Ecologies of Resistance and Alternative Spatial Practices

Abstract

To bring change at societal, cultural, political and economic levels has an inherent spatial dimension. The urgency is to escape from corporate, bureaucratic and consumer-driven power structures in architecture and urban design. Consequently, architecture and the urban are essential tools to establish participatory democracy, address climate change and ethically engage with human rights and spatial justice. This chapter highlights the possibility of alternative spatial practices that do not reproduce the same disparities or oppressive systems they were set out to unsettle. We must redefine the boundaries of architecture and the urban by acknowledging that societal challenges span multiple disciplines. Simultaneously, this shift necessitates critical spatial thinking and adaptation to the complex and evolving nature of contemporary contexts. Radical innovative architecture and urban approaches will only emerge through a slow revolution that involves constituencies, agonism and leveraging limited resources. This model may lead to ethical spaces that would promote social justice, equity and inclusivity across various sectors in response to a multitude of crises. Caution should be taken with design approaches claiming to be sustainable, green, participatory or reformist. Operative democracies are not a given. We need to critically analyze any project claiming to be alternative and question whether the proclaimed emancipatory and esthetic practices have the potential to problematize the status quo. Moreover, architects and urbanists should recognize and repair the harm their discipline and professions have caused under the oppressive legacies of imperialism and colonialism. This includes reimagining the environment as a complex ecology beyond human concerns. The envisioning of which would give architecture and urbanism agency to create new ways of ethical, collective and ecological ways of living while addressing the challenges of the 21st century.