Planning Moment - Colonial and Postcolonial Histories

"The Planning Moment provides a much-needed revision to the notion of a homogenous modernity and to top-down accounts of state planning. In recognizing the contested and often multiple futures that emerged from the disjuncture between plan and action, the book charts fresh directions past impasses that mark contemporary technophilia and technophobia."--Orit Halpern, author of Beautiful Data: A History of Vision and Reason since 1945

"This deeply interdisciplinary and transregional book emerges from anthropology, history, Science and Technology Studies, museum studies, and sociology, with essays spanning every continent. While each essay tells a highly localized story, together they help us reimagine imperial designs, postcolonial responses, and Cold War exigencies."--Jini Kim Watson, author of Cold War Reckonings: Authoritarianism and the Genres of Decolonization

Empires and their aftermaths were massive planning institutions. Over the last two centuries, colonial and postcolonial planning has shaped both the world we know and the disciplines through which we know it. Through twenty-seven case studies, The Planning Moment explores the centrality of planning to colonial and postcolonial worlds, through a range of disciplines: the history of science, science and technology studies, colonial and postcolonial studies, urban studies, and the history of knowledge.

If colonialism made certain landscapes, populations, and institutions legible while obscuring others, The Planning Moment reveals the frequently disruptive and violent processes of erasure in imperial planning by examining how "common sense" was produced and how the intransigence of planning persists long after decolonization. In recognizing the resistance and subversion that often met colonial plans, the book makes visible a range of strategies and techniques by which planning was modified and reappropriated, and by which decolonial futures might be imagined.

Sarah Blacker is Sessional Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Science at York University. Emily Brownell is Senior Lecturer in Environmental History at the University of Edinburgh. Anindita Nag is Professor at the Jindal School of Art and Architecture, Jindal Global University. Martina Schlünder is a Research Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. Sarah van Beurden is Associate Professor of History and African American and African Studies at the Ohio State University. Helen Verran is University Professorial Fellow in the Northern Institute at Charles Darwin University.

List of contents

Foreword

by Dagmar Schäfer | ix

Entanglements of Colonial and Postcolonial Planning:

An Introduction | 1

Census: New Hebrides/Vanuatu, 1967

Alexandra Widmer | 20

Charcoal: Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, 1973

Emily Brownell | 29

COBOL: The Pentagon, United States of America, 1959

Benjamin Allen | 37

Computing: United States of America, 1949

Benjamin Peters | 46

Constitution: India, 1950

Monika Kirloskar-Steinbach | 56

Dam: South Korea, 1961

Aaron S. Moore | 64

Dodecahedral Silo: Spain, 1953

Lino Camprubí | 76

EMES Sonochron: Federal Republic of Germany, 1986

Martina Schlünder | 84

Famine: India, 1877

Anindita Nag | 96

Fertility Survey Workforce: Puerto Rico, 1949

Raúl Necochea López | 104

Fertilizer: South Korea, 1952

John DiMoia | 113

Grid: New York, United States of America, 1972

Robert J. Kett | 124

Hackathon: India, 2012

Lilly Irani | 133

Kishikishi: Belgian Congo, 1956

Sarah Van Beurden | 144

Land Parcel: Lebanon, 1990

Mona Fawaz and Nada Moumtaz | 152

National Budget: Sudan, 1946

Alden Young | 160

Orangutans: Borneo, 1962

Juno Salazar Parreñas | 168

Parasite: Liberia, 1926

Gregg Mitman | 176

Riverbed: South Korea, 2008

Chihyung Jeon | 186

Seeds: German East Africa, 1892

Tahani Nadim | 195

Steel Plant: Orissa State, India, 1955

Itty Abraham | 204

Surnames: Brazil, 1979

Ana Carolina Vimieiro Gomes | 212

Taxonomer: United States of America, 1923

Laura J. Mitchell | 220

Treasures: Palestine/Israel, 1979

Tamar Novick | 230

Water Samples: Treaty 8 Territory, Canada, 2012

Sarah Blacker | 235

Weeds: Laos, 2006

Karen McAllister | 245

Zoomorphic Wickerwork Figure: Australian Administered British New Guinea, 1908

Helen Verran | 254

The Planning Moment: Avenues for Analysis | 265

Acknowledgments | 275

Archival Sources | 277

Bibliography | 279

List of Contributors | 311

Index | 315

About the author

Sarah Blacker (Edited By)

Sarah Blacker is a Sessional Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Science at York University, Toronto.

Emily Brownell (Edited By)

Emily Brownell is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental History at the University of Edinburgh.

Anindita Nag (Edited By)

Anindita Nag is Associate Professor and the Associate Dean of International Affairs at the Jindal School of Art and Architecture, New Delhi.

Martina Schlünder (Edited By)

Martina Schlünder is a Research Scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and a visiting associate professor of Science and Technology Studies at the Center for Technology, Innovation, and Culture at the University of Oslo.

Helen Verran (Edited By)

Helen Verran taught history and philosophy of science at University of Melbourne Australia, for nearly twenty-five years. Since 2012 she has been Research Professor at Charles Darwin University. Verran's book Science and an African Logic (University of Chicago Press, 2001) was awarded the Society for the Social Studies of Science's Ludwik Fleck Prize in 2003.

Sarah Van Beurden (Edited By)

Sarah Van Beurden is Associate Professor History and African American and African Studies at the Ohio State University.

Dagmar Schäfer (Foreword By)

Dagmar Schäfer is Director of Department III, "Artifacts, Action, Knowledge," at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.

Summary

The Planning Moment elaborates the myriad ways that plans and planning practices pervade recent global history. The book’s twenty-seven case studies draw attention to the centrality of planning in colonial and postcolonial environments, relationships, and contexts.

Product details

• Authors: Sarah Brownell Blacker
• Assisted by: Sarah van Beurden (Editor), Sarah Blacker (Editor), Emily Brownell (Editor), Anindita Nag (Editor), Martina Schlunder (Editor), Martina Schlünder (Editor), Sarah Van Beurden (Editor), Helen Verran (Editor)
• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 05.03.2024
• EAN: 9781531506636
• ISBN: 978-1-5315-0663-6
• No. of pages: 336
• Subject: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education