Colonialism operated in Amman through a matrix of power generated from a Western emphasis on its biblical and classical pasts. The cultural dominance of this matrix persisted in the postcolonial period. It perpetuated the coloniality of knowledge and the coloniality of being as it accentuated Western imperial pasts and marked the local – whether heritage or something else – as marginal. Coloniality is reflected in the successive planning and regeneration projects of Amman’s place of origin: Amman Valley (Wadi Amman). A postcolonial approach is usually used to discuss these projects on the basis of locals’ “otherness” and passivity. However, we shift the discussion toward examining local intelligence as having the power to resist the persistent colonial matrix, using the example of an art initiative by local activists in Wadi Amman as part of its regeneration. Using the concept of decoloniality, this article grapples with local knowledge and being in Wadi Amman and their capacity to turn urban heritage spaces into places of resistance. It reveals that despite the resistance potential in urban heritage spaces, the persistent colonial matrix of power reduces them to spaces of illusion. Because of the cultural dominance of the art initiative in Wadi Amman and the marginalization of locality, we conclude that resistance itself is being colonized and decoloniality is but an illusion. In line with decolonial theory, we call for a geopolitical turn that allows us to unfold the different shapes of struggle in the urban heritage spaces of postcolonial cities in order to locate, celebrate, and criticize the liberating genealogies found in them.

殖民主义在安曼通过西方国家对其圣经和古典过去的重视而产生的力量矩阵来运作。这个矩阵的文化优势在后殖民时期一直存在。它使知识的殖民性和存在的殖民性得以延续，因为它加剧了西方帝国的过去，并标志着当地人（无论是遗产还是其他东西）处于边缘地位。殖民地反映在安曼原籍安曼谷（Wadi Amman）的接连规划和重建项目中。通常采用后殖民的方法来根据当地人的“其他”和消极态度来讨论这些项目。但是，我们将讨论转向检查本地情报，因为它具有抵抗持久殖民矩阵的能力，以瓦迪安曼当地激进分子的艺术倡议为例，以此作为其复兴的一部分。本文使用装饰论的概念来探讨当地知识，并在瓦迪安曼（Wadi Amman）及其将城市遗产空间转变为抵抗力量的能力。它表明，尽管城市遗产空间具有潜在的抵抗力，但持久的殖民权力矩阵将它们缩小为幻觉空间。由于瓦迪安曼（Wadi Amman）艺术行动的文化优势和地方边缘化，我们得出这样的结论：抵抗本身正在被殖民，而殖民主义只是一种幻想。与非殖民主义理论相呼应，我们呼吁进行地缘政治转型，使我们能够展开后殖民城市的城市遗产空间中的各种斗争形式，以便定位，庆祝，