The Map Was Very Dark: Place, Knowledge and Decoloniality in Planning Research and Practice
Mark your calendars and join the Latin American Cities collective co-directed by Prof. Magdalena Novoa for Dr. Bjorn Sletto’s talk, “The Map Was Very Dark: Place, Knowledge and Decoloniality in Planning Research and Practice” on September 26 at 5pm, at the Levis Center, Room 300 (919 W Illinois St).
Dr. Sletto will also lead a workshop on Participatory mapping on Friday September 27. If you’re interested in joining us for this workshop email dm38@illinois.edu. Availability for this workshop is very limited.
His lecture will explore how decolonizing planning research and practice calls on us to engage thoughtfully and respectfully with different ontological positions and epistemological perspectives. He will share stories from his research and practice with Indigenous communities in Venezuela, residents of informal settlements in the Dominican Republic, and environmental justice communities in Austin, Texas. He will discuss the many crossings of epistemological and ontological differences such work entails and the opportunities for co-production resulting from transboundary, place-based research.
Dr. Bjorn Sletto is a Professor of Community and Regional Planning at the University of Texas at Austin.
His research interests include insurgent and decolonial planning, community-based research, and environmental justice. He has engaged in activist scholarship related to Indigenous territoriality and participatory mapping in Venezuela; urban informality in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and community-based environmental justice work and park planning in Austin, Texas. He is co-editor of Radical Cartographies: Participatory Mapmaking from Latin America (UT Press) and Decolonizing Planning: Power and Knowledge in the Informal City (Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming).