Luce Beeckmans
Biographic Data
| ID | 637750 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Luce Beeckmans |
| GIVEN NAMES | Luce |
| FAMILY NAME | Beeckmans |
| SIGNATURE | BEECKMANS L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ghent University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8885-6927 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 19 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Mapped to see
This paper discusses the potential role of mapping as a method in social sciences, focusing on migration research. Traditionally associated with spatial fields like geography, architecture and urban planning, mapping is increasingly used in social sciences to visualise and spatialise contemporary socio-ecological challenges and crises. Despite much writing about its potential, mapping remains an elusive method to researchers who are not trained i…
Epistemic decolonization of urban and regional planning and its historiography
Blending literature review with critical reflection, the main aim of this paper is to argue that planning not only has a colonial past, but that a significant degree of ‘coloniality’ persists within the discipline. By mobilizing decolonial theoretical frameworks and placing them in productive dialogue with feminist and queer epistemologies, this paper critically examines how planning remains determined by knowledge systems shaped by colonial powe…
Mobile urbanism from below
This article conceptualises Afro-Christian churches as vectors for the circulation of spatial knowledge. Scholarship on the ‘reverse mission’ of Afro-Christian churches to Europe emphasises their emplacement in global cities. Yet, during the last decades, new religious geographies have been produced, resulting in a dense, trans-urban network of Afro-Christian churches in Europe, covering not only global cities but also – and more dominantly – mid…
Mapping Brussels' Displaced Housing Ecosystem
As displaced people arrive at European cities, the experiences of displacement caused by forces of bordering and securitization do not end at the point of arrival. Due to a pre-existing housing crisis characterized by critical shortages in affordable housing, a series of urban displacements ensue. The intersectionality between the border regime and neoliberal housing systems produces gaps in migrant housing needs which neither the reception nor t…
Reconsidering the interrupted housing pathways of refugees in Flanders (Belgium) from a home-making perspective
This article addresses housing and accommodation challenges for refugees in Flanders, a region in Belgium by merging the author’s distinct disciplinary perspectives—architectural and sociological. It builds upon two core concepts in housing literature: ‘housing pathways’ and ‘home-making’. Integrating results of several research projects, the article explores the entire housing pathways of refugees from their arrival up to their settlement in pri…
The homing of newcomers in Brussels at the intersection of bordering and urban speculation
Informed by a year of participatory action research in Globe Aroma, an organisation supporting artists and art lovers with a background as newcomers in Brussels, this paper examines how newcomers negotiate their homing at the intersection of bordering and securitisation on the one side, and gentrification and urban speculation on the other. We argue that these exclusionary structures of power do not only challenge newcomers’ homing by restricting…
Making Home(s) in Displacement
Understanding urban sustainability from Mode 2 Science and transdisciplinary education
The wicked sustainability problems that we are increasingly facing not only require new ways of knowledge production, but also challenge our traditional educational system. More and more importance is attached to educational practices and experiments focusing on transdisciplinary problem framing, a pluralistic search for solutions and active collaboration with various stakeholders throughout society. The aim of this article is to investigate how …
Making Home(s) in Displacement
Making Home(s) in Displacement critically rethinks the relationship between home and displacement from a spatial, material, and architectural perspective. Recent scholarship in the social sciences has investigated how migrants and refugees create and reproduce home under new conditions, thereby unpacking the seemingly contradictory positions of making a home and overcoming its loss. Yet, making home(s) in displacement is also a spatial practice, …
Covid-19 Roundtable
DiGeSt 8(1) General Issue - COVID-19 Roundtable
A Tale of Two Twin Houses
Central to Mirjana Lozanovska’s latest book Migrant Housing. Architecture, Dwelling, Migration (2019) is the question whether we can consider the migrant house as a distinct category within architectural historiography. This is of course a rhetorical question, as the book in an unparalleled way points out how migrants’ sociocultural inscriptions and contributions were hitherto completely lacking in the historiography of the architecture of housin…
Broadening the Urban Planning Repertoire with an ‘Arrival Infrastructures’ Perspective
In this article we propose an arrival infrastructure’s perspective in order to move beyond imaginaries of neighbourhoods as a ‘port of first entry’ that are deeply ingrained in urban planning discussions on migrants’ arrival situations. A focus on the socio-material infrastructures that shape an arrival situation highlights how such situations are located within, but equally transcend, the territories of neighbourhoods and other localities. Unpac…
K inshasa
Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), grew in less than 100 years from some dispersed villages accommodating around 30,000 people to a megalopolis of more than 12 million inhabitants. On the African continent only Lagos (Nigeria) and Cairo (Egypt) have a larger urban population. Although the Belgian colonizer strictly controlled the growth of the city through urban planning interventions, since independence in 1960 …
Major events and urban development
Urban developments steered by major events have a long history. Already from the second half of the nineteenth century, World Expositions were mobilized as opportunities for urban upgrading. This article highlights the spatial effects of three Chinese major expositions on their host cities in the early twentieth century (1906–1929). It will in particular highlight the impact on urban development and planning, such as the construction of modern pu…
Decolonizing African Studies
Migrants, Mobile Worlding and City-Making
In this article I introduce the concept of ‘mobile worlding’ in relation to African diaspora’s urban world-making practices. Conceptualising ‘mobile worlding’ is an endeavour in bringing the trans-urban circulation and interconnectedness of migrants’ urban world-making practices to the fore. ‘Mobile worlding’ has the potential to enhance our understanding, not only of (the interconnectedness of) migrants’ contributions to contemporary city-making…
Planning Belgian Congo’s network of medical infrastructure
Throughout the 1950s, the Belgian colonial government constructed a vast network of hospital infrastructure as part of its Ten-Year Plan, a colony-wide socio-economic scheme emblematic for the era of ‘welfare colonialism.’ This network played a key role in Belgian colonialism, by providing healthcare, but also by boosting labour productivity, facilitating state presence and control, and by advertising Congo as a medical model-colony. In this arti…
Decolonizing African Studies
The “Development Syndrome”
After the Second World War, European welfare planning was transposed to the African colonies. With regard to housing, this meant a true turning point in urban policy. Under a development slogan, colonial powers for the first time massively invested in the housing of African urban dwellers. This was especially the case in French Dakar, Senegal, where the Société Immobilière du Cap Vert (SICAP) was one of the most productive housing institutions in…
A Toponymy of Segregation
In between improvisation, compensation and negotiation
This article examines the socio-spatial history of the central market of a colonial African city. Colonial policies of racial segregation created obstacles to commerce, which in turn generated a local strategy of improvisational planning to placate various urban actors with a host of often contradictory concessions to ameliorate dislocation. These contradictions of colonial governance played out most visibly in the struggles over Kariakoo market,…
The making of the central markets of Dakar and Kinshasa
This article traces the planning history of two central marketplaces in sub-Saharan Africa, in Dakar and Kinshasa, from their French and Belgian colonial origins until the post-colonial period. In the (post-)colonial city, the marketplace has always been at the centre of contemporary debates on urban identity and spatial production. Using a rich variety of sources, this article makes a contribution to a neglected area of scholarship, as comparati…
Making the African City. Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Kinshasa, 1920–1980
Although many people have an image of Africa as predominately rural, it is now the fastest urbanizing continent in the world. Since World War II, a number of African metropolises have developed, including four that have over eight million inhabitants: Cairo (Egypt), Lagos (Nigeria), Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Johannesburg (South Africa). Because of this growing urbanisation, the cities of Africa have attracted new, and renewe…
Editing the African city
In order to understand the complexity of the colonial city in Africa, this article suggests a comparative study on two levels, corresponding with two important phenomena in the planning process of African cities. The first level can be described as the diffusion of planning models to the colonies, and the second as the actual implementation of these planning models on the colonial terrain. Each level requires different scales of research and fram…
Editing the African city
In order to understand the complexity of the colonial city in Africa, this article suggests a comparative study on two levels, corresponding with two important phenomena in the planning process of African cities. The first level can be described as the diffusion of planning models to the colonies, and the second as the actual implementation of these planning models on the colonial terrain. Each level requires different scales of research and fram…
The making of the central markets of Dakar and Kinshasa
This article traces the planning history of two central marketplaces in sub-Saharan Africa, in Dakar and Kinshasa, from their French and Belgian colonial origins until the post-colonial period. In the (post-)colonial city, the marketplace has always been at the centre of contemporary debates on urban identity and spatial production. Using a rich variety of sources, this article makes a contribution to a neglected area of scholarship, as comparati…
Mobile urbanism from below
This article conceptualises Afro-Christian churches as vectors for the circulation of spatial knowledge. Scholarship on the ‘reverse mission’ of Afro-Christian churches to Europe emphasises their emplacement in global cities. Yet, during the last decades, new religious geographies have been produced, resulting in a dense, trans-urban network of Afro-Christian churches in Europe, covering not only global cities but also – and more dominantly – mid…
Reconsidering the interrupted housing pathways of refugees in Flanders (Belgium) from a home-making perspective
This article addresses housing and accommodation challenges for refugees in Flanders, a region in Belgium by merging the author’s distinct disciplinary perspectives—architectural and sociological. It builds upon two core concepts in housing literature: ‘housing pathways’ and ‘home-making’. Integrating results of several research projects, the article explores the entire housing pathways of refugees from their arrival up to their settlement in pri…
Migrants, Mobile Worlding and City-Making
In this article I introduce the concept of ‘mobile worlding’ in relation to African diaspora’s urban world-making practices. Conceptualising ‘mobile worlding’ is an endeavour in bringing the trans-urban circulation and interconnectedness of migrants’ urban world-making practices to the fore. ‘Mobile worlding’ has the potential to enhance our understanding, not only of (the interconnectedness of) migrants’ contributions to contemporary city-making…
Making the African City. Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Kinshasa, 1920–1980
Although many people have an image of Africa as predominately rural, it is now the fastest urbanizing continent in the world. Since World War II, a number of African metropolises have developed, including four that have over eight million inhabitants: Cairo (Egypt), Lagos (Nigeria), Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Johannesburg (South Africa). Because of this growing urbanisation, the cities of Africa have attracted new, and renewe…
Making the African City. Dakar, Dar es Salaam, Kinshasa, 1920–1980
Although many people have an image of Africa as predominately rural, it is now the fastest urbanizing continent in the world. Since World War II, a number of African metropolises have developed, including four that have over eight million inhabitants: Cairo (Egypt), Lagos (Nigeria), Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Johannesburg (South Africa). Because of this growing urbanisation, the cities of Africa have attracted new, and renewe…
Editing the African city
In order to understand the complexity of the colonial city in Africa, this article suggests a comparative study on two levels, corresponding with two important phenomena in the planning process of African cities. The first level can be described as the diffusion of planning models to the colonies, and the second as the actual implementation of these planning models on the colonial terrain. Each level requires different scales of research and fram…
The making of the central markets of Dakar and Kinshasa
This article traces the planning history of two central marketplaces in sub-Saharan Africa, in Dakar and Kinshasa, from their French and Belgian colonial origins until the post-colonial period. In the (post-)colonial city, the marketplace has always been at the centre of contemporary debates on urban identity and spatial production. Using a rich variety of sources, this article makes a contribution to a neglected area of scholarship, as comparati…
A Toponymy of Segregation
In between improvisation, compensation and negotiation
This article examines the socio-spatial history of the central market of a colonial African city. Colonial policies of racial segregation created obstacles to commerce, which in turn generated a local strategy of improvisational planning to placate various urban actors with a host of often contradictory concessions to ameliorate dislocation. These contradictions of colonial governance played out most visibly in the struggles over Kariakoo market,…
The “Development Syndrome”
After the Second World War, European welfare planning was transposed to the African colonies. With regard to housing, this meant a true turning point in urban policy. Under a development slogan, colonial powers for the first time massively invested in the housing of African urban dwellers. This was especially the case in French Dakar, Senegal, where the Société Immobilière du Cap Vert (SICAP) was one of the most productive housing institutions in…
Decolonizing African Studies
K inshasa
Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), grew in less than 100 years from some dispersed villages accommodating around 30,000 people to a megalopolis of more than 12 million inhabitants. On the African continent only Lagos (Nigeria) and Cairo (Egypt) have a larger urban population. Although the Belgian colonizer strictly controlled the growth of the city through urban planning interventions, since independence in 1960 …
Major events and urban development
Urban developments steered by major events have a long history. Already from the second half of the nineteenth century, World Expositions were mobilized as opportunities for urban upgrading. This article highlights the spatial effects of three Chinese major expositions on their host cities in the early twentieth century (1906–1929). It will in particular highlight the impact on urban development and planning, such as the construction of modern pu…
Decolonizing African Studies
Migrants, Mobile Worlding and City-Making
In this article I introduce the concept of ‘mobile worlding’ in relation to African diaspora’s urban world-making practices. Conceptualising ‘mobile worlding’ is an endeavour in bringing the trans-urban circulation and interconnectedness of migrants’ urban world-making practices to the fore. ‘Mobile worlding’ has the potential to enhance our understanding, not only of (the interconnectedness of) migrants’ contributions to contemporary city-making…
Planning Belgian Congo’s network of medical infrastructure
Throughout the 1950s, the Belgian colonial government constructed a vast network of hospital infrastructure as part of its Ten-Year Plan, a colony-wide socio-economic scheme emblematic for the era of ‘welfare colonialism.’ This network played a key role in Belgian colonialism, by providing healthcare, but also by boosting labour productivity, facilitating state presence and control, and by advertising Congo as a medical model-colony. In this arti…
A Tale of Two Twin Houses
Central to Mirjana Lozanovska’s latest book Migrant Housing. Architecture, Dwelling, Migration (2019) is the question whether we can consider the migrant house as a distinct category within architectural historiography. This is of course a rhetorical question, as the book in an unparalleled way points out how migrants’ sociocultural inscriptions and contributions were hitherto completely lacking in the historiography of the architecture of housin…
Broadening the Urban Planning Repertoire with an ‘Arrival Infrastructures’ Perspective
In this article we propose an arrival infrastructure’s perspective in order to move beyond imaginaries of neighbourhoods as a ‘port of first entry’ that are deeply ingrained in urban planning discussions on migrants’ arrival situations. A focus on the socio-material infrastructures that shape an arrival situation highlights how such situations are located within, but equally transcend, the territories of neighbourhoods and other localities. Unpac…
Making Home(s) in Displacement
Making Home(s) in Displacement critically rethinks the relationship between home and displacement from a spatial, material, and architectural perspective. Recent scholarship in the social sciences has investigated how migrants and refugees create and reproduce home under new conditions, thereby unpacking the seemingly contradictory positions of making a home and overcoming its loss. Yet, making home(s) in displacement is also a spatial practice, …
Covid-19 Roundtable
DiGeSt 8(1) General Issue - COVID-19 Roundtable
Making Home(s) in Displacement
Understanding urban sustainability from Mode 2 Science and transdisciplinary education
The wicked sustainability problems that we are increasingly facing not only require new ways of knowledge production, but also challenge our traditional educational system. More and more importance is attached to educational practices and experiments focusing on transdisciplinary problem framing, a pluralistic search for solutions and active collaboration with various stakeholders throughout society. The aim of this article is to investigate how …
The homing of newcomers in Brussels at the intersection of bordering and urban speculation
Informed by a year of participatory action research in Globe Aroma, an organisation supporting artists and art lovers with a background as newcomers in Brussels, this paper examines how newcomers negotiate their homing at the intersection of bordering and securitisation on the one side, and gentrification and urban speculation on the other. We argue that these exclusionary structures of power do not only challenge newcomers’ homing by restricting…
Mapping Brussels' Displaced Housing Ecosystem
As displaced people arrive at European cities, the experiences of displacement caused by forces of bordering and securitization do not end at the point of arrival. Due to a pre-existing housing crisis characterized by critical shortages in affordable housing, a series of urban displacements ensue. The intersectionality between the border regime and neoliberal housing systems produces gaps in migrant housing needs which neither the reception nor t…
Reconsidering the interrupted housing pathways of refugees in Flanders (Belgium) from a home-making perspective
This article addresses housing and accommodation challenges for refugees in Flanders, a region in Belgium by merging the author’s distinct disciplinary perspectives—architectural and sociological. It builds upon two core concepts in housing literature: ‘housing pathways’ and ‘home-making’. Integrating results of several research projects, the article explores the entire housing pathways of refugees from their arrival up to their settlement in pri…
Mobile urbanism from below
This article conceptualises Afro-Christian churches as vectors for the circulation of spatial knowledge. Scholarship on the ‘reverse mission’ of Afro-Christian churches to Europe emphasises their emplacement in global cities. Yet, during the last decades, new religious geographies have been produced, resulting in a dense, trans-urban network of Afro-Christian churches in Europe, covering not only global cities but also – and more dominantly – mid…
Mapped to see
This paper discusses the potential role of mapping as a method in social sciences, focusing on migration research. Traditionally associated with spatial fields like geography, architecture and urban planning, mapping is increasingly used in social sciences to visualise and spatialise contemporary socio-ecological challenges and crises. Despite much writing about its potential, mapping remains an elusive method to researchers who are not trained i…
Epistemic decolonization of urban and regional planning and its historiography
Blending literature review with critical reflection, the main aim of this paper is to argue that planning not only has a colonial past, but that a significant degree of ‘coloniality’ persists within the discipline. By mobilizing decolonial theoretical frameworks and placing them in productive dialogue with feminist and queer epistemologies, this paper critically examines how planning remains determined by knowledge systems shaped by colonial powe…
Political science (15 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Geography (13 works) · Law (10 works) · African history and culture studies (8 works) · Archaeology (8 works) · Economics (8 works) · Colonialism (7 works) · Computer Science (6 works) · Economic growth (6 works)