Transgressing ‘Good’ Cities: Decolonising City Narratives for Just Urban Futures

Through a postcolonial city case study in India, the project will investigate the implications of colonial legacies in (re)defining people’s experience and engagement of public spaces. Using a decolonial lens, we aim to develop alternative city imaginaries grounded in residents’ place narratives in relation to local heritage, culture, and values.

The findings aim to transform the way we restructure city development to achieve sustainable, inclusive and just urban futures. The project will deliver a variety of outputs to contribute to citizens, academics, practitioners, and policy makers’ re-conceptualisation of what constitutes a good city. Outputs include an interactive digital story map, a virtual Decolonial Collaboratorium - DeCoLab for research, education and capacity building, a bilingual white paper, newspaper article and academic outputs.

Principal Investigator: Dr Lakshmi Rajendran, University College London