Professor Madina Tlostanova talks to the Network of Global South Urbanism(s)

In this interview, Professor Tlostanova discusses the complexities of decolonial thought in urban settings, emphasizing the need to decolonize city spaces through activism and design. She highlights the contradictions between colonial city designs and human adaptability. Tlostanova also explores the concept of “double critique” in understanding diverse urban settings and stresses the need for interdisciplinary approaches to grasp what in her work she refers as “complexity” and “impurity.”

Questions
• When we consider the concept of “geo-corporeal politics of knowledge,” how does the capitalist/colonial city conflict with what you describe as the most personal, affective, and embodied ways of inhabiting space?
• How does the colonial/capitalist city conflict with the “geo-corporeal politics of knowledge”? Is the act of inhabiting also at odds with the colonial/capitalist city, and how would you describe this contradiction?
• How can we use Abdelkebir Khatibi’s double critique to understand diverse, and so-called “super-diverse,” urban settings such as Malmö?
• How can we connect or reconnect anti-colonial intellectual endeavours with locally grounded histories?
• How can we embrace and explore two concepts of your work, complexity and impurity, in a meaningful way?
• What aspects of so-called non-Western or “global South” societies do you find most compelling, interesting or enjoyable?