Africa’s last colony

Abstract

This thesis explores how spatial design could support the Saharawi -the indigenous population of Western Sahara- in their struggle for self-determination. By doing so, the research radically questions the colonial, patriarchal, and Eurocentric legacies embedded in the design practice itself. Such a critical approach recognises that conventional planning frameworks, shaped by Western epistemologies, often reproduce the very hierarchies they claim to dismantle. This tension is reflected in the honest portrayal of a research process of a Western woman investigating a non-Western struggle. Therefore, the project initiates from reflecting on concepts of privilege and responsibility through a process of vulnerability and radical honesty (Griffiths, 1994).

For the Saharawi, who are nomadic matriarchal descendants, the issue lies not only in the material conditions of displacement and occupation, but also in the epistemic erasure of their voices and their indigenous practices of resistance. In this context, design can offer solidarity by prioritising listening, amplifying counter-narratives, and taking responsibility within one’s own environment. Based on fieldwork in the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria, the findings reveal ‘matriarchal spatial patterns of resilience’: practices of horizontality, care, and continuity that offer a radical vocabulary for imagining otherwise (Miraftab, 2021; Ortiz, 2023). These patterns are not objective truths, but rather interpretative fragments of knowledge. They are Saharawi lived practices that can, on the one hand, spark radical imagination and, on the other, resist epistemic erasure. By naming the matriarchal patterns, they become imaginaries of hope for dismantling global and local power dynamics, taking shape as ‘activist design’. Not only does this form of ‘designing for justice’ reject conventional hierarchies, it shifts the focus from outcomes towards establishing relationships. This became clear during the studio for the winterschool ‘Justice by Design’ at the academy of Amsterdam. After enacting the patterns, the students -all from different backgrounds and previously unaware of the subject- reflected on the experience with increased feelings of empathy, justice, and personal emancipation. They concluded that radical change is lived and practiced through horizontality, and confirmed the potential of the patterns as tools for decolonising design imagination and practices.
Aligning with feminist, decolonial and activist design discourse, this thesis explores how matriarchal spatial patterns can be used as a foundation for rethinking spatial practices and design conventions (Escobar, 2018; Murray & Daly, 2023). It argues that decolonial design is not about products but about the process: an ongoing practice of critical reflection, unlearning, and cultivating hope. This work is not a model to be replicated but an invitation: to question, to imagine otherwise, and to recognise that resistance is also care. Ultimately, it is a call to amplify silenced narratives, such as that of the Saharawi. The process was imperfect and at times uncomfortable; however, it was precisely in this vulnerability that a process of epistemic resistance was made possible.