Pradeep Sangapala Arachchige Don Dissa, PhD

Area of Study / Keywords

Planning Urbanism Postcolonial Cities Decolonial Places Human Geography

Research

My Ph.D. dissertation is in the area of history and theory of spatial planning. It explores how the ideological implications of nationalism and ongoing legacies of European colonialism shape postcolonial urban landscapes and planning. In particular, I examine how the first planned urban community in postcolonial Sri Lanka, the New Town Anuradhapura, was created in 1949 and how the country’s postcolonial spatial and planning thinking was shaped. As a ground-up knowledge-building project, this research conceptualizes the crucial role of urban planning in spatializing power relations, ethnic identities and national sentiments in postcolonial nations, especially in South Asia. Methodologically, the analysis relies on archival research and ethnographic field studies that I conducted in Sri Lanka in 2017 and 2019. This study draws on and contributes to broader intellectual discourses of nationalism, colonialism, postcolonial studies, and decolonization from a social space perspective.