Planning the settler unplanning: Janice Barry, ‘The ongoing unsettlement of planning thought: The difference that settler-colonial and critical Indigenous theory make’, in Philip Allmendinger, Mark Tewdwr-Jones, Matthew Wargent, Critical Planning Futures New Directions in Planning Theory, Routledge, 2025 | settler colonial studies blog

Planning the settler unplanning: Janice Barry, ‘The ongoing unsettlement of planning thought: The difference that settler-colonial and critical Indigenous theory make’, in Philip Allmendinger, Mark Tewdwr-Jones, Matthew Wargent, Critical Planning Futures New Directions in Planning Theory, Routledge, 2025

27May25

Abstract: This chapter builds on recent calls to ‘unsettle’ planning theory by looking quite directly at what this project of critical reflection and charting of possible ways forward might mean in contexts that are powerfully shaped by the ongoing structures of settler colonialism. Despite its limitations, settler-colonial theory offers a way for non-Indigenous planners to critically interrogate how settler-colonial structures of Indigenous erasure, assimilation, and dispossession are embodied in their actions and ways of thinking. On the other hand, critical Indigenous theory provides a framework for envisioning the possibilities for decolonial planning futures. The concepts of Indigenous resurgence, futurity, and flourishing are particularly instructive in terms of centring Indigenous sovereignty and knowledge systems, while also complementing and extending ideas of insurgent and pluriversal planning as well as planners’ engagements with land and the more-than-human world.

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