Camilo Calderon

I am a lecturer and researcher specializing in participatory and deliberative planning and decision-making.  I have an interdisciplinary background in architecture, urban design, urban planning, landscape planning and environmental governance.  Throughout my career, I have conducted research, taught, and provided expert advice on planning and policy processes addressing complex socio-environmental challenges, including energy transition, urban renewal, sustainable community development, public space design, ecosystem services, and the promotion of sustainable lifestyles.

I have worked across a diverse range of international contexts, with projects in Colombia, Spain, Sweden, India, South Africa, the UK, and the Netherlands. Additionally, I have extensive experience in designing and facilitating courses and workshops that foster collaboration among participants from diverse disciplines and cultural backgrounds to critically engage with and address complex socio-environmental challenges.

Previous academic experience includes researcher and lecturer at the Division of Landscape Architecture, at SLU, Researcher at Uppsala University in the Swedish International Centre of Education for Sustainable Development – SWEDESD  and teacher at the Master’s programme Sustainable Urban Planning and Design at the Royal Institute of Technology KTH.

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My research explores how to design inclusive planning and policy processes that effectively respond to the growing complexity of socio-political contexts shaped by climate change, rapid urbanization, increasing polarization, and public resistance. I am currently focused on Energy Transitions, particularly Wind Power projects. I also have an interest in the facilitation of environmental conflicts, the dynamics of power in decision-making, and comparative analyses of participatory practices across the global North and South. 

Currently I am involved in the reseach project Governance, collaboration and resistance in environmental communication with a focus on investigating the meaning and role of collaborative environmental governance (particularly with regard to Energy transtions and Wind Power) in the context of mounting tensions and resistance around sustainability transformations. The project is part of the Mistra Environmental Communication research programme. 

Previous research projects include: 

A Balancing Act between Swift and Slow Planning investigating how practitioners balance, on the one hand, the need for efficiency in decision-making, and the other hand, calls for more democratic/participatory processes that are time-consuming. Focus on urgent sustainability challenges such as climate change impacts, shortage of affordable homes or influx of immigrants.

Dialogues in governance for sustainability focusing on the how to work with participation and dialogue in the face of conflicts and power imbalances to design power-sensitive and conflict-aware deliberative processes.

Politicising Participation: Towards a new theoretical approach to participation in the planning and design of public space (PhD) with a focus on making a theoretical contribution to the fields of landscape architecture and urban design by focusing on the challenges of participation in planning and urban design. The research gave especial emphasis on the understanding of conflicts and power relations within participatory processes and how these influence the development of public spaces.  The PhD thesis was awarded with the European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools –ECLAS- Outstanding PhD Student Award.

I have also engaged in action research regarding collaborative approaches to planning. As a result of this I wrote together with colleagues at Uppsala University the "The Inquiry Based Approach - IBA: a facilitator’s handbook" for guiding collaborative practices. The approach has been implemented in 17 cities in Africa, South East Asia, and Europe.

I am the Director of Studies for the following Masters and Bachelor programmes: 

- MSc Environmental Communication and Management programme at SLU (NM026)

- MSc Rural Development and Natural Resource Management (NM009)

- Agronom landsbygdsutveckling (NY014) 

- Samhällsutveckling – landsbygd (NK015)

- Agronom landsbygdsutveckling (NM033)

I am also course coordinator for the courses Introduction to environmental communication, and Conflict, democracy and facilitation.

I am also supervisor and examiner of master thesis and PhD students in the fields of Environmental Communication and Management, Landscape Architecture programmes and Rural Development. 

I give lectures focusing among other on participatory and deliberative planning; communicative planning theory; conflicts and power relations in collaborative decision-making; tools and methods for participation and collaboration; participatory planning in the global South; research methods and case study methodology; the political economy of urban development;  integrated approaches to planning and design; upgrading of informal settlements; renewal of deprived neighbourhoods; tactical/DIY/guerrilla urbanism; and urban development in cities of the global south (particularly Latin America).

I have also been invited to give lectures, be opponent and co-organize courses in universities including Uppsala University, the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), the University of Milano-Bicocca, the National Agrarian University (UNA) and the Pontificia Bolivariana University (UPB).

I am co-supervisor to the following PhD students:

Saloni Shrestha: "Collaborative planning and the role of social media: The case of Nepal"(ongoing)

Emma Sahlström: "International migration to Sweden – negotiating belonging in rural environments" (ongoing)

Josephine Norrbo: "Aesthetics and Power in Landscape Architectural Design Process"  (ongoing)

Paola Ledo Espinoza: A southern perspective: Northern and indigenous influences on the establishment of a hybrid culture of participatory planning, the story of Sacaba (Completed 2021)

Said Nuhu: Rethinking land access governance in Global South Cities:  Understanding the dynamics and contentions of land access processes and governance mechanisms in peri-urban areas of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (Completed 2021)

Martin Westin: Rethinking power in participatory planning: towards reflective practice (Completed 2019)

Peer-reviewed articles

Calderon, C., Mutter, A., Westin, M. & Butler, A. (2022) Navigating swift and slow planning: planners´ balancing act in the design of participatory processes. European Planning Studies

Westin, M., Mutter, A., Calderon, C., Hellquist, A. (2021). “Let us be led by the residents”: Swedish dialogue experts´stories about power, justification and ambivalence. Nordic Journal of Urban Studies

Joosse, S., Powell, S., Bergeå, H., Boehm, S., Calderon, C., Caselunghe, E., Fischer, A., Grubbström, A., Hallgren, L., Holmgren, S., Löf, A., Nordström Källström, H., Raitio, K., Senecah, S., Söderlund Kanarp, C., von Essen, E., Westberg, L., Westin, M. (2020). Critical, engaged and change-oriented scholarship in environmental communication. Six methodological dilemmas to think with. Environmental Communication. 

Calderon, C. (2019). Unearthing the political: differences, conflicts and power in participatory urban design. Journal of Urban Design

Calderon, C., & Westin, M. (2019). Understanding context and its influence on collaborative planning processes: A contribution to communicative planning theory. International Planning Studies.

Calderon, C. and A. Butler (2019). Politicising the landscape: a theoretical contribution towards the development of participation in landscape planning. Landscape Research

Calderon, C. & Chelleri, L. (2013) Social processes in the production of public spaces: structuring forces and actors in the renewal of a deprived neighbourhood in Barcelona,  Journal of Urban Design. 

Books, book chapters

Calderon, C. and J. Hernandez-Garcia (2019). Bottom-up public space design and social cohesion: The case of a self-developed park in an informal settlement of Bogotá. Public Space Design and Social Cohesion: an International Comparison. P. Aelbrecht and Q. Stevens, Routledge.

Westin, M., Calderon, C. & Hellquist, A. (2016) Att leda samverkan: En handbok för dig som vill hantera komplexa samhällsutmaningar. Visby, SWEDESD - Swedish International Centre of Education for Sustainable Development.

Westin, M., Calderon, C. & Hellquist, A. (2014) The Inquiry Based Approach IBA: a facilitator’s handbook. Visby, SWEDESD - Swedish International Centre of Education for Sustainable Development.

Calderon, C. (2013) Politicising Participation: towards a new theoretical approach to participation in the planning and design of public space. PhD Dissertation. Uppsala:SLU

Calderon, C. (2012) Social Urbanism: participatory urban upgrading in Medellin, Colombia, in Lawrence, Yildiz & Kellett (eds.) Requalifying the built environment: challenges and responses. Göttingen: Hogrefe Publishing. ISBN 978-0-88937-430-0

Popular articles

Westin M., Calderon C. & Arljung, M. (2025) Analys: ”Så kan dialogen om hållbarhetsfrågor bli mindre destruktiv”  Aktuel Hållbarhet

Westin M. Calderon C. & Butler A. (2020) Rethinking deliberative planning in times of crisis. Medium, Viable Cities 

Calderon, C. (2011) ‘En ny form för offentliga rum som börjar i det tillfälliga’ [New Approaches to the Production of Public Spaces]. Arkitektur 01,2011, Stockholm

2024: Distingushed University Teacher (Excellent lärare). Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

2020: Best Paper Prize by an Early Career Researcher Landscape Research Journal for the paper “Politicising the landscape: A theoretical contribution towards the development of participation in landscape planning”

2013: Outstanding Student Award PhD level. European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools ECLAS. Award received for the PhD thesis: “Politicising Participation: towards a new theoretical approach to participation in the planning and design of public space”

2006: First Prize Award, Colombian Biennale of Architecture – Urban Planning Category: Project Urban Plan for the redevelopment of the “SIMESA” Industrial Sector. Award received as team member of S+A

2006: Honorific Distinction, Colombian Biennale of Architecture – Urban Design Category: Project Urban Design of the Public Area “Boulevard Castilla - Cra 68”. Award received as team member of S+A