouths of those who frequented it, lingers in personal photo albums, and appears scarcely in publicly accessible texts. A key ambition of this PhD is to construct a spatial archive of the project by excavating and assembling the oral histories that figure this space, ultimately illuminating it’s historical significance and cultural heritage. This methodological approach offers one way of spatially remembering, through intertwined sonic and visual imprints.   

The work is a homage to and an affirmation of the histories and existence of Black foreign women who have have affected, affect and will continue to affect space in Zürich.