Joanna Kocsis

Joanna is an activist scholar whose community-engaged research explores epistemological injustice in the field of planning. Her work examines how creative practice can be used to build socially just and sustainable cities. Joanna uses art-based research methods to examine the contemporary transformations of urban space that result from the economic and social restructuring of communities impoverished by globalization.

Joanna held Research Award positions at Canada's International Development Research Centre in 2012 (Innovation for Inclusive Development) and 2014 (Policy, Strategy and Evaluation) and served as the Learning and Evaluation Specialist for the Urban Climate Resilience in Southeast Asia Partnership from 2014–2020. She cochaired the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion working group of the Canadian Evaluation Society from 2018–2021 and served as the Green Party of Canada candidate for Niagara West in the 44th federal election in 2021. Joanna holds a Ph.D. in Planning from the University of Toronto.

Classes (Selected)

• CRP 3850/5850 Gender and Urban Space

Publications (Selected)

• Kocsis, Joanna. "'Y Compartimos...': the collective creation of performed fiction in practice." Cultural Geographies (2024): 14744740241227442.
• Kocsis, Joanna. "Places to be young: The dispossession of public space in Old Havana." Urban Studies (2024): 00420980241249421.
• Kocsis, Joanna. "From 'No' to 'Know': a heuristic for decolonizing research with youth." Children's Geographies (2024): 1-15.
• Kocsis, Joanna. "'¡ Eso no se dice'!: Exploring the value of communication distortions in participatory planning." Planning Theory 22, no. 3 (2023): 270-291.
• Smeds, Emilia, Ersilia Verlinghieri, Joanna Kocsis, James JT Connolly, Ana Polgár, Kevin Manaugh, E. O. D. Waygood, Paola Castañeda, and Matthew Wargent. "'Seeing Like a Citizen': Rethinking City Street Transformations through the Lens of Epistemic Justice: Edited by Emilia Smeds and Ersilia Verlinghieri." Planning Theory & Practice 24, no. 5 (2023): 697-729.