Bjørn Sletto will explore Indigenous landscapes in Venezuela through long-term, collaborative work with Indigenous youth focused on territoriality and place-based knowledge. He will examine participatory mapping and community-driven cartographies as methodological tools while critically reflecting on researcher positionality, ethical practice, and the impacts of representation, with emphasis on the longevity of representation — how maps and narratives endure over time and shape territorial claims, cultural continuity, and political visibility.
Speaker
Bjørn Sletto is Professor of Community and Regional Planning at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include insurgent and decolonial planning, community-based research, and environmental justice. His engaged scholarship has addressed Indigenous territoriality and participatory mapping in Venezuela; urban informality in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and community-based environmental justice and greenspace planning in Austin, Texas. He is editor of Radical Cartographies: Participatory Mapmaking from Latin America (UT Press) and Decolonizing Planning: Power and Knowledge in the Informal City (Edward Elgar Publishing).
Co-sponsorship
Part of the series Participatory, Land-based, and Critical Environments (PLACE), supported by CLACS. Co-sponsored by the Department of Geography, the College of Environmental Design, the Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Graduate Program, and the UC Berkeley Stone Center for Environmental Stewardship.