Ian Baran, "Planning In The Insurgent (Under)commons"

Planning and constructing egalitarian worlds necessitates thinking through the interconnectedness of areas of high and low density using study and research that engages in liberatory praxis. By emphasizing the egalitarian horizon, I aim to push notions of planning through an abolitionist approach that includes an critical environmentalist ethic situated within racial capitalism and the Black Radical Tradition. This includes thinking through the role of marking territories as fit for certain inhabitants and others not, situating toxic chemicals in specific areas, counting imprisoned people for dollars in areas they are not from and looking at uneven distribution. These practices are maintained while military and structural adjustment programs in interfere globally spreading regimes of top down approaches, further foreclosing land use and local practices, continually forcing market based exploitative solutions. This carceral landscape forced upon the world surveils radical movements, and yet multiple pathways are made through various modes of resistance. Through looking at three case studies of radical praxis, I explore uprooting planning and development from a Euro-Western discourse and align towards a decolonial community planning and praxis. How can we think through what kinds of methods will lead us to strategically bring about material changes for people, while aligning with marginalized and oppressed communities? How does looking at the enclosures and continual foreclosures that perpetually mark off society, while imprisoning and surveilling others allow planners to uphold radical critiques and push towards an abolitionist ecology situated in a network of solidarity economies? Can a "commons" structure take place within both a local and international framework?