Nihal Perera, PhD
Emeritus Professor of urban development :: Independent Researcher
founder and Director CapAsia (1999-2021)
Ball State University, Muncie, IN, USA
Nihal Perera's main research interest is in the social production of space. His focus is on how ordinary people both transform found, provided, and imposed spaces and create their own spaces to support their daily activities and cultural practices.
Highlighting how Asian cities have become databases for imported theories, and the need to contextualize understandings, Transforming Asian Cities calls for the study of Asian cities on their own terms, from the cities themselves. Nihal’s first book Decolonizing Ceylon maps out how Ceylon [Sri Lanka] was produced from Colombo, the main colonial outpost which did not evolve from the hinterland, and its postcolonial spatial politics. Addressing a huge gap in the work of Lefebvre and Harvey, and critically building on their work, People's Spaces defines “lived spaces” as abstract spaces brought to life by their users. It demonstrates how designed, planned, and imposed spaces are familiarized by the subjects, making them more supportive of their need and wants. Completing the spectrum, People's Spaces also demonstrates how ordinary people create spaces making the state and the market respond. Delving into post-development, the special issue of Bhumi demonstrates how Sri Lankan governments (as many others) have squandered national (economic) development opportunities vis-a-vis the capitalist world-economy and discusses the potential of locally-grown alternatives.
Perera’s other publications include Importing Urban Problems which created the need for urban planning; the establishment of the contemporary Planners’ City; Indigenizing and Feminizing the City by urban subjects; Contesting Modernities in Chandigarh; the attempt to Redevelop Dharavi and Wanathamulla created by the inhabitants; and the racist underpinnings of American urban planning.
The two-time Fulbright Scholar (China and Myanmar) was Senior Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore, Melting Pot Fellow at King Mongkut Institute (KMITL), Bangkok, Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Alberta, and Graham Foundation Fellow. He received three Fulbright-Hays awards and was nominated for Fukuoka, Heiskell and Malone awards. Besides the USA, Nihal has taught in China, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.
His main contribution to teaching and pedagogy is CapAsia, a reflective-learning immersive-semester in Asia in which the participants learn about communities, from the community-members, doing collaborative work with them, and learn about themselves through reflection.
Recent News
Interview: Nihal Perera on the Social Production of Space
Book: People’s Spaces (Routledge 2016)
Book Chapter: Neighborhood of Resilience and Hope: The Making and Remaking of Wanathamulla (with Nirmani Liyanage and Asanka Senadeera), in Neighbourhoods and Neighbourliness in Urban South Asia: Subjectivities and Spatiality. eds. Sadan Jha and Dev Pathak. Routledge: 206-30, 2022.
Course in Sinhala: පාඨමාලාව: ශ්රී ලංකාවේ කාල අවකාශය
forthComing
Colombo: From Colonial Outpost to Indigenous Kleptocratic City, in Routledge Handbook of Asian Cities, ed.: Richard Hu: 201-12. Routledge, 2023
People's Spaces
People's Spaces investigates how ordinary people produce spaces for their daily activities and cultural practices within extant potential and limitations. At the base is the conflict between abstract and lived spaces (i.e., the provided/available spaces and the spatial needs), the gap between the abstract perceptions of the provider and the local needs of the user (subject), and the negotiation between these that results in people’s spaces. The conflict is evident in the constant pushing and pulling (negotiation) of the boundary between the provided and used space by the authorities and people, but employing their abstract and practical perceptions of space. The processes, from the people's side, range from coping and nibbling into abstract spaces to directly producing lived space. The authorities use from small fines to wholesale urban renewal to negotiate. These processes create social space.
Keynote
"Transforming Asian Cities: Urban and Planning Practices"
At the XV International Planning History Society (IPHS) Conference, Sao Paulo, Brazil, July 15, 2012
The keynote uses Asian experiences to understand and conceptualize urban and planning history. In so doing, it makes non-Western urban histories and spatial experiences visible and brings them to discussion and debate in urban and planning history discourses.