Producing forests: a colonial genealogy of environmental planning in Victoria, Australia

Porter, E. (2007) Producing forests: a colonial genealogy of environmental planning in Victoria, Australia. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 26(4), pp. 466-477. (doi: 10.1177/0739456X07301170)

Abstract

In settler societies such as Australia, the colonial state actively produced its territory to secure it from its former Aboriginal owners. Imperial spatial technologies, including exploration, surveying, mapping, (re)naming, and classification of land and its potential uses, were the primary means of this activity. These were the early foundations of planning as a form of state-based action to secure the ordering of space, the production of knowledge about space, and the organizing of action within space. Through an examination of contemporary environmental planning and its historical roots, this article shows how planning practice continues to be structured by specifically colonial imaginings of place, which serve to continue the erasure of Aboriginal philosophies, knowledge, and relationships with place.

• Item Type: Articles
• Keywords: Environmental planning, postcolonialism, Aboriginal people
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Porter, DR Elizabeth
• Authors: Porter, E.
• Subjects: H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races; H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Urban Studies
• Journal Name: Journal of Planning Education and Research
• Publisher: Sage Publications
• ISSN: 0739-456X
• ISSN (Online): 1552-6577
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2007 Sage Publications
• First Published: First published in Journal of Planning Education and Research 26(4):466-477
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher