Insurgent Urban Planning in the Global South
Summary
Insurgent urban planning encompasses a spectrum of grassroots, often informal, practices that challenge top-down modes of city development in regions of the Global South. Rooted in decolonial critique and social justice advocacy, it foregrounds the strategic appropriation of urban space by marginalised communities to secure livelihoods, basic services and political recognition. Such practices range from community-led mapping of informal settlements to collective redesign of public spaces, and they frequently intersect with digital activism, popular media and local governance networks. By operating both within and outside official frameworks, insurgent planners reconfigure notions of expertise, authority and citizenship in rapidly urbanising contexts. Their interventions have reshaped infrastructure provision, contested exclusionary land policies and offered alternative models of resilience and inclusion that speak directly to the inequities emblazoned across postcolonial metropolises.
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Insurgent Urban Planning in the Global South publication trend
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Technical terms
Insurgent planning: Collective, often informal, spatial practices that contest official planning paradigms in urban contexts.
Counter-hegemony: Actions or discourses intended to disrupt prevailing power structures and dominant ideologies.
Decolonisation: The process of challenging and dismantling colonial legacies in knowledge, governance and spatial organisation.
Informality: Economic and spatial activities or settlements that operate outside formal legal or regulatory frameworks.
Social innovation: Novel solutions, often community-rooted, that address complex social challenges through collaborative design.
Community-led planning: Participatory approaches in which residents assume leadership in envisioning, designing and implementing urban interventions.
References
- Transforming planning and policy making processes at the intersections of climate, equity, and decolonization challenges. npj Urban Sustainability (2023).
- Shifting Approaches to Planning Theory: Global North and South. Urban Planning (2016).
- INSURGENT PLANNING IN PANDEMIC TIMES: The Case of Rio de Janeiro. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (2020).
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