Hegemonic Planning and Marginalizing People

This chapter interrogates the role of state planning in marginalizing and oppressing religious, racial, national, ethnic, and other kinds of social groups with the aim of exploring the existing theories and contributing to the theorization of the subject. It pursues a theory of planning that engages with broader society and sheds light on the state's implementation of spatial planning on a practical level. The chapter suggests that hegemonic planning plays a powerful role in promoting and accomplishing state supremacy on the ground by fulfilling state fantasies through the use of common professional spatial planning practices and sophisticated, manipulative, and often veiled planning measures aimed at displacing and marginalizing people. It discusses the dearth of planning theory on the marginalization and oppression of people, and proposes an outline for a new direction in the conceptualization of hegemonic planning. The chapter analyses state planning and its outcomes in three countries characterized by acute ethno national tension and conflict.