Janice Barry (She/Her)

Dr. Janice Barry is a scholar and practitioner in urban and regional planning with more than 25 years of experience. She began her career as a protected area planner with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources before completing her PhD in Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia. She has since built an international career in planning research and education, holding academic positions at the University of Manitoba, the University of Sheffield (UK), and the University of Glasgow (UK), before joining the University of Waterloo.

Janice’s work focuses on how planning decisions are made, and on how laws, policies, professional practices, and institutions shape whose voices are heard in those decisions. A central theme of her research is the recognition—or misrecognition—of Indigenous rights and title within the planning profession, and how planning intersects with the structures of settler colonialism. Her work examines Indigenous engagement in municipal planning and explores ways to build more reciprocal and respectful planning relationships between First Nations and municipalities. Drawing on her background in natural resource and protected area planning, she has also studied provincial governments’ efforts to work with First Nations on watershed-scale planning initiatives. Her 2016 book (with Libby Porter), "Planning for Coexistence? Recognizing Indigenous Rights through Land-Use Planning in Canada and Australia", was the first major study to compare the underlying conditions of the “contact zone” between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in both urban and non-urban (environmental and natural resource) planning.

Janice works closely with First Nation communities and organizations and has supported a number of on-reserve planning processes. She is particularly interested in how Indigenous-led planning supports Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination. She also collaborates with researchers in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand who are working on related issues in planning and governance.

Beyond Indigenous planning, Janice’s research includes participatory planning, community engagement, and the evolving role of planning professionals. She writes on planning theory and education, with particular attention to professional ethics and the development of planning competencies. She serves as a Debates and Reflections Editor for the journal Planning Theory & Practice.

Janice is a Registered Professional Planner and an active member of the planning profession. She is a full member of both the Canadian Institute of Planners (CIP) and the Ontario Professional Planners Institute (OPPI). She previously served on OPPI’s Indigenous Planning Perspectives Committee and currently serves as the academic representative on CIP’s Board of Directors.

• Politics of community engagement & collaborative approaches to planning

• Planning policies, institutions and governance

• Planning theory and ethics

• Settler colonialism, Indigenous/non-Indigenous relations and contemporary planning practice

• Anti-colonial approaches to planning practice and education

• Interpretative and critical policy analysis

• Qualitative research (case studies, interview-based methods, and discourse analysis)

• Community-engaged teaching and research

• 2011, Doctor of Philosophy, Community and Regional Planning, University of British Columbia

• 2004, Master of Arts, Canadian Studies & Native Studies, Trent University

• 2000, Bachelor of Science, Honours, Environmental Science & Biology, Trent University

• 2023, Outstanding Performance Award, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo

• 2022, Faculty Service Award, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo

• 2021, Finalist, Association of European Schools of Planning Best Paper Award

• 2021, Research Excellence Award, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo

• 2015, Outreach Award, University of Manitoba (while a faculty member there)

• 2022 to 2024, Associate Director (Graduate Studies), School of Planning, University of Waterloo

• Registered Professional Planner (RPP), Ontario Professional Planning Institute

• Member, Canadian Institute of Planners

• 2025 to Present, Debates and Reflections Editor, Planning Theory & Practice

• 2023 to Present, Academic Representative, Board of Directors, Canadian Institute of Planners

• 2018 to Present, Editorial Board Member, Canadian Planning and Policy Journal

• 2015 to Present, Editorial Board Member, Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability

• PLAN 107 - How Plans are Made: Processes, Stages, and Strategies
  • Taught in 2024
• PLAN 346 - Advanced Tools for Planning: Public Participation and Mediation
  • Taught in 2022, 2023, 2024
• PLAN 442 - Indigenous Peoples and Planning
  • Taught in 2025
• PLAN 474 - Special Topics in Planning
  • Taught in 2021, 2022, 2023

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• Barry, J. (2025). The Ongoing Unsettlement of Planning Thought: The Difference that Settler-Colonial and Critical Indigenous Theory Make. Critical Planning Futures (Eds. P. Almendinger, M. Tewdwr-Jones & M. Wargent). Routledge.

• Barry, J., Quick, K., & Milz, D. (2025). Calling On, Out, and In: Towards a Critical Pedagogy for Participatory Planning. Journal of Planning Education and Research https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X251385528

• Barry, J., Novacevski, M. & Boyco, M. & Legacy, C. (2025). Planners’ changing relationships with participation: The impact of new training and certification schemes. Journal of Planning Education and Research 45:3, 637-646

• Barry, J., Allen, E., Chandran, D., Cook, J., Curtis, B., Kostyniuk, A., Mikulec, P., Searle, M. & Yau, D. (2023). Unsettling Notions of Planning Competence: Lessons from Studio-Based Learning with Indigenous Peoples. Journal of Planning Education and Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X19844571

• Barry, J. & Legacy, C. (2023). Between virtue and profession: Theorising the rise of professionalised public participation practitioners. Planning Theory. https://doi.org/10.1177/14730952221107148

• Turriff, K. & Barry, J. (2023) The Possibilities for Legally Pluralistic Planning: An Exploration of Haudenosaunee Planning Law, Planning Theory & Practice, 24:1, 64-79, DOI: 10.1080/14649357.2023.2176537

• Barry, J. & Agyeman, J. (2020) On belonging and becoming in the settler-colonial city: Co-produced futurities, placemaking, and urban planning in the United States. Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City. DOI: 10.1080/26884674.2020.1793703

• Barry, J. & Thompson-Fawcett, M. (2020). Decolonizing the Boundaries between the ‘Planner’ and the ‘Planned’: Implications of Indigenous Property Development. Planning Theory & Practice. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2020.1775874.

• Barry, J. (2019). Being neighbourly: Urban reserves, treaty settlement lands, and the discursive construction of municipal–First Nation relations. The International Indigenous Policy Journal, 10(5) https://doi.org/10.18584/iipj.2019.10.5.8515

• Porter, L. & Barry, J. (2016). Planning for Coexistence? Recognizing Indigenous rights through land-use planning in Canada and Australia. Routledge.