IDE / HALUAN
Decolonizing Spatial Planning with Conversational Research
Planning is more than a disciplinary tool to manage our living space
I returned to the collection of my past fieldwork in Cirompang, Banten. A local farmer once asked me a powerful question. He saw me as someone who knew everything as I lived in the city and was finishing higher education. The fact was they knew better, and thus I learned a lot from them. His question was:
“Neng, if agriculture embodies a meaning of farming as part of our culture or a way of everyday life, why are students today focusing on agrotechnology? Do they believe that farming is no longer a part of our culture? Why do they disassociate the word of culture?” (Aki, translated from Bahasa, 2019)
It was a moment where all my rationalities froze, and I only replied with a long silence. I went into rumination onward about how knowledge had developed and changed, thus it might disassociate its rooted meaning. Without relating agriculture to a significant concept by prominent thinkers, I learned how Aki had allied it in a literal way to see the relation of farming as part of the culture. Therefore, when agrotechnology existed, and the word culture disappeared, he could automatically understand that farming was no longer part of the culture.
Simple, yet very deep.
He explained more that he felt agrotechnology appeared with the intensification of food production. It marked the involvement of massive engineering systems in cultivation patterns. If we saw it through the lens of modern rationality, it was sensible as the demand for food increased. But, as someone who also lived in the farming area, this mechanization somehow harmed their soil. He argued how this trend could indirectly push some villagers to give up on land and sell it to corporations as their soil was degraded.
From this conversation, I witnessed the development of knowledge perceived differently between the local inhabitants on their land and some scholars out here. Indeed, it is not totally a bad idea. But, somehow, it reflects what Mignolo (2017:288) wrote about “racial classification” in which this context remarks that agrotechnology is not always an ontological reality (especially, in the South), but a rationality made up by the people who defined themselves as modern or civilized.
What an intro. But, by this point, we can start to question by which rationality is (our) spatial planning speaking. I hope my embodiment as a planning scholar can legitimize some assumptions I will explore further.
Decoloniality and Spatial Planning?
I encountered Decoloniality as a research methodology concerned with modern and colonial structures of power and knowledge. I added space, as we will talk about planning. Decoloniality is an “epistemic turn” to the South cognitive (Mignolo, 2018). In other words, it is a way to think far from the dominant structure, especially the West and its modernization.
As a person born and raised in the South, I always find Decoloniality to be an exciting approach to unmasking a consciousness that somehow posits knowledge as a disciplinary tool (Mignolo, 2022). The importance emphasized by this approach is how we could go beyond epistemology, or the “intelligently” way of judging the world (behind the subjective), and delink the research from coloniality power. Considering spatial planning, this approach invited me to not conflate the planning in the South with the rationale shaped by the epistemic references of the West.
When I was in my undergraduate study, I was always confused when applying some urban concept development during the studio, such as transit-oriented development (TOD), smart city, and many more. Don’t take it wrong, I loved the programme. But somehow, I questioned a lot about why I was doing what I was doing. I noticed how these concepts popped up everywhere, became trends, and were replicated in every city in Indonesia. I solemnly question, where do these come from?
My comprehension of planning was tightly linked to economic logic. “We need to govern land with uses that productively create economic growth,” that was it. At that stage, I stumbled upon Christaller’s (1966) theory of city expansion to serve the central market for the rural area, Weber’s (1929) stance that location should be efficiently governed to obtain market proximity, and lastly, McCann’s (2001) exploration of the list of economic logic to every decision for whom and on what occasion the land should be provided. Therefore I understand why the emerging urban development concepts became restrictive and supportive to control people close to the market (e.g. TOD).
Maybe you question me, is it wrong to apply these epistemic references in our spatial planning? My answer would be: not at all. However, my point is how we can use Decoloniality to control our consciousness of what we understand about planning theory, where it comes from, and to what extent it relates to our context.
Contextualizing Spatial Planning Decoloniality: Urban Kampong
Historically said, spatial planning was a governing technique during the colonialization period to create spatial orders. Its West trajectory now guides the role of the modern state in restructuring spatial forms toward planning (Putri, 2019). We can see it from architectural building features, squares, organized housing complexes, modernist public buildings, and megaproject infrastructures. Modernity has become the regime of order in which “the sight of unruliness would have to be removed or given a place in order to guarantee the presence of the proper” (Kusno 2010:189).
Let’s raise urban kampong as an example.
Urban kampong, a type of settlement unique to Indonesia, is associated with informal, slum areas with narrow roads, high-density population, irregularity, and substandard house structures. This is what Kusno (2010) refers to as “unruly” which contradicts the mission of planning. Therefore, instead of seeing urban kampong as a part of the urban ecosystem, it is more known as the “other-self” of the city, with narratives of informality, disorganized, uncleanness, noise, and close to criminality. Those situations led the policymakers to “control” the urban kampong, through a revitalization program or just simply eliminating it.
The colonial government actively influenced spatial fragmentation. Kampung communities responded to the exclusion and oppression imposed by the colonial regime by living with or close to specific ethnic groups and maintaining traditional socio-economic networks.” (Putri, 2019: 808)
Decoloniality in spatial planning is a useful approach to tackle the way we see this other-self of the city. We escape the way we see the world from the colonial power structure, which is until now still dominating the way we perceive knowledge. But how can we do it?
“Conversational” Planning: Notes to Planners
One of the learnings that I feel is relevant to this case is using a “conversational” method. Conversational planning is my contextualization which refers to the planning product that is based on conversational research. This approach is carried out by Aminata Cairo. Her approach is also commonly known as “holding space” or a means to hold stories that are normally “overlooked, silenced, marginalized, or dismissed” because these stories are excluded by the dominating power.
A planning product is always based on evidence-based research. Collecting data from various sources and crafting them into an issue tree so planners can focus on unveiling the root cause of a problem. The conversational can intervene in the research process by hearing the story of people. Treating all stories equally is a way to validate by understanding their rationality and positionality. This approach entails an appreciation aptitude for the stories that we hear. I remember when I was in a studio during my undergraduate program, my teacher said, “Don’t misrepresent the problem!” And in another chance of learning, another teacher also said to me, “Sometimes, our problem (as researcher or planner) is not their (things we study) problem. Also, your problem is not a planning problem.”
Confusing? Yes. Challenging? Yes. That is why we need to open our eyes and ears more. Planning is a process, a journey in pursuing stories and accepting them in all forms, not shaping them into one form.
Planners need to acknowledge that planning is not merely a disciplinary tool but a process of nurturing relationships between them and the object they study. If we have ever heard about “bottom-up planning”, this approach is more about the practice within it. We can accommodate the approach by understanding stories through the art of listening.
We need to stay away from the rationality that we earn, the legal guidance that we need to obey, or the assumptions of any single story that we hear. We need to free ourselves from colonizing a community or a concept based on what we want or the setting pressures.
Conversational Way to Understand Urban Kampong
Let me position myself to understand urban kampong from what I had heard and seen while I lived for a year in Bandung. Maybe, you have your own stories too.
For me, the kampong is such a place of resistance. For those who are local inhabitants, it is a space of survival to stay alive from the ever-encroaching urban capitalism. For those who have just come to the city, it is an alternative to live close to the city center with more affordable prices. Everyone has their own form of resistance to staying close to the city center.
This view is also reflected in the spatial fragmentation carried by modernity and the property market as the dominant power. They have colonized the idea of housing in the planning area, influencing the existence of the city center and providing an idea of settlement nearby as a “commodity” that merely can be afforded by the upper class.
Therefore, people living in the kampong are associated with “low-income” families who can not afford a more modernized or decent house. This view is also related to land valuation. The closer a place is to the business district, the higher its value and prices.
But again, by which rationality does this valuation refer? Why is it excluding the equal rights of people to access housing close to the city center? If yes, it is only for the people with a bunch of money, what about these people who can not afford it? And then these people can survive in the kampong, but why is it still a problem and become an object of eviction?
After stories that I heard and saw, I raised more questions as above. Escaping to what policy-makers said that the urban kampong needs to be displaced, for example. This is because I witnessed the stories. We can do the meaning-making of space for everyone, for those who are usually dismissed and colonized by the existing power.
For Us, to Rethink
This writing is not a prescription of what we need to do as planners, nor a mandatory change for our spatial planning. This piece is a story. It speaks to us and asks us to rethink an approach that can help us to unmask the domination of power and space knowledge.
For me, it has helped me to deconstruct definitions and standards that are applicable and must be obeyed. It constructs a collective story and looks at everyone’s problem as a whole but still in all forms. It shows me that we can escape ourselves from the logic of coloniality, a powerful structure that always gives us the order to govern space only in the interest of the elite few.
Currently, many practices in planning already reflect decoloniality. Planning is evolving and becoming more respectful to the sovereign and pluriversal citizenship, which encouraged its practical approach to be more collaborative and participative (Putri 2019:208). We need to be proud. But connecting ourselves to this decolonial mindset can be your choice too.
Note: this idea of writing is my personal rumination during my participation in the ‘Decolonial Research and Context’ course. I would like to thank Rosalba Icaza and Aminata Cairo for their sharing and learning.
References:
Cairo, A., Misiedjan, D. and Uden, J. van (2021) Holding space : a storytelling approach to trampling diversity and inclusion. Amsterdam: Aminata Cairo Consultancy.Kusno, A. (2010) Urban Pedagogy in The appearances of memory : mnemonic practices of architecture and urban form in indonesia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press (Asia-Pacific, culture, politics, and society). doi: 10.1515/9780822392576.Mignolo, W. (2017) The Advent of Black Thinkers and the Limits of Continental Philosophy. In The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosohpy (pp. 255–286)Mignolo, W. (2018) The Conceptual Triad: Modernity/Coloniality/Decoloniality. In On Decoloniality Concepts, Analytics, Praxis (pp. 135–152)Mignolo, W. (2022) ‘The Place of Enunciation in Decolonial Investigation’. Pre-recorded Lecture with Rosalba Icaza, MA in Development Studies, International Institute of Social Studies.Putri, P. W. (2019) “Sanitizing Jakarta: Decolonizing Planning and Kampung Imaginary,” Planning Perspectives, 34(5), pp. 805–825. doi: 10.1080/02665433.2018.1453861.
