Ontological locationalities and the pluriversal turn in urban planning: A call to see cities through their own eyes

Abstract

Seeing cities through their own eyes – that is what Narayanan's ‘ontological locationalities’ evokes. It really clicks, especially when thinking about cities like Kumasi and Lagos. Drawing from personal insights and his thought-provoking article, I echo and argue for a pluriversal approach to studying, understanding, and planning cities. We must stop treating Western models as the default and start seeing cities through their lived realities. Only then can we develop better theories for understanding and building cities that truly work for the people who call them home.

Introduction

I grew up in Kumasi, Ghana – a city rich in cultural heritage and spatial symbolism. Known historically as the ‘Garden City of West Africa’ (Maxwell, 1928), Kumasi was once famed and celebrated for its lush green spaces and thoughtfully planned neighbourhoods that integrated natural and built environments. By the time I was old enough to notice the changes around me, Kumasi had already begun to transform. Streets overflowed with informal traders and hawkers, concrete replaced gardens, and the orderly vision of the Garden City faded into memory. But this wasn’t chaos to me – it was just life in Kumasi, messy yet vibrant, full of life and local logic, following its own unwritten rules. When I entered university to study urban planning, I encountered something startling. The planning theories and models we learned were drawn almost entirely from the Global North. The curricula presented ideas like Ebenezer Howard's Garden City (ironically), Le Corbusier's Radiant City, modernist zoning regulations, and transportation models based on Western car-centric cities like Los Angeles, Berlin, and London. While fascinating in their abstraction, these ideas often felt distant from the lived urbanism around me – Kumasi's bustling streets. And when I tried to apply them to other cities like Accra and Tamale, it wasn’t just that these models didn’t fit; often, they actively obscured how the city's urban life functioned.

It was not until I moved abroad for graduate studies in planning that things made sense to me. I began to understand why these theories felt so disconnected. Sitting in diverse classrooms debating theories and ideas like ‘world-class cities’, ‘global cities’, ‘vertical cities’, ‘smart cities’, and ‘informality’, I realised that the theories we had learned in Ghana were never meant for cities like Kumasi or crafted with Accra in mind. They were created for – and by – cities in the North, and our planning education had imported them wholesale, akin to trying to force a square peg into a round hole. I recall a time in our planning studio when a classmate bluntly argued, ‘…planning is a foreign course’ because none of these theories and concepts could be applied in their city. Everyone burst into laughter – it was so true. But this wasn’t merely a pedagogical issue or the theories being impractical; it was ontological. We were being taught to see our cities through someone else's eyes.

Reading Nipesh Palat Narayanan's (2025) concept of ontological locationality struck a deep chord with me. His call to question where our research questions come from, and whose realities they reflect, helped me understand the deeper tensions I had long felt – that urban planning isn’t just about physical spaces but about how we see and understand cities themselves. The issue was not simply that Western theories did not ‘work’ in Kumasi, but that they carried assumptions about what cities are, who their ideal subjects are, and what constitutes progress, which made it nearly impossible to see and value how Kumasi actually functioned, pushing our lived experiences to the margins of the mainstream planning canon. As Narayanan rightly sums it up, the issue is that the peripheries (cities like Kumasi) are studied using ‘what is there to know’ of the metropolis (cities of Western countries), thus relegating the importance of what is there to know from these peripheries (p. 5). I sincerely commend Narayanan's call for a pluriversal position in urban studies and his invitation to dialogue on tackling this issue of (a) identifying the ontological locationalities and (b) countering the hegemony of the metropolitan ontology. Heeding this call, I wish to spend the rest of this writing arguing for a fundamental shift in how we approach urban studies and planning. We need frameworks that embrace multiple ways of understanding cities and recognise the wisdom of how places like Kumasi, Nairobi and Lagos naturally organise themselves. Our cities are too complex and unique to be planned using someone else's blueprint. They must be understood and shaped from within, through frameworks that honour the worlds they hold.

Reclaiming urban knowledge from the margins

The hegemony of Western urban theory in planning curricula and practice across the Global South often begins with good intentions – an effort to build capacity through shared knowledge. Yet, this has resulted in the reproduction of a canon that implicitly centres urban experiences from London, New York, or Paris, treating them as normative rather than particular. African cities like Kumasi become a case study in what needs fixing (dysfunction), not as a site of generative knowledge. This framing marginalises the epistemic contributions of Southern cities and reinscribes their dependency on Western models (Connell, 2020a; Mignolo, 2005; Watson, 2009). Narayanan's ontological locationality reveals that this issue runs deeper than curriculum design or the selection of case studies. It is about the origin of the questions we ask. When we ask questions derived from Western ideas, such as traffic patterns, property taxation, or smart city innovations, they often overlook what actually matters locally, like traditional land rights or how communities naturally organise their spaces (Narayanan, 2025; Roy, 2016). It is akin to trying to solve a puzzle while ignoring half the pieces. The result is a misalignment between planning interventions and lived realities. Narayanan's call thus challenges planners not simply to add more voices to the table, but to rethink the table itself. Whose concerns shape the discipline? Whose realities are legible? And who gets to decide what problems we are even trying to solve? As Southern cities grow at breakneck speed, these are not just theoretical debates – they are questions we need to answer now.

The privileging of Western paradigms in urban studies and planning leads to what Connell (2020b) calls the ‘metropolitan canon’ – a body of knowledge that circulates globally but originates from a narrow historical and geographic context. As these models travel, they tend to flatten differences and impose a universal logic of urban modernity, erasing the plurality of urban experiences in the process. When student planners in Ghana or Kenya, for example, are taught to value high-rise housing and grid-based layouts without equally engaging with compound housing or naturally evolved neighbourhoods, they are not being trained to understand and develop their cities; rather, they are being trained to replace them. In my training, questions about customary land tenure and informal settlements were always framed as problems to be fixed – slums to be eradicated or formalised. Rarely were they viewed as vibrant, adaptive systems shaped by necessity and collective knowledge. Engaging with the literature, such as Simone's (2018) work on improvisation and urban resilience in African cities, challenged these dominant paradigms. I began to see these spaces not as failures but as different ways of city-making. The pluriverse is not a utopian ideal but a necessity for survival (Escobar, 2018). This perspective is precisely what ontological locationality demands: a reconsideration of what constitutes valid urban knowledge and who gets to define it. To plan cities as if they are singular, homogenous entities governed by universal laws is to misunderstand them. It is time to embrace ontological locationality, recognising that different places generate different questions, value different relationships, and require different tools. This means resisting the gravitational pull of metropolitan knowledge and affirming the legitimacy of homegrown ways of knowing and planning.

In Kumasi, this might look like developing planning frameworks that embrace traditional spatial concepts – like how family compounds cluster around courtyards or how Asafo companies have historically shaped community spaces. It could involve collaborative planning practices that honour the role of chiefs in land allocation or participatory mapping that reflects local grasps of mobility and community. These are not backward practices; they are ontologies in their own right – systems of meaning and organisation that deserve recognition. To move forward, urban studies and planning must be decolonised and dewesternised: it must adopt a genuinely pluriversal paradigm – one that recognises and reclaims knowledge from the margins, i.e. embracing the multiplicity of urban life and centring the experiences of those long cast as peripheral. This shift will not be easy. It requires a structural change in how planning is taught, researched, and practised. But if we want cities that truly work for everyone, we don’t have much choice. We must see the cities through their own eyes: that is, build cities that reflect the rich diversity of experiences and knowledge they contain.

Pluriversal planning: beyond epistemological inclusion

The response to the shortcomings of Western-centric planning often involves calls for epistemic diversity or more diverse voices – more Southern scholars, varied case studies, and inclusive reading lists. While these are essential steps, Narayanan urges us to dig deeper – to reframe how we construct urban knowledge. A truly pluriversal approach to understanding and planning cities does not simply add new voices to an existing framework or way of thinking about cities; it challenges and remakes the framework itself. This means valuing indigenous knowledge and planning systems not as historical curiosities but as ongoing systems of thought. In Kumasi, for instance, the Asante traditional council continues to exert significant influence over land allocation (Akaabre, 2023a). Yet, planning texts treat customary tenure as an obstacle to be overcome. A pluriversal planning paradigm would centre such systems as sources of insight, not friction – i.e. a co-governance model that could inform grounded planning approaches (Akaabre, 2023b; Ubink, 2008; Yeboah & Obeng-Odoom, 2010). This shift requires that we understand customary land tenure not as chaotic or informal, but as a system embedded within a coherent socio-political ontology. They provide stability, legitimacy, and accountability within the communities they serve – qualities often missing from formal systems imposed from above (Ubink, 2008).

Pluriversal planning also entails an ontological shift in how we think about space itself. In many African cities, space is relational. It is not merely an empty vessel for buildings and infrastructure but a living field of social and spiritual relations, memories, and responsibilities (Escobar, 2018; Myers, 2011). Land in Ghana, for instance, is revered as the provider of life and a sanctuary for the souls of departed ancestors, which the living have no right to part with, but rather a stewardship role to protect and keep sacred (Akaabre, 2023a, 2023b). Planning frameworks that overlook this relationality are likely to produce outcomes that are physically coherent but socially disconnected. It also requires rethinking time. Often, Western planning models assume linear progress, where cities evolve from informal to formal and from traditional to modern. But in Kumasi, urban transformation follows a distinct logic – often circular, recursive, and negotiated across multiple temporalities. These are not deviations from a universal path but expressions of alternative ontologies of urban life (Mbembe, 2019; Simone, 2004).

To truly transform urban planning, then, we must attend to ontological locationality not as a rhetorical gesture but as a reorientation of our intellectual and professional commitments. Importantly, we must stop treating local knowledge as merely raw data for ‘real’ experts to analyse. The ways Southern communities handle space, deal with problems, and manage land are not just coping strategies; they are sophisticated theories about urban life that deserve attention. We must ask: What are the worlds our cities hold? Who speaks for them? And how might our planning systems be refashioned to listen? This is not about rejecting Western planning models wholesale. It is about decentring them – placing them alongside other models rather than above them. It is about multiplicity, being humble enough to admit that there are many valid ways to build and manage cities. As Narayanan reminds us, this work begins with where we stand – and with the courage to see our cities through their own eyes.

Rethinking urban inquiry and planning education for a pluriversal future

Traditional Western approaches to data collection, like surveys, spatial mapping, and econometric modelling, assume researchers can be neutral observers. Yet in contexts like Kumasi, where trust, spirituality, and kinship (family ties) shape urban processes, methods that centre relationality and participation may be more appropriate and revealing (Lawhon et al., 2014; Myers, 2011). Getting involved with communities (ethnography) and hearing their stories (oral histories), including participatory mapping, are not merely supplementary tools; they are essential for truly understanding how these cities work. They ontologically align with the cities. Sadly, these participatory methods are often dismissed or sidelined in academic planning circles and journals as lacking rigour. This dismissal stems from an unacknowledged bias toward empiricism rooted in Western epistemologies. As Smith (2012) notes in Decolonizing Methodologies, indigenous methods of inquiry often prioritise intersubjectivity, spiritual relations, and oral traditions – elements that are deeply embedded in place-based knowledges. Ignoring these elements not only limits understanding but also reproduces the colonial logic of extractive knowledge production. Not everything about cities can be measured and modelled. Sometimes we need to listen, immerse ourselves, and unlearn our assumptions. We need to broaden our view of what counts as ‘data’ and ‘evidence’ in planning research. In Kumasi, for instance, oral narratives (stories) about land ownership descent in disputes can carry more legal and moral weight than formal deeds. Sacred uses of space, such as sacred groves, reflect deeply held ontologies about what space is and how it should be used (Chakrabarty, 2009). These dimensions often elude Western planning tools but are vital for crafting meaningful and grounded interventions.

More importantly, Southern theories should not have to fit Western standards or be judged against Northern standards of abstraction or universality. They may emerge or be developed from entirely different epistemic traditions – ones that value storytelling, myths, emotions, and lived experiences. Take AbdouMaliq Simone's (2018) concept of ‘urban improvisation’ as an example – it views African cities as spaces of continuous negotiation and creativity, not bounded systems with fixed functions. Similarly, Mbembe (2004) draws on affect and memory to theorise the African urban space as one of entangled temporalities. These are not anecdotal deviations; they are groundbreaking theoretical contributions. Achieving more of this will require institutional transformation. Funding bodies, academic journals, and planning agencies must shift from extractive models of knowledge production to collaborative and co-generative paradigms – paradigms that embrace the worldviews of the communities we serve. This reorientation can create space for urban planning that is not only more inclusive but also more imaginative – one that accommodates multiple futures.

Reorienting urban planning around ontological locationality also has profound implications for pedagogy. In my experience, planning education in Ghana is often presented as a technical field, requiring mastery of software, regulations, and formulas. While these skills are essential (to be clear), they do not entirely prepare planners to navigate the political, cultural, and ontological complexities of the cities they serve. This technocratic emphasis often sidelines critical inquiry and suppresses alternative epistemologies that stem from local experiences (Watson, 2009). A pluriversal planning education would begin by grounding students in the realities of their own cities. It would encourage them to generate research questions from local concerns, rather than retrofitting foreign models and questions. Students in Kumasi, for instance, might start with inquiries into customary land governance, informal transport systems like ‘trotros’ or how traditional festivals and beliefs shape urban spaces. These are not peripheral topics – they are central to understanding how the city works (Myers, 2011). We need to expose them to brilliant thinkers from the South, such as AbdouMaliq Simone, Ananya Roy, and Arturo Escobar, who demonstrate how to view cities through a local lens rather than merely replicating Western models. Such a pluriversal education would not only produce better planners who grasp the city's plural logics – its customary tenure systems, its informality, its layered temporalities – but also foster more just and caring cities by honouring the complexity of their cities, treating them not as problems to be fixed but as worlds to be understood and adapted.

Conclusion: honouring the worlds our cities hold

At its heart, ontological locationality calls for something surprisingly simple: humility. It invites scholars and planners to acknowledge the situatedness of all knowledge and to question the dominance of universal frameworks that often overlook or erase the lived realities of cities like Kumasi. As Narayanan stresses, ontological locationality reminds us to pay attention to the places from which our ideas come from and the experiences they fail to illuminate, what perspectives we might be missing. This is not merely theoretical – it shapes how real cities are understood, governed and transformed; how real people live. A pluriversal approach to planning recognises that cities are not uniform entities waiting to be rationalised; they are complex worlds shaped by multiple or diverse temporalities, knowledges, and sociocultural relations. We cannot simply drop abstract planning models onto urban spaces and expect them to work. Instead, we need a practice of listening, co-learning, and co-creation, grounded in an ethic of relationality. This means engaging with the aspects that make the city unique or the planning ontologies that emerge from places like Kumasi: traditional land ownership and governance, sacred spaces, informal economies (street markets), and the way communities naturally organise themselves (communal spatial logics). These are not relics of the past; they are dynamic systems that keep the city alive and thriving, a living expression of how people make and remake their cities (Escobar, 2018; Lawhon et al., 2014).

My time in Kumasi, combined with planning engagements in the North, has taught me that the future of urban planning lies in embracing this pluriversal ethic. This does not mean throwing out all Northern theories or severing global academic ties. It just means provincialising the North – not in the sense of marginalising it, but of situating it as one among many ways of knowing (Chakrabarty, 2009). We must stop treating Northern planning theories as the default. Only then can planning evolve into a truly global discipline that learns from everywhere and imposes from nowhere. Cities like Kumasi cannot afford to be planned from afar. Planning detached from local reality produces alienation, exclusion, and inefficacy. But when grounded in ontological locationality, planning becomes a means of honouring the city's pasts, responding to its presents, and imagining its futures from within. It becomes a way of seeing through the city's own eyes – a future built in a way that makes sense to the people who call it home. Narayanan's ideas provide a starting point for this transformation – not just to critique dominant paradigms, but to build new ones, to reimagine the very foundations of urban knowledge and planning. Only then can our cities – complex, plural, and alive – be understood and planned in ways that are just and truly caring.