Campus
- Downtown Toronto (St. George)
Fields of Study
- Policy & Planning
- Social & Political Geography
- Urban
Areas of Interest
Indigenous urbanism, Indigenous planning, settler colonialism, racial capitalism
Biography
Heather Dorries is an Assistant Professor jointly appointed to the Centre for Indigenous Studies and Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto. Her research focuses on the dynamic interplay between resurgent Indigenous world-making and the violence of settler colonial urbanization. Specifically, it examines how settler colonialism, as a mode of racial capitalism, is supported by planning processes. It also also considers how Indigenous intellectual traditions—including Indigenous environmental knowledge, legal orders, and cultural production—can be applied to anti-colonial planning practices and develops the theoretical and methodological frameworks this transformation requires.
Publications
Dorries, H. (2025). “Indigenous Relationality and Planning Futures.” In: Andres, L., Beebeejaun, Y., Rydin, Y. (eds) New Planning Histories. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-3867-3_2
Dorries, H. (2022). What is planning without property? Relational practices of being and belonging. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 40(2), 306-318. https://doi.org/10.1177/02637758211068505
Dorries, H., Hugill, D., & Tomiak, J. (2022). Racial capitalism and the production of settler colonial cities. Geoforum, 132, 263-270.
Dorries, H., & Harjo, L. (2020). Beyond safety: refusing colonial violence through indigenous feminist planning. Journal of planning education and research, 40(2), 210-219.