, I Prefer Not To Build Your City: Inclusion, Refusal, and the Decolonization of Urban Space
Simon Lindblom

The presentation addresses the challenge of enacting a "bottom-up decolonization of urban spaces" by proposing a shift away from conventional models of planning and design, which are often rooted in a colonial logic of progress, control, and objective "problem-solving." I will argue that such top-down approaches, which I frame as Historical Action, operate on a preconceived vision of what a city "should be," inadvertently reinforcing existing power structures and foreclosing more convivial and just futures.
As an alternative, I will introduce a framework centered on Aesthetic Action—a creative, process-oriented, and ethically-grounded practice of world-making that explores what our urban spaces "could be." This approach positions conviviality not as an outcome to be engineered, but as an emergent property of collective, relational practices. My central argument is that the pathway from the dominant logic of Historical Action to the generative potential of Aesthetic Action is paved by a multifaceted practice of refusal.
To build this argument, the presentation will weave together insights from four key texts:
1.Richard Rorty’s "Science as Solidarity" provides the philosophical grounding for our discussion of inclusion. Rorty’s shift from a desire for "objectivity" to a desire for "solidarity" helps us decenter the expert-driven claims of top-down planning and instead prioritize the "unforced agreement" that arises from within a community.
2.Cameron Tonkinwise’s "'I Prefer Not To'" offers a critical design perspective on this refusal. It frames design as an inherently destructive act and introduces "anti-progressive designing" as a necessary stance against the default future of unsustainable development.
3.Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s "R-Words: Refusing Research" provides a crucial decolonial methodological framework. Their theorization of refusal as a generative stance pushes us to question who benefits from urban "problem-solving" and to shift toward desire-based frameworks that center the wisdom and aspirations of the community itself.
4.Finally, my zinessay will act as the connective tissue, demonstrating how these philosophical, design-theoretical, and decolonial concepts can be synthesized into a coherent praxis for conviviality through the metaphor of weaving. https://rdcu.be/eR3TY
Together, these texts will help us build a theoretical framework for urban decolonization that is not about finding "better" solutions for others but about creating the conditions for communities to weave their own futures.
Readings:
•Lindblom, S. (Forthcoming). Creating Collective and Sustainable Experiences: A Zinessay. Postdigital Science and Education.
•Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2014). R-Words: Refusing Research. In D. Paris & M. T. Winn (Eds.), Humanizing Research: Decolonizing Inquiry with Youth and Communities (pp. 223-247). SAGE Publications.