Indigenous planning (or Indigenous community planning) is an ideological approach to the field of regional planning where planning is done by Indigenous peoples for Indigenous communities. Practitioners integrate traditional knowledge or cultural knowledge into the process of planning. Indigenous planning recognizes that "all human communities plan" and that Indigenous communities have been carrying out their own community planning processes for thousands of years. While the broader context of urban planning, and social planning includes the need to work cooperatively with indigenous persons and organizations, the process in doing so is dependent on social, political and cultural forces.
As there are many Indigenous cultures, practices and planning within Indigenous communities vary greatly.
Overview
Indigenous planning has a broader and more comprehensive scope than mainstream or Western planning, and is not limited to land use planning or physical development. Indigenous planning is comprehensive and can address all aspects of community life through community development, including the social and environmental aspects that impact the lives of community members.
Indigenous planning for land and resources can be understood as transformative planning as it addresses complex issues of Indigenous sovereignty, self-government, and self-determination. Indigenous planning can also be understood as a form of insurgent planning, as it provides an avenue for communities to confront and address their own oppression. Indigenous planning is often a tool which allows for Indigenous communities to regain control over resources and exercise maintenance of their culture and political autonomy.
The scope of Indigenous planning can be seen to cover three broad areas: Indigenous communities, urban Indigenous communities, land and resource planning.
History
Indigenous peoples have been planning their communities for thousands of years, often referred to as 'since time immemorial'. However, planning as a technical and colonial tool has historically been used as a means to dispossess Indigenous communities through the re-appropriation of traditional territories for non-Indigenous profit and development. While Indigenous community planning is historically based upon managing interactions with the natural world, it now also focuses on interactions with non-Indigenous actors as well. In the political sense, this means fighting for and receiving legitimization and empowerment in leadership positions that were stripped from them through colonization. As such, Indigenous planning has re-emerged as a reaction to Western planning, which was historically used as a colonial tool, for example through the reserve system in Canada.
Indigenous planning emerged as a planning culture and field of practice during the mid-20th century within the context of modern planning and imperialism, however, Indigenous groups have been planning their own urban spaces for as long as they have existed. It is a continually evolving practice and spans (but is contextually unique to) Indigenous communities around the world. According to John Friedmann, Indigenous planning emerged as a formalized field in relation to mainstream planning in 1992 at a MIT conference through the creation of a theory of action that was based on long-term learning, local planning and shared culture. Three years later, in 1995, the Indigenous Planning Network was created under the American Planning Association (APA); the division is currently called Indigenous Planning (IP).