Cities around the world still bear a legacy of colonial pasts. Contemporary practices in urban place management, development, and policy often reinforce entrenched narratives that foster inequality and segregation. It is vital to develop approaches that ‘counterplot’ these narratives and help deliver better urban environments for all citizens.
This course unpacks the role of colonialism in shaping contemporary urban settings in the Global North and South. Participants will critically examine colonial logics in urban development and placemaking that reinforce spatial inequalities, dispossession and exclusion and the ways as practitioners we can counterplot against these injustices. Key themes that will be covered during the event by expert speakers include path dependency, decolonial practice and counter-mapping. Counter-mapping is a practice where maps are created to challenge dominant power structures and represent the perspectives of marginalized groups.
Participants will be:
- Challenged to reimagine urban development through a decolonial lens.
- Equipped with the knowledge and tools to re-shape systems to address colonial injustice and co-create urban futures that are fair and just.
The course will be taught in a hybrid format over three days through a mix of teaching methods such as lectures, case studies, workshop and a local field trip. The first day is online and can be taken as a stand-alone unit. Days two and three are in-person. On the first day, we will lay the foundation, bringing participants up to speed on core concepts and contemporary debates in decolonial theory in the urban. On the second day, we will trace through case studies from the Global North and South colonial path dependencies in urban settings and their social, cultural and economic implications within these places. The final day will be held in-person comprising of a workshop in the morning that explores ways of counterplotting in policy and practice against colonial logics to ensure fair and just urban futures. In the afternoon, participants will enjoy a walking tour (The Original Uncomfortable Oxford Tour) that explores the history of Oxford, underscoring how legacies of the empire, race, class and gender have shaped the city.