Vanessa Watson (1950-2021)

Vanessa Watson (1950-2021)

ACC Executive Committee

vanessa.watson@uct.ac.za

Projects

Bio

Vanessa Watson was Professor of city planning in the School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics at the University of Cape Town (South Africa). She held degrees from the Universities of Natal, Cape Town and the Architectural Association of London, and a PhD from the University of Witwatersrand, and was a Fellow of the University of Cape Town.

Her research over the last thirty years has focussed on urban planning in the global South and the effects of inappropriate planning practices and theories especially in Africa. Her work sought to unsettle the geo-politics of knowledge production in planning by providing alternative theoretical perspectives from the global South.

She was the Global South Editor of Urban Studies and an editor of the European Journal of Development Research. She served on the editorial boards of Planning Theory, Built Environment, Planning Practice and Research, the Journal of Planning Education and Research, and Progress in Planning. She was a senior editor of Oxford Bibliographies Online: Urban Studies.

She was the lead consultant for UN Habitat’s 2009 Global Report on Planning Sustainable Cities and was on their global reports Advisory Board. She was chair and co-chair of the Global Planning Education Association Network (2007-2011). She was a founder of the Association of African Planning Schools and was a founder and on the executive of the African Centre for Cities at the University of Cape Town.

Research interests
Over the last decade have focused on the development of a particular area of planning theory which also links theory to practice. There are two aspects to this: placing power and conflict as inevitable and central to planning processes, and grounding planning ideas in an understanding of social diversity and difference. Her focus was on a response to the problem that most mainstream planning theory has been developed in the global North, and explicitly or implicitly claims universality, while in fact it is often not helpful to planning practitioners working in the rather different conditions of the global South and East.

Her practical concern with the future of African cities directed her interest over the last decade to planning education on the continent, and how the next generation of professional planners is being education and produced. Hence her role in setting up the Association of African Planning Schools and the various projects which have emerged through this network.

She also developed an additional interest in the new economic forces re-shaping African cities, in particular the private-sector driven property development initiatives, often originating with international developers and built environment professionals. These new forces are likely to greatly exacerbate processes of marginalisation and exclusion of the poor in cities of Africa.

Other areas

  • Founder member of the Association of African Planning Schools and PI of project on revitalising planning education in Africa (2008-2014)
  • ACC Healthy Cities City Lab.
  • PI of ESRC/DFID project: Consuming Urban Poverty (2015-17)

Teaching involvements
Masters degree in City and Regional Planning (MCRP), School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics.

PUBLICATIONS

Recent publications
Journals

  • Borland, R, R Morrell and V Watson (2018 in press) Southern Agency: Navigating National and Global Imperatives in Climate Research. Global Environmental Politics 18(3).
  • Watson V (2017) Planning and the new urban agenda, Urban Design, Winter: 12-13.
  • Watson, V (2016) Shifting Approaches to Planning Theory: Global North and South, Urban Planning 1(4): 32-41.
  • Watson, V (2016) Locating Planning in the New Urban Agenda of the Urban Sustainable Development Goal. Planning Theory 15(4) 435-448.
  • Watson, V (2016) Planning mono-culture or planning difference? Planning Theory and Practice 4.
  • Smit, W., de Lannoy, A., Dover, R. V. H., Lambert, E. V., Levitt, N., & Watson, V. (2016). Making unhealthy places: The built environment and non-communicable diseases in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Health & Place, 39, 196-203 (open access).
  • Watson, V (2015): The allure of ‘smart city’ rhetoric: India and Africa. Dialogues in Human Geography, 5(1), pp 36-39. DOI: 10.1177/2043820614565868
  • Watson V (2014): The case for a Southern perspective in planning theory. International Journal of E-Planning Research, 3(1), pp 23-37.
  • Watson V (2014): Will the profession speak out? Winners and losers in the future African city. Planning Theory and Practice, Interface, 15 (1) pp 115-118
  • Watson, V (2014): Co-production and collaboration in planning – the difference. Planning Theory and Practice, 15 (1) pp 62-76.
  • Watson, V (2014): African urban fantasies: dreams or nightmares? Environment and Urbanization, 26(1): 213-229
  • Watson, V (2013): The ethics of planners and their professional bodies: response to Flyvbjerg, Cities, 32, 167–168
  • Watson, V and N Odendaal (2013): “Changing planning education in Africa: the role of the Association of African Planning Schools“, Journal of Planning Education and Research. 33(1) pp. 96 – 107
  • Watson, V (2013): “Planning and the ‘stubborn realities’ of global south-east cities: some emerging ideas“, Planning Theory 12(1), 81-100
  • Watson, V (2011): “Changing planning law in Africa: an introduction“, Urban Forum, 3, 203-208. (guest editor of special issue).
  • Watson V (2011): “Engaging with citizenship and urban struggle through an informality lens,” Planning Theory and Practice 12(1): 150-153
  • Parnell, S, Pieterse, E and Watson, V (2009): “Planning for cities in the global South: an African research agenda for sustainable human settlements“, Progress in Planning 72: 233-241.
  • Watson V (2009) “Seeing from the South: refocusing urban planning on the globe’s central urban issues“, Urban Studies, 46(11) 2259-2275.
  • Watson, V (2009): “The planned city sweeps the poor away…’: urban planning and 21st century urbanization“. Progress in Planning (72)3, 151-193.
  • Watson, V (2008) “Down to Earth: linking planning theory and practice in the ‘metropole’ and beyond’“, International Planning Studies 13(3) 223-237.
  • Books
    De Satge R and V Watson (forthcoming 2018): Urban Planning in the Global South: Conflicting rationalities in contested urban space.
  • G Bhan, S Srinivas and V Watson Eds (2018): Routledge Companion to Planning in the Global South. Routledge: London and New York.
  • Gunder, M., and A. Madanipour and V Watson (eds) (2018): The Routledge Handbook of Planning Theory. Routledge: New York and Abingdon
  • Dewar D, A Todes and V Watson (1986, republished 2018): Regional Development and Settlement Policy: Premises and Prospects, Routledge Library editions: urban and regional economics. Routledge: London and New York.
  • Duminy, J, J Andreasen, F Lerise, N Odendaal and V Watson (2014): Planning and the case study method in Africa: the planner in dirty shoes.Palgrave Mc Millan: UK.
  • Harrison P, Todes A , Watson V (2008): Planning and Transformation: Learning from the Post-Apartheid Experience. RTPI Library Series. Routledge: London and New York
  • Stiftel B., V Watson and H Acselrad (eds) (2007): Dialogues in Urban and Regional Planning 2: Prize Papers from the World’s Planning School Associations. Routledge, London.
  • Stiftel B and V Watson (eds) (2005): Dialogues in Urban and Regional Planning 1: Prize Papers from the World’s Planning School Associations. Routledge, London.
  • Watson V (2002): Change and Continuity in Spatial Planning: metropolitan planning in Cape Town under political transition. Routledge, London and New York.

Chapters

  • Battersby, J and V Watson (2018 forthcoming): Improving urban food security in African cities: Critically assessing the role of informal retailers. in Integrating Food into Urban Planning, Y Cabannes and C Marocchino (eds), Food and Agricultural Organization and UCL Press.
  • Watson, V and G Siame (2018 forthcoming): Alternative participatory planning practices in the global south: learning from co-production processes in informal communities. In S Knierbien and T Viderman (eds) Public space unbound: urban emancipation and the post-political condition.
  • Skinner, S and V Watson (2018): The Informal Economy in Cities of the Global South: Challenges to the Planning Lexicon in G Bhan, S Srinivas and V Watson Eds: Routledge Companion to Planning in the Global South. Routledge: London and New York
  • Odendaal N and V Watson (2018): Partnerships in planning education: the Association of African Planning Schools (AAPS). In A Frank and C Silver (eds), Urban Planning Education: Beginnings, Global Movement and Future Prospects. Pp 147-160
  • Watson, V (2017): New African city plans: local urban form and the escalation of urban inequalities, in A Datta and A Shaban (eds) Mega-urbanization in the Global South : Fast Cities and New Urban Utopias of the Postcolonial State. Pp 54-65 Routledge : Abingdon.
  • Watson, V.: Seeing from the South: Refocusing Urban Planning on the Globe’s Central Urban Issues. Urban Studies (2009) 46(11) 2259–2276, republished in: Readings in Planning Theory (4th edition) by Fainstein S & James de Filippis, by John Wiley & Sons Ltd (2016).
  • Watson, V.: Deep Difference: Diversity, Planning and Ethics, Planning Theory, 5, 1, (2006), pp.31-50.  Re-published in A Madanipour (2015): Planning Theory. Volume 4 Planning with Contingency: into the Future. Routledge Critical Concepts in the Built Environment. 467-488
  • Watson, V (2015): Planning and Development, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition.
  • Watson, V (2014): Learning planning from the South: ideas from the new urban frontiers, in S Parnell and S Oldfield (eds) The Routledge Handbook on Cities of the Global South. Routledge: London and New York. Pp 98-108.  ISBN 978-0-415-81865-0 (hbk)
  • Duminy, J, N Odendaal and V Watson (2014): The Education and Research Imperatives of Urban Planning Professionals in Africa, S Parnell and E Pieterse (eds) Africa’s Urban Revolution: Policy Pressure. Zed Press
  • Smit, W, A de Lannoy, R Dover, E Lambert, N Levitt, V Watson (2014): Good houses make good people: making knowledge about health and environment in Cape Town, in Africa-Centred Knowledges: Crossing Fields and Worlds, B Cooper and R Morrell (eds). James Curry: Suffolk.  Pp 142-162
  • Watson, V (2013): The Post-colonial dimension, in M Acuto and W Steele (eds), Global City Challenges.  Palgrave Macmillan.  ISBN 9781137286864
  • Duminy, J, V Watson and N Odendaal (2013): Doing research in African cities: the case study method. Eds P Kresl and J Sobrino. Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Urban Economies. Edward Elgar: Cheltenham. Pp 153-172. ISBN 978 0 85793 461 1
  • Watson V. (2013): Planning theory and practice in a global context, in G Young and D Stevenson (eds), The Ashgate Research Companion to Planning and Culture, Pp 121-134, Ashgate.  ISBN 9781409422242 HBK
  • Watson (2011)): Communicative planning in the global South: experiences, prospects and predicaments, M Geyer (ed): International Handbook of Urban Policy Issues in the South. Edward Elgar.
  • Watson, V (2010): Informal settlements: in search of a home in the city, in D Vlahov, J Boufford, C Pearson and L Norris (eds): Urban Health: Global Perspectives. Jossey-Bass and John Wiley & Sons. Pp 305-316
  • Watson, V (2008): Conflicting rationalities: implications for planning theory and ethics, in Hillier J and Healey P (eds): Critical Essays in Planning Theory: volume 3 Contemporary Movements in Planning Theory. Pp 221-33

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