Baumer Lecture Series: Tyeshia Redden
In this talk, Dr. Tyeshia Redden leverages the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro as a site of both epistemological exploration and planning critique.
Gui Auditorium
Much has been written of Brazil’s urban social dynamics, highly influenced its lingering structural effects of slavery. Despite being the second-largest Black population in the world, Afro-Brazilians and their cultural practices have borne the burden of stigmatization amid Brazil’s Eurocentric socio-political hierarchy.
Revealing the layered oppressions experienced by Afro-Brazilians living in the path of Olympic-associated development, Dr. Redden suggests the coalescence of a state-sanctioned campaign to erase Black cultural practices from the urban landscape. Ultimately, attendees will consider how the demolitions of terreiros, discriminatory transit policy, and favela removals impede the freedom and visibility of Black Brazilians in Rio de Janeiro.
Tyeshia Redden is an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Toronto. There, she examines spatial injustice and its relationship to the African Diaspora, particularly through the lens of popular culture. Dr. Redden has authored articles that can be found in the Journal of the American Planning Association, the Journal of Planning History, Land, and Metropolitics. Her current research investigates linkages between Olympic development and public policy.
A graduate of Savannah State University and the University of Florida, Dr. Redden previously worked as a policy analyst in the metro-Atlanta region. She has received the American Planning Association Florida Chapter’s Excellence in Neighborhood Planning Award and co-designed Habitat for Humanity International’s Advancing Black Homeownership Initiative affiliate curriculum. At U of T, Dr. Redden is the social policy concentration advisor and a core faculty instructor for the Master of Science in City Planning program.
This event is approved for AICP CM credit. To claim your CM credits, log into your My APA account on the APA website and enter the event into your online CM event log.
This is event part of the Autumn 2025 Baumer Lecture Series.
The Baumer Lecture Series invites prominent researchers and practitioners of architecture, landscape architecture, and city and regional planning to present their work and to engage subjects both topical and enduring.