This paper considers the planning of Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, in the late 1970s as a site of global knowledge production about urbanism that cut across the Global North and South. The planning of Abuja presented an unprecedented opportunity to international teams of planners to experiment with environmental city planning and to tackle social concerns following lessons learned in planning new capitals in the South. By shifting the focus to the role Nigerian academics, architects, and universities assumed in the process, this paper challenges north-south hierarchies of knowledge production. It asks how despite being embedded in paradigms of western thought, the contribution of Nigerian researchers can be considered as a form of southern expertise.

Last modified

• 09/18/2020

Creator

• Ayala Levin

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-6pxg-q966

Subject

• Urbanization--Planning
• Developing countries

Keyword

• global south
• knowledge production
• urban planning
• environmental planning
• social planning

Date created

• 2020

Resource type

• Video

Rights statement

• In Copyright