COUNTEPOWER AND INSURGENCY
UP 801: Concepts and Issues in Planning and Development
Instructor: Dr. Deyanira Nevarez Martinez
MURP
Escarleth Cucurachi Ortega
Planning as societal guidance VS
Planning as social transformation
Basis of Radical Planning
Analysis and Critique of Radical Planning
A study from participation in Radical Planning
Analysis and Perspective of Planning
Radical Planning & Insurgency
A study from examples in Insurgency Planning
1987 Friedmann 2003 Beard CANADA INDONESIA 2004 Sandercock CANADA 2009 Miraftab BOLIVIA BRAZIL SOUTH AFRICA
1987
John Friedmann“Planning as Social Mobilization”
Planning as societal guidance
VS Planning as social transformation
Social Mobilization Radical Planning
Three Major Sub-Traditions
Utopianism
Social Anarchism
Historical Materialism
What
is the Project?
The emancipation of humanity from social oppression
Who is the Client?
The client is the mobilized community or group
What Knowledge is Relevant?
What Do Radical Planners Do?
1. Critique of the present situation
2. Help communities and groups (already mobilized) to search for practical solutions to the problems perceived by them
3. Devising an appropriate strategy
4. Help with technical aspects
5. Conscious use of social learning
6. Share our experience (video, film, and writing)
7. Must be ideologically committed to the transformative project
8. Ensure the widest participation of all members
9. Put together statements that will serve these several purposes
10. Must never be far removed from the action itself
Could radical planning start from the problems perceived by urban planners?
2003
VictoriaA. Beard“
Learning radical planning: The power of collective action”
“
1. How does a politically oppressed group learn the skills and gain the experience and confidence to organize against a more powerful repressive force?
Analysis of Friedmann's statements Critique
“It is unclear from his normative model what mechanism or experiences enable a community to arrive at this crucial starting point.”(p.18)
2. How does a community engage in radical planning in extremely restrictive socio-political environments?
3. What is the relationship between radical planning and other modes of planning (e.g., rational-comprehensive, communitybased, and collaborative planning? (p.20)
The Study
INDONESIA
Participation
Mother and child health care clinic
Mobilization
The health care clinic for the elderly
Communitybased planning
The Jumat Kliwon’s repaving effort
Covert planning
The RW’s repaving effort
Covert to radical planning
The Library
1. Conclusions
“…experiences teach vital skills that can be used to organize outside of, and even in opposition to, the State. Participation in State programs taught residents about the limitations of State structures and the power and possibilities of mobilization.”(p.29)
2. “After experiencing success (albeit modest), the tangible improvement of their organizational skills, and increased confidence, residents begin to get a sense of their own agency and become politically conscious. This is a crucial precursor to overt radical action.”(p.30)
3. “It is important, however, to recognize that the mode of planning practice a community engages in moves constantly in different directions along a continuum between societal guidance and social transformation.”(p.30)
Do you think the success of social mobilization is necessary for radical planning?
2004
Leonie Sandercock“Towards a Planning Imagination for the 21st Century”
Do you believe planning must be political? Why?
“…planning practices have always been deeply interested rather than disinterested, deeply implicated in politics and in communicative acts.134)
Three senses in which we are always political beings.
“I see planning as an always unfinished social project whose task is managing our coexistence in the shared spaces of cities and neighborhoods in such a way as to enrich human life and to work for social, cultural, and environmental justice.”(p.134)
The choice about for whom and for what to work
We decide to act strategically
Our apparently technical work itself
Daring to break the rules
“The second greatest risk is to involve the public in decision making (as opposed to mere consultation) because that involves surrendering some control, and people who hold power are not usually predisposed to share or devolve it.”(p.136)
Expanding the Creative Capacities
“Another way of tapping, releasing, and nurturing a creative imagination in planning is by working collaboratively with artists.”(p.138)
Do you believe that a more artistic approach would be beneficial for planning?
More TherapeuticApproach
“When planning disputes are entangled in such emotional and symbolic, as well as material, battles, there is a need for a language and process of emotional involvement and resolution.” (p.139)
What is the current approach that planners use for these kinds of conflicts?
2009
Faranak Miraftab
“Insurgent planning: Situating radical planning in the global south.”
Insurgent planning is transgressive in time, place, and action.
Insurgent planning is counter-hegemonic.
Insurgent planning is imaginative.
BOLIVIA
First indigenous president
BRAZIL
Disrupt the normalized relations produced through differentiated citizenship
SOUTH AFRICA
Counterhegemonic moves, and vice versa
“The majority of marginalized people take into their own hands the challenges of housing, neighborhood and urban development, establishing shelter and earning livelihoods outside formal decision structures and ‘professionalized planning.’”(p.42)
Which is the role that urban planners play in social movements? Is our intervention necessary or relevant to them?
Picture © Comunal Taller de Arquitectura
UNITED STATES
MEXICO
2020
Black Lives Matter
The start of an iconoclastic antiracist movement
2021
March for Women
Rejection of people to this movement.
“Seven people were arrested for vandalizing statues of Christopher Columbus and Juan Ponce de León in Miami.” (Diario
de las Américas)
2020 THE MURDER OF GEORGE FLOYD
The government tried to protect monuments against aggression with fences. People, in general, were upset because of the public and private property damage.
What do you think about these kinds of insurgent movements? Are they assaulting the city?
“ ”
It's okay because paint can be cleaned, but blood cannot.
REJECTION
THEY HAVE HAD ENOUGH
Memorial on the fences that protect the National Palace, for International Women's Day © Cuartoscuro
2021
997 feminicides in Mexico
Women are dying on the streets
People of color are dying on the streets
Are the cities that planners helped to develop contributing to the aggression against vulnerable groups? Which role should urban planners play in these conflicts?
THANK YOU!