Epistemic decolonization of urban and regional planning and its historiography: towards planning otherwise

Blending literature review with critical reflection, the main aim of this paper is to argue that planning not only has a colonial past, but that a significant degree of ‘coloniality’ persists within the discipline. By mobilizing decolonial theoretical frameworks and placing them in productive dialogue with feminist and queer epistemologies, this paper critically examines how planning remains determined by knowledge systems shaped by colonial power structures. More specifically, by taking an intersectional approach, it focuses on colonial epistemic structures underpinning planning scholarship that continue to reproduce racialised power hierarchies and Western patriarchal and gender constructions, alongside unjust spatial arrangements, resulting in systemic ‘epistemic injustices’ and erasures. Drawing on emerging decolonial scholarship within and beyond planning, and identifying its gaps, this paper outlines four agendas for the epistemic decolonization of urban and regional planning and its historiography. As decolonial thought emphasizes the connection between theory and action, the concluding section presents eight propositions for engaging with and advancing these agendas, thus fostering ways of thinking, doing, and imagining ‘planning otherwise’. Together, these propositions form a framework rooted in reflexivity, accountability, and justice, actively contesting and transforming the epistemic and material legacies of colonialism in planning.