Literature Theorising Spatial Practices
Inhoudsopgave
Week 15 ........................................................................................................................................................... 3
Courage, Cara et al. (2021) The Routledge Handbook of Placemaking. NY: Routledge. Introduction, pp. 1-9. . 3
What really matters: moving placemaking into a new epoch ....................................................................... 3
Kühn, Manfred (2021): Agonistic planning theory revisited: The planner’s role in dealing with conflict. In
Planning Theory 20 (2), pp. 143-156. ................................................................................................................. 5
Landau, Friederike (2020): Following Agonistic Policy Failures. In Urban Studies 58 (12), pp. 2531-254. ......... 9
Week 16 ......................................................................................................................................................... 12
Cresswell, Tim (2015) Place: an introduction (2nd ed). Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. ................................... 12
Introduction: Defining place ........................................................................................................................ 12
Week 17 ......................................................................................................................................................... 15
Fisher, Roger and William Ury (2011): Getting to YES: Negotiating an agreement without giving in, pp. 6-12.
.......................................................................................................................................................................... 15
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 15
The problem - 1. Don’t bargain over positions ............................................................................................ 15
Klijn, Eric-Hans & Joop Koppenjan (2000): Public Management and Policy Networks, In Public Management
an International Journal of Research and Theory 2(2), pp. 135-158. ............................................................... 18
Introduction: Networks and the governance debate .................................................................................. 18
1. The theoretical foundation of the network approach ............................................................................. 19
2. The network approach as an explanatory model .................................................................................... 20
3. The role of power and conflict in networks ............................................................................................. 21
4. Success and failure of policy: the search for evaluation criteria ............................................................. 21
5. Public actors and policy networks ........................................................................................................... 22
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 22
March, James & Johan P. Olsen (2008): Elaborating the “New Institutionalism”, In The Oxford Handbook of
Political Institutions, edited by Sarah A. Binder, R. A. W. Rhodes, and Bert A. Rockman ................................. 23
1. An institutional perspective ..................................................................................................................... 23
2. Theorising political institutions................................................................................................................ 23
3. Institutional impacts on political actors and outcomes ........................................................................... 24
4 Institutional order and change ................................................................................................................. 24
5. The frontier of institutionalism................................................................................................................ 25
Week 20 ......................................................................................................................................................... 26
Young, Iris Marion (1990) Chapters 1 & 2, Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, pp. 15-65. .............................................................................................................................. 26
Chapter 1: Displacing the distributive paradigm ......................................................................................... 26
Chapter 2: Five faces of oppression............................................................................................................. 29
Soja, Edward W. (2010) “Why spatial? Why justice? Why L.A.? Why now?” in Seeking spatial justice.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 13- 66 .................................................................................. 32
1: Putting space first .................................................................................................................................... 32
2: On the production of unjust geographies ............................................................................................... 34
Week 21 ......................................................................................................................................................... 39
1
, Bäcklund, Pia and Raine Mäntysalo (2010): Agonism and institutional am- biguity: Ideas on democracy and
the role of participation in the development of planning theory and practice - the case of Finland. In Planning
Theory 9 (4), pp. 333-350. ................................................................................................................................ 39
Week 22 ......................................................................................................................................................... 43
Colona, Francesco (2020): Police guns and private security cars. Ordering the state through socio-material
policing assemblages in Nairobi. In Environment and Planning D 38 (3), 436-452 .......................................... 43
2
,Week 15
Courage, Cara et al. (2021) The Routledge Handbook of Placemaking. NY: Routledge.
Introduction, pp. 1-9.
What really matters: moving placemaking into a new epoch
Covid-19 and racial and climate justice will engender change in placemaking practice, and these
concerns are foregrounded in this handbook: indeed, as this handbook calls for looking at current
placemaking narratives and demands new ones, it signals the time for placemaking to evolve, as is
only correct for a people- and place-responsive practice with a radical potential at its core.
The pandemic is anti-place: more specific, it is counter to the particularly urban design of collective
occupation, and has created a fear of human proximity (nabijheid) and taken from us our familiar
collective social experiences and sites of serendipitous (casual/chance/toevallig) encounter. The virus
does not discriminate but the pandemic does; cleaving further open structures of intersectional
discrimination and vulnerability and in large part the burden of social distancing and care falling upon
the marginalised and the lowest paid. Those that kept our places working for us but who were
previously consigned to its margins (street cleaners, bus drivers, delivery drivers) are not ‘unskilled
workers’, but ‘key workers’. What has placemaking ever looked like for those that have been
overlooked in public realm life? We now appreciate the full value of human-centred public space
when it has been taken away from us; the right to protest in for BLM and police brutality. People use
the term ‘physical distancing’ rather than ‘social distancing’.
Our spatial perspective has pivoted to the hyperlocal of place; grocery shopping is a walk away and
outdoor exercise are familiar where those were previously unknown = relocalism.
What is placemaking?
There is no single definition for placemaking. There are several reasons why a placemaking
practitioner or organisation would want to avoid a definition: naming what you do too tightly might
limit funding and commercial opportunities. Also, naming what you do as placemaking in your own
definition is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
- Placemaking may be so new as sector, that it could be said that we’re still defining the field.
But equally, could the term placemaking have become meaningless as a result of its
disparate, diluted and obscured use?
For Courage, what differentiates placemaking from other built environment sectors is that it is an
approach and a set of tools that puts the community in front and centre of deciding how their place
looks and how it functions. There is a community imperative in placemaking.
- The moment you take the community out of placemaking as both spearheading and equal
stakeholder in its process, the process is no longer placemaking and the radical potential of
this place-based process is completely lost.
Placemaking represents a paradigm shift in thinking about planning and urban design, from a primary
focus on buildings and macro urban form to a focus on public space and human activity → what
happens in these places, why, how, with and by whom? And not: this is all the stuff of placemaking.
There is a 2fold need for the process of placemaking
1. It demands all those involved to work across sectors and out of silos, and often with art
practice
2. There is a need for architects, urban designers and planners to pay ever more attention to
local knowledges and desires in order to give depth to the meaning of their place designs.
Artists have a vital role here; driving and incubating the conservations through community
based testing methodologies.
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, → People have their love of place confirmed, renewed valued; their place attachment leads
to increased social cohesion and wellbeing, which leads to a vibrant, liveable place.
This handbook deliberately (re)situates into placemaking discourse non-normative, subaltern, and
diverse knowledges.
Placemaking as a community practice?
Now, we turn the lens inwards, to the consideration of placemaking as a community of practice. A
community of practice = group of people who ‘share a concern or passion for something they do and
learn how to do it as they interact regularly’. Activities undertaken by a community of practice
include: problem-solving, seeking experience, discussing developments, documentation projects,
visits, mapping knowledge and identifying gaps etc. Participation is essential.
Communities of practice are comprised of 3 dimensions
1. The domain; its joint enterprise – what is it about
2. The community; its mutual entanglement – how it functions
3. The practice; its shared repertoire – what capability it produces
Members can participate as they care about the domain they want to see developed.
The activities undertaken by a community of practice are akin to those undertaken by placemakers
through their practice. Via increasing formal & informal knowledge exchange, these activities are
being turned inwards to the placemaking community itself: a craft intimacy.
Wenger et al (2002) present 7 principles for cultivating a community of practice
- Design for evolution
- Open to dialogue between inside and outside perspectives
- Invite different levels of participation
- Develop both public and private community spaces
- Focus on value
- Combine familiarity and excitement
- Create a rhythm for the community
It requires a coordinator and those in the community need to take on that leadership role.
The value of community of practice is both short- and long-term. However, for a community of
practice, value may not be apparent at the start and it may not be apparent to those outside the
community. The surfacing of value and its sustained (re)creation is key to the success of the
community of practice. A lack of value recognition and the constant re-creation of value to those
outside of the practice will be something that many placemakers recognise.
Each subcommunity has its own habitus which can lead to miscommunication. The concept of
micropublic or microcommunity may prove useful here. Culture thinking, feedback loops are part of
this. As a community of practice grows, the capacity to know all may diminish and newcomers can
feel antagonised. Arnstein’s Ladder of Participation (1969) can be useful here; a more nuanced
position.
The next placemaking epoch
Over the last 10 years, placemaking has evolved and become increasingly cognizant (informed, op de
hoogte) of its political implications and agency. To become a community of practice, an ally to all
citizens, and to respond to times of crisis, there is much to evaluate across the placemaking sector.
What does public space offer in a lockdown?
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,The next 10 years pose challenges for society that have place and placemaking implications. As
placemakers we have to ask ourselves if we are fit for purpose to serve our communities. The ideal
placemaking offers a practical, proactive and integrated approach to place: does it really match that?
Social infrastructure is key to social action and capital, and a community’s place attachment is key in
this. We will move into our ‘next normal’: joining in collaboration all local stakeholders to deliberate
on what we don’t want to return.
Intersectionality: a place that is unwelcome for one is unwelcome for all and serves only to
perpetuate divisive social, political and material relations. Who is allowed in our places, who is heard
and who sits at the decision-making table determines what our places can be.
As placemakers we do not empower people; people hold an intrinsic power and it is our job to create
platform and share resources for people to enact their power. → placemakers have responsibility to
help amplify people’s voices. This is a co-created engagement that is honest, transparent and values-
based and that respects the service of the communities we work with.
Covid-19 and BLM have brought a sharp focus in what really matters about place. But we also need
new stories and we need to listen to diverse narratives and knowledges.
- Responsibility placemakers: not to extract from this lived experience, but to listen deeply and
to learn from it and apply learning forward.
- It requires a radical transformation
→ To get to this place, placemaking needs to be the radical practice. A community-based process,
and not an imposed top-down strategy or instrumentalized solution. Placemaking needs to work for
social and environmental justice – this is what really matters and should be what shapes the next era
of placemaking: to create places that heal, rather than harm.
Kühn, Manfred (2021): Agonistic planning theory revisited: The planner’s role in
dealing with conflict. In Planning Theory 20 (2), pp. 143-156.
Abstract
Approached from agonistic planning theory view conflict as immanent ( = existing or operation
within; inherent; onafscheidelijk verbonden) to pluralistic democracies and citizens communicative
planning theories for disregarding such conflict and relying too much on consensus and cooperation.
This criticism has led to a partial division between agonistic and communicative planning theories.
The article presents the basic principles of agonistic planning theory, and develops a criticism of its
biasedly positive view of conflict as a productive force, as well as the significant gap between its
theory and practice. In order to expand the scope of planning and to bridge this gap between theory
and practice, the article distinguishes between 3 ideal types of dealing with conflict:
A. avoidance of conflict that is understood as disruptive (passive);
B. Conflict as an occasion for participation and consensus building (active);
C. acceptance of conflict (proactive).
Because these types occur in practice in various mixed forms, the theoretical framework may help to
understand and analyse the politics of planning. Finally, the article presents some planning
challenges and dilemmas with regard to the ongoing transition towards pluralist democracies.
Introduction
Multiple European countries are characterized by increasing social heterogeneity and inequality. →
This reinforces political divisions and democratic cleavages.
- Also: a decline of middle class increasing social polarization of poor and rich
- Growing “super diversity” of the population immigration
- Decline of former people’s parties
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, All these points are signs of the shift towards pluralist democracies. The current rise of right-wing
populism in many European countries can also be interpreted as an expression of increasing
pluralism.
Pluralism is a political philosophy holding that people of different beliefs, backgrounds, and lifestyles
can coexist in the same society and participate equally in the political process.
Pluralism is defined as a society where multiple people, groups or entities share political power. An
example of pluralism is a society where people with different cultural backgrounds keep their own
tradition. An example of pluralism is where labor unions and employers share in meeting the needs of
employees.
Phase of “post-democracy”: active civic engagement of citizens in public protest, citizens’ initiatives,
referendums. In the transition to pluralist societies, conflict within and from planning is increasing.
Examples from Germany:
- Stuttgart 21 project: conflict surrounding the implementation of large-scale projects resulting
from reduced acceptance and increasing citizen protest
- The Thempelhofer Feld referendum in Berlin: conflict that arises from urban growth and
housing shortages in large cities
- Citizens’ initiatives against wind turbines & powerlines: conflict that arises in the
implementation of post-fossil era energy transition
- Conflict over immigration policies in the transition to a pluralistic immigration society.
Agonistic approaches in planning theory are currently very popular because they respond to the
increasing conflict within society. Other approaches of communicative planning and governance
research have strongly focused on consensus and operation. Agonism might thus be a new paradigm
for planning theory. The approaches of agonistic planning mostly refer to Chantal Mouffe’s political
theory of agonistic pluralism: conflict is inherent in pluralist societies and the acceptance and
legitimacy of conflict characterizes pluralist democracies.
→ Agonistic approaches in planning theory distance themselves from communicative planning-
theory approaches and criticize them for their negation of conflict, over-reliance on consensus, and
de-politization of planning theory.
3 Ideal types of dealing with conflict through planning:
A. Avoidance of conflict (comprehensive-rationalist planning)
B. Consensual resolution of conflict (communicative planning)
C. Acceptance of conflict (agonistic planning)
Since conflict is in many cases an expression of democratic deficits and power inequalities, the
different understandings of democracy and power that underlie the theoretical planning models are
highlighted.
In this article, the German planning system is described because the author has experience with that.
In comparison to the European perspective, the German planning system has been described as a
decentralized an multilevel system, with the federal, the regional and the municipal level closely
related. Because informal planning requires win-win situations among the actors in order to be
successful, the possibilities for solving conflicts are limited. The German planning system is based on
a coalitional political culture, where decisions are taken on the basis of consensus.
Planning is dependent on policy because politicians set the scope of action for administration
through their legitimized leadership and decision-making powers. In considering this unequal
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