Urban indigeneity in Latin America: towards a decolonial methodology?
What does, or what would it mean, to adopt a decolonial approach to recognising the indigenous presence in Latin American cities? Join us for this special retirement lecture delivered by Ann Varley, Professor of Human Geography at University College London.
Urban indigeneity in Latin America: towards a decolonial methodology?
13 Jun 2023, 18:00 – 20:00
This presentation will offer some preliminary, personal and tentative reflections on this question – or, at least, some thoughts on what does not constitute such an approach.
The starting point is a sense of unease about a suggestion Ann Varley made in an article published ten years ago, ‘Postcolonialising informality?’, in which she queried why postcolonial studies had displayed little interest in Latin American cities.
“Perhaps the omission was a product of what had been described as scholars’ switching their concerns from class to ethnicity, emphasising Amerindian populations rather than urban residents. Demographically, the suggestion was not unreasonable, since indigenous groups are strikingly under-represented in the region’s cities; but ‘under-represented’ does not mean ‘absent’. Do such observations effectively render urban indigeneity invisible? And if so, what should be done about such rendering invisible?”
- Ann Varley
Ann Varley is a Professor of Human Geography at University College London. Her research focus has been on housing and the home, looking at urban land and housing; family law and the home; law and urban governance; property formalization; gender, families and households. Latin America, in particular Mexico, has been where most of her work has been done, work for which she was awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Busk Medal in 2010.
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