15th AESOP Young Academics Conference
MIT SIS presented their findings from Freetown’s COVID-19 response at the 15th AESOP Young Academics Conference. The conference took place March 29-April 2 in Tirana, Albania, although all members of MIT SIS attended virtually. The focus of the conference was “Governing the Unknown, Spatial Planning in the Age of Uncertainty.” Our paper was accepted into Track 6, “COVID-19 and Territorial Governance.” It analyzed how community-based organizations responded to the COVID-19 crisis in Freetown’s informal settlements. Overall its findings emphasized the need for planners to expand the definition of “expert knowledge” and engage with self-built urban poor communities.
COVID-19 Response in Freetown’s Informal Settlements: Embracing Situated Knowledge and Practice in Crisis and Development Planning
Daniela Beltrame*, Joaquin Benitez**, Karenna J. Groff*, Amelia Seabold*
*Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA; **University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
All authors contributed equally
Cities are complex systems where uncertainty is far from abnormal. In the development planning field, scholars have long reflected on the value of situated knowledge to manage both complexity and uncertainty, particularly in spaces that have been labelled ‘informal’. While some recognize the key role of alternative or ‘non-expert’ knowledge in tackling current planning challenges, most have struggled to broaden their definition of ‘expert’ knowledge. As a result, they systematically fall short when engaging with self-organized communities in self-built environments.
By adding an element of crisis at an unprecedented scale, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has shown with unparalleled strength the need to acknowledge alternative epistemologies in planning. Responses to the pandemic that seem to have had relative success were based upon the guidance, knowledge, and embodied experience of communities on the ground. Beyond basic health and sanitation measures, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, but rather location-dependent policies based on local knowledge that cannot be overlooked.
This paper studies the response in Freetown´s urban settlements to the unprecedented crisis brought about by the COVID-19 outbreak. It analyzes how community-based organizations were able to leverage their knowledge to negotiate, develop, and occupy spaces of power in their city´s crisis management systems during the first months of the pandemic by highlighting the different ways in which they generated data, shared knowledge, collaborated with other development actors, learned from past experiences, and were themselves affected by the pandemic and its response policies.
Through their experience, this research reflects on what knowledge is, where and by whom it is generated, and how it can be collectively leveraged in crisis situations to both transform structures of exclusion and sustain that transformation in “normal” times. Critically assessing these issues shines a spotlight upon potential alternative roles for planning in crisis response and beyond.