Speaker
Description
Public trust in democratic governance structures (including planning structures) is at historic lows (OECD, 2022), while attacks on democratic institutions, coupled with increasing support for ethnonationalist political parties, warrant palpable concerns for a looming anti-democratic/anti-planning turn, globally (Freedom House, 2021). But attacks on democracy and public-sector planning stem not only from right-wing nationalists. They also stem from a global political economy that is deliberately crafted to obviate scrutiny from democratic institutions. Said differently, since at least the late 1980s, neoliberal globalisation has eroded democratic planning practices, because power is transferred from citizens to transnational corporations that are not subject to direct democratic oversight (Purcell, 2009). To worsen matters, such transferences are supported by nation states that subscribe to a market democracy (disguised as liberal democracy).
Planning democracy 'otherwise'--which is grounded in decoloniality (Winkler, 2018) and its accompanying epistemologies of the South (Santos, 2016; 2020)--provide urban and regional planners with an opportunity to learn from the different democratic planning practices arising in the global South that are deliberately delinked from capitalism and globalisation. One such example is evidenced in South Africa's communal landholdings where residents deploy multiple principles of legitimacy to engender emplaced planning practices. But given the entwined relationship between planning and the state, and the state's support of market rationalities, decoloniality urges us to question if alternative praxes are possible beyond local settings. Findings presented in this article suggest that place-dependency diminishes transferability. Nevertheless, herein lies an 'otherwise' praxis' power to counter coloniality, while keeping alive Derrida's (2005) 'always to come' narrative that challenges the liberal tradition of democracy as the only, and most lucrative, outcome. This power allows planners to learn from the South; but not for the purpose of replicating its rich diversity, but rather for the purpose of being inspired by altogether different futures. And it offers a role for emplaced democratic planning theories and practices that are cognisant of pluriversality, relationality, popular knowledges, local experiences, and situated worldviews, whilst supporting and nurturing a 'politics of difference' (Mignolo and Walsh, 2018) and 'becomings in place' (Gibson-Graham, 2003), in tandem with 'idioms of autonomy and community' (Escobar, 2019).
References
Derrida, Jacques. (2005). Rogues: Two essays on reason. Stanford University Press.
Escobar, Arturo. (2007). Worlds and knowledges otherwise: The Latin American modernity/coloniality research program. Cultural Studies. 21(2—3): 179—210.
Escobar, Arturo. (2019). Thinking-feeling with the earth: Territorial struggles and the ontological dimension of the epistemologies of the South. In Boaventura de Sousa Santor and Maria Menese (eds). Knowledges born in the struggle: 40—57. New York: Routledge.
Gibson-Graham, Julie, Kathrine. (2003). Politics of empire, politics of place. Unpublished manuscript.
Mignolo, Walter and Walsh, Catherine. (2018). On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis. Durham: Duke University Press.
Purcell, Mark. (2009). Resisting neo-liberalization: Communicative planning or counter-hegemonic movements. Planning Theory. 8(2): 140—165.
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. (2016). Epistemologies of the South and the future. The European South. 1: 17—29.
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. (2020). A new vision for Europe: Learning from the global South. In Boaventura de Sousa Santos and José Mendes (eds). Demodiversity: Toward post-abyssal democracies. 31—53. New York: Routledge.
Winkler, Tanja. (2018). Black texts on white paper: Learning to see resistant texts as an
approach towards decolonising planning. Planning Theory. 17(4): 588—604.
| Keywords | liberal democracy; globalisation; coloniality; decoloniality; epistemologies of the South |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
