scholarly journals Decolonizing regional planning from the Global South: Active geographies and social struggles in Northeastern Brazil

2021 ◽  
pp. 026377582110246
Author(s):  
Federico Ferretti

This paper addresses the engagement of critical geographers from Northeastern Brazil with regional planning, aiming at transforming society by acting on their region’s spaces. Extending and putting in relation literature on planning theory in the Global South and geographical scholarship on decoloniality, I explore new archives showing how the planning work that these geographers performed from 1957 to 1964 was an example of the ‘South’ re-elaborating and putting into practice notions arising from ‘international’ literature, such as that of ‘active geography’, and pioneering critical uses of instruments, such as mappings and statistics, that have often been associated with technocracy and political conservatism. Connected with peasants’ struggles and with a theoretical framework that is cognisant of the colonial histories and insurgent Black and indigenous traditions in the Northeast, these geographers’ works show that there is no ‘Southern Theory’ without a concrete engagement of scholars with social and political problems, one which is not limited to ‘participation’, but aims at challenging the political powers in place. Although not devoid of contradictions that are analysed here, the experiences of these Southern geographers acting in and for the South can provide precious insights into current (Northern or Southern) scholarly programmes aimed at resisting oppression.

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (267-268) ◽  
pp. 259-263
Author(s):  
Stephanie Rudwick ◽  
Sinfree Makoni

Abstract In this short article we call for decolonization strategies in the Sociology of Language through a focus shift towards the global South, in particular Africa and a heightened attention to “race” as a significant category. We highlight three primary points that require critical attention in a decolonized Sociology of Language: (i) the identification of northern sociolinguistic theories which have been masked as universal and a critical shift towards theoretical frameworks emerging from the South; (ii) the acknowledgement of “white” privilege and “white fragility” in language studies and its related problem of ignoring “race” as a significant category, in scholarship as well as among authors/editors; and (iii) the under-representation of (especially female) scholars of colour in sociolinguistic research.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 1932
Author(s):  
Wenji Huang ◽  
Mingwang Xi ◽  
Shibao Lu ◽  
Farhad Taghizadeh-Hesary

In the long history of the feudal society of China, Kaifeng played a vital role. During the Northern Song Dynasty, Kaifeng became a worldwide metropolis. The important reason was that the Grand Canal, which was excavated during the Sui Dynasty, became the main transportation artery for the political and military center of the north and the economic center of the south. Furthermore, Kaifeng was located at the center of the Grand Canal, which made it the capital of the later Northern Song Dynasty. The Northern Song Dynasty was called “the canal-centered era.” The development of the canal caused a series of major changes in the society of the Northern Song Dynasty that were different from the previous ones, which directly led to the transportation revolution, and in turn, promoted the commercial revolution and the urbanization of Kaifeng. The development of commerce contributed to the agricultural and money revolutions. After the Northern Song Dynasty, the political center moved to the south. During the Yuan Dynasty, the excavation of the Grand Canal made it so that water transport did not have to pass through the Central Plains. The relocation of the political center and the change in the canal route made Kaifeng lose the value of connecting the north and south, resulting in the long-time fall of the Bianhe River. Kaifeng, which had prospered for more than 100 years, declined gradually, and by the end of the Qing Dynasty, it became a common town in the Central Plains. In ancient China, the rise and fall of cities and regions were closely related to the canal, and the relationship between Kaifeng and the Grand Canal was typical. The history may provide some inspiration for the increasingly severe urban and regional sustainable development issues in contemporary times.


2021 ◽  
pp. 147309522110011
Author(s):  
Esin Özdemir

In this article, I readdress the issue of rationality, which has been so far considered in western liberal democracies and in planning theory as procedural, and more recently as post-political in the post-foundational approach, aiming to show how it can gain a substantive and politicising character. I first discuss the problems and limits of the treatment of rational thinking as well as rational consensus-seeking as merely procedural and post-political. Secondly, utilising the notion of Realrationalität of Flyvbjerg, I discuss how rationality attains a politicising role due to its strong relationship with power. Using the concept of planning rationality aiming at public interest, I present the general position and actions of professional organisations in Turkey, focusing on the Chamber of City Planners, as an example illustrative of my argument. I finally argue that rationality becomes a substantive issue that politicizes planning, when it is put forward as an alternative to authoritarian market logic. In doing so, I adopt the Rancièrian definition of the political, defined as disclosure of a wrong and staging of equality. In conclusion, I first emphasize the importance of avoiding quick rejections of the concepts of rationality and consensus in the framework of planning activity and planning theory and secondly, call for a broader definition of the political; the political that is not confined to conflict but is open to rational thinking and rational consensus.


1975 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 21-28
Author(s):  
Cynthia H. Enloe

Virtually all of the literature concerning the politics of South Africa analyzes the dynamics of that system within the frameworks of racism, authoritarianism, and repression. Yet, strangely, the political institution which is necessarily the bulwark of such a system—the military—has attracted scant attention except in terms of strategy and armaments.


Author(s):  
Boaventura de Sousa Santos

Postcolonialism, decoloniality, and epistemologies of the South (ES) are three main ways of critically approaching the consequences of European colonialism in contemporary social, political, and cultural ways of thinking and acting. They converge in highlighting the unmeasurable sacrifice of human life; the expropriation of cultural and natural wealth; and the destruction, by suppressing, silencing, proscribing, or disfiguring, of non-European cultures and ways of knowing. The differences among them stem in part from the temporal and geographical contexts in which they emerged. Postcolonial studies emerged in the 1960s in the aftermath of the political independence of European colonies in Asia and Africa. They focused mainly on the economic, political, and cultural consequences of decolonization, highlighting the postindependence forms of economic dependence, political subordination, and cultural subalternization. They argue that while historical colonialism had ended (territorial occupation and ruling by a foreign country), colonialism continued under different guises. Decolonial studies emerged in the 1990s in Latin America. Since the political independence of the Latin American countries took place in the early 19th century, these analytical currents assumed that colonialism was over, but it had in fact been followed by coloniality, a global pattern of social interaction that inherited all the social and cultural corrosiveness of colonialism. Coloniality is conceived of as an all-encompassing racial understanding of social reality that permeates all realms of economic, social, political, and cultural life. Coloniality is the idea that whatever differs from the Eurocentric worldview is inferior, marginal, irrelevant, or dangerous. The ES, formulated in the 2000s, aim at naming and highlighting ancient and contemporary knowledges held by social groups as they resisted against modern Eurocentric domination. They conceive of modern science as a valid (and precious) type of knowledge but not as the only valid (and precious) type of knowledge; they insist on the possibility of interknowledge and intercultural translation. ES share with postcolonialism the idea that colonialism is not over. However, they insist that modern domination is constituted not only by colonialism but also by capitalism and patriarchy. Like decolonial studies, the ES denounce the cognitive and ontological destruction caused by coloniality, but they focus on the positiveness and creativity that emerge from knowledges born in struggle and on how they translate themselves into alternative ways of knowing and practicing self-determination.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Tironi ◽  
Katherine Campos-Knothe ◽  
Valentina Acuña ◽  
Enzo Isola ◽  
Cristóbal Bonelli ◽  
...  

PurposeBased on the research, the authors identify how four key concepts in disaster studies—agency, local scale, memory and vulnerability—are interrupted, and how these interruptions offer new perspectives for doing disaster research from and for the South.Design/methodology/approachMeta-analysis of case studies and revision of past and current collaborations of authors with communities across Chile.FindingsThe findings suggest that agency, local scale, memory and vulnerability, as fundamental concepts for disaster risk reduction (DRR) theory and practice, need to allow for ambivalences, ironies, granularization and further materializations. The authors identify these characteristics as the conditions that emerge when doing disaster research from within the disaster itself, perhaps the critical condition of what is usually known as the South.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to a reflexive assessment of fundamental concepts for critical disaster studies. The authors offer research-based and empirically rich redefinitions of these concepts. The authors also offer a novel understanding of the political and epistemological conditions of the “South” as both a geography and a project.


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