Bjørn Sletto
Bjørn Sletto is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin in the Department of Geography, School of Architecture, and is the director of the Institute of Latin American Studies (LLILAS). He is also the Ph.D. Program Coordinator for the Community & Regional Planning Program.
Sletto received a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Minnesota, a master’s degree in Geography from the University of Kansas, and his doctorate in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University. His areas of interests are Latin American planning and development, participatory planning, environmental and social justice, and social theory. Sletto currently teaches Geographic Information Systems, environmental and social justice, public space theory, planning theory, and seminars and studio courses focusing on Latin American planning and development.
Over the last 10 years, he has lived and worked in indigenous villages and border cities in Venezuela, investigating environmental conflicts and land rights struggles and conducting participatory mapping projects with the Pemon in the Gran Sabana and Yukpa in the Sierra de Perijá. As part of the Institute of Latin American Studies’ (LLILAS) Research Initiative in Participatory Mapping, he works closely with partner institutions in South America to further international scholarship on representational politics and social justice in vulnerable communities.