CALL FOR ABSTRACTS FOR A SPECIAL ISSUE
DECOLONISING SPATIAL PLANNING EDUCATION AND RESEARCH IN EUROPE
Eurocentrism often presents itself as profound ignorance of Europeans about the European domination over lives outside Europe. Postcolonial studies call this ignorance colonial amnesia. Spatial planners suffer from colonial amnesia, for example, by ignoring that many European cities were built with revenues from slavery, overseas plantations and mines, and the exploitation of subjugated populations in Africa, South-West Asia, East Asia, Latin America, and Oceania. While fields like anthropology or geography have made progress in decolonising education and research, spatial planning only reluctantly addresses the colonial heritage of European cities and regions.
We invite the submission of abstracts (300 words) for a Special Issue of Town Planning Review on ‘Decolonising spatial planning education and research in Europe’:
Who is invited? Academics from the fields of spatial planning, urban planning, social or political geography, gender studies, planning history, urban sociology, planning law, architecture, heritage protection, post-colonial studies, or related fields.
We specifically encourage young academics and early career academics to submit an abstract!
Possible topics include
- planning with/inside/against the colonial heritage of European cities and regions
- deconstructing the colonial and hegemonic underpinnings of spatial planning goals and instruments in Europe
- questioning which contemporary planning ideas (e.g., sustainable development, resilience, climate-friendliness) continue colonial and hegemonic ideologies
- including critical awareness for the European colonial heritage into spatial planning education
- teaching post-colonial studies in European spatial planning schools
- forging an agenda or strategies for decolonising spatial planning education and research in Europe
Output format: In your abstract, please choose as your preferred output format either a viewpoint (2,000 to 4,000 words) or full research article (6,000 to 8,000 words). Both formats will be reviewed fully.
Submit no later than 30 January, 2025 (deadline for abstract submission)
Where do I submit? Please submit your abstract to the guest-editor.
Next steps An invitation to submit your viewpoint/article for review will go out mid-February. Your contribution must be submitted by 30 September, 2025.
Guest-editor Benjamin Davy (former Chair of Land Policy, Land Management, and Municipal Geoinformation, TU Dortmund University, and Visiting Professor of Law, University of Johannesburg), e-mail: benjamin.davy@udo,edu
Questions? Please ask Ben for more information!
