Towards an Amazonian Relational Urbanism

This talk explores Belén, a self-built amphibian neighbourhood in Iquitos, Peru, to develop the idea of an Amazonian Relational Urbanism. Drawing on sentipensante threads, storytelling, and visual methods, it examines how Belenians co‑produce place through human, more‑than‑human, and ecological relations. The talk critically analyses the state-led resettlement to the Nueva Ciudad de Belén, showing how official interventions often erase local ontologies, relational practices, and forms of knowledge. By foregrounding emplacement, infrastructural citizenship, and homing, it highlights how residents assert agency, sustain identity, and maintain community despite displacement pressures. The research offers insights for socially just and environmentally grounded resettlement policies that recognise the complex relational nature of Amazonian place-making.

Speaker: Belen Desmaison

Architect & Urban researcher. Areas of research and action: Citizen Participation, Climate Change, Amazonia and Urban Planning. Coordinator of the action research projects CASA [Self-Sustainable Amazonian Cities], KNOW: Knowledge in Action Towards Urban Equality (Lima), GRRIPP: Gender Responsive Resilience and Intersectionality in Policy and Practice, and BALSA (Self-Sufficient Boat for Laboratory and Services in the Amazon). She has received recognitions at the World Architecture Forum (2018), the Peruvian Architecture and Urbanism Biennial (2019 and 2023), the Ibero-American Architecture and Urbanism Biennial (2022) and the International Union of Architects (2023).

Chair: Giovanna Astolfo

Urban researcher with a background in architectural theory and practice. As an Associate Professor at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU), she combines funded research, research‑based teaching, consultancy, project management, and action learning across contested and ungovernable urban geographies in Southeast Asia, the Amazon region, West Africa, Southern and Eastern Europe, and the UK. Her work focuses on non‑conventional urbanisms, continuous displacement and migration, spatial violence, and housing justice.

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