ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I argue that spatial abstraction is an index of coloniality and a root cause of social inequality, racism, resource depletion, and climate change. I depart from the decolonial theory aphorism that the processes of modernization and colonization relied on higher and higher degrees of spatial abstraction unleashed by the events of 1492: the Spanish Reconquista and Columbus’s first trip across the Atlantic. My analysis springs from the discipline of architecture where the core of our theories has been obsessed with abstract form for a few centuries, and any other way of generating space—be it phenomenological, participatory, or informal—has been brushed aside as insufficiently architectural. My main argument is that to decolonize spatial abstraction requires taming its exclusionary powers by infusing it with relational knowledges and participatory processes, in search of a better balance.
