Center for Autonomous Planning

At the core of the rural issue in spatial planning is the problem of the production of whiteness and the white proletariat as an American ideal. Once intersectional analysis is brought to the fore on the condition of whiteness in rural Appalachia we begin to see histories of economic planning entwined with racial capitalism and stratification. The Center for Autonomous Planning aims to design spatial planning tools to engage rural communities on the level of creating a sense of autonomy from the extractive corporations and governance structures that have produced austerity. In the same sense, we utilize architectural and rural planning procedures as powerful tools to re-imagine a cultural sense of self in a fraught time that has seen the rise of far-right extremist groups around rural communities in Appalachia. This project is historical in the sense that it looks to forensic architectural research as a method to understand a genealogy of white subjectivity formation in rural communities. We will attempt to unpack and problematize the spatial and abstract economic components of subjection, at the edges of the urban, that could help provide further insight into decision-making that has led to extremist positionality.

Ultimately, we will ask, how do architecture and urbanism assume specific structures of subjectivity in their design methodologies?

- Kylie King - Village of Crooksville, Ohio in Central Appalachia
Village of Crooksville, Ohio in Central Appalachia