Decolonial approaches to thinking planning and power

Libby Porter

Chapter 11 in Handbook on Planning and Power, 2023, pp 165-180 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Conceptualisations of power are themselves shaped by histories and structures of colonialism and imperialism. Theoretical constructs about power, which have been covered extensively in this book, offer important insights into the differential impact of power on people marked as different. Yet within colonial relations of power that impact has very specific contours of violence that are often glossed over when considered through the grand theoretical constructs of power derived from northern theory. Moreover, the continued conceptualisation of power as if its contours are universal too often constitutes a further manifestation and operationalisation of power itself - a wielding of conceptualisations of power in the interests of power. This chapter grapples with this challenging dynamic within the very act of conceptualising power. To do so, the chapter brings to the fore understandings from decolonial writings and practices to unsettle often unstated assumptions about how to know and see power arguing for pluri-versal, rather than uni-versal, ethics and concepts. Decoloniality brings attention to two especially important dynamics: first, the particular logics of power as seen in the colonial relation; and second the relations of power operating in the epistemological work involved in conceptualising power and transmitting those conceptualisations. The chapter draws on key case studies from around the world of the contemporary operation of colonial power to demonstrate the argument. In doing so, students of planning and power are engaged with a diverse range of thinkers, scholars and activists to consider fresh questions about power and the importance of a decolonial lens for contemporary theory and practice.

Keywords: Geography; Politics and Public Policy Urban and Regional Studies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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