Can planning, a tool for colonization, be decolonized? MIT’s funding at the expense of Indigenous Peoples through the Morrill Act

This thesis questions whether planning and the activities the profession’s umbrella covers are beneficial or harmful. The project analyzes the role of planning in the colonization of Turtle Island by materializing and legitimizing the seizure of Indigenous Land through planning practices like urbanization, enclosure, the creation of Indian reservations, and tools like cartography, lawfare, and landscape architecture and design. I make an argument in this thesis about how there is no such thing as sustainable or beneficial urbanization because urbanization equals death, that planning is inherently harmful because it was born as a tool of colonization, and that there is no way to decolonize the profession, given that the profession upholds the current land system, I make an argument that the only solution to reverse and undo the harm done by planning and urbanization is to give Land Back to Indigenous Peoples. For this, building my argument, I will walk you through the narrative built to dispossess land, the concept of imaginary geography, how planning enabled and legitimized diferent ways for land dispossession, and finally, the modification of land (urbanization). A chapter is dedicated to looking closer at one piece of lawfare in particular: the morrill act, revealing the history of the foundation of MIT at the expense of Indigenous Peoples, the role that universities play in the maintenance and strengthening of the systems of oppression in place. Using that information to answer the calls for decolonization of the profession, this thesis makes an argument and underscores that, given that planning is born as a tool for colonization, the profession can’t be decolonized and demands Land Back as the only solution. The thesis presents the information on two parcels that belong to the Confederate Tribes of Coos, Lower Umpqua, and Siuslaw Indians, located in the state of Oregon, that were seized and, through the morrill act, resold with the proceeds benefitting MIT, calling for the restitution of the parcels and giving Land Back.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Barrera Gonzalez, Devora

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• D’Ignazio, Catherine

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
• Copyright retained by author(s)

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/162144

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/162144