Decolonizing Ecology | Contested urban territories: Ethnographic concept building for a more global urban theory

Summary
Indigenous movements in Latin America exemplify alternatives ways of relating to urban nature. These different practices and ecological imaginaries at play in urban contexts could signal different routes for a more sustainable development. Yet, they remain under-investigated, this proposal argues, due to a lack of an adequate conceptual repertoire and methodological tools to analyse these practices. This is despite new starting points for a more global urban theory: while post- and decolonial scholars have argued to further diversify socio-spatial theory, scholars engaging with an ontological turn are rethinking dualisms separating nature and culture or urban and rural to open up new grounds to study urban political ecology.
This project addresses this gap by building on Latin America-based scholarship to reframe these types of socio-environmental struggles as urban contestations, emphasising intersectional dimension of indigeneity, race and gender, to understand these multiply scaled processes. The main questions are: What practices do indigenous urban movements mobilize to defend their right to territory? How do the urban worlds enacted through these practices challenge and inform concepts and methods in urban studies more widely? Empirically, the research builds on a systematic comparative study of Mexico City (Mexico) and La Paz-El Alto (Bolivia) – cities marked with indigenous urban movements and rapid urbanization.
This research will demonstrate novel strategies to compare different ecological and urban understandings. By advancing an interdisciplinary approach to analyse environmental conflicts in cities, the project will contribute to knowledge on urban development and provide a sound base to put forward suitable policy instruments to work towards sustainable cities and communities.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101024446
Start date: 04-10-2021
End date: 03-10-2023
Total budget - Public funding: 224 933,76 Euro - 224 933,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

Indigenous movements in Latin America exemplify alternatives ways of relating to urban nature. These different practices and ecological imaginaries at play in urban contexts could signal different routes for a more sustainable development. Yet, they remain under-investigated, this proposal argues, due to a lack of an adequate conceptual repertoire and methodological tools to analyse these practices. This is despite new starting points for a more global urban theory: while post- and decolonial scholars have argued to further diversify socio-spatial theory, scholars engaging with an ontological turn are rethinking dualisms separating nature and culture or urban and rural to open up new grounds to study urban political ecology.
This project addresses this gap by building on Latin America-based scholarship to reframe these types of socio-environmental struggles as urban contestations, emphasising intersectional dimension of indigeneity, race and gender, to understand these multiply scaled processes. The main questions are: What practices do indigenous urban movements mobilize to defend their right to territory? How do the urban worlds enacted through these practices challenge and inform concepts and methods in urban studies more widely? Empirically, the research builds on a systematic comparative study of Mexico City (Mexico) and La Paz-El Alto (Bolivia) – cities marked with indigenous urban movements and rapid urbanization.
This research will demonstrate novel strategies to compare different ecological and urban understandings. By advancing an interdisciplinary approach to analyse environmental conflicts in cities, the project will contribute to knowledge on urban development and provide a sound base to put forward suitable policy instruments to work towards sustainable cities and communities.

Status

CLOSED

Call topic

MSCA-IF-2020

Update Date

28-04-2024
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Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE
H2020-EU.1.3. EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
H2020-EU.1.3.2. Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
H2020-MSCA-IF-2020
MSCA-IF-2020 Individual Fellowships