Planning is centrally focused on places which are significant to people, including both the built and natural environments. In making changes to these places, planning outcomes inevitably benefit some and disadvantage others. It is therefore perhaps surprising that Actor Network Theory (ANT) has only recently been considered as an appropriate lens through which to understand planning practice. This book brings together an international range of contributors to explore such potential of ANT in more detail.
While it can be thought of as a subset of complexity theory, given its appreciation for non-linear processes and responses, ANT has its roots in the sociology of scientific and technology studies. ANT now comprises a rich set of concepts that can be applied in research, theoretical and empirical. It is a relational approach that posits a radical symmetry between social and material actors (or actants). It suggests the importance of dynamic processes by which networks of relationships become formed, shift and have effect.
And while not inherently normative, ANT has the potential to strengthen other more normative domains of planning theory through its unique analytical lens. However, this requires theoretical and empirical work and the papers in this volume undertake such work. This is the first volume to provide a full consideration of how ANT can contribute to planning studies, and suggests a research agenda for conceptual development and empirical application of the theory.
|
List of figures and tables |
|
|
ix | |
|
|
|
x | |
| Acknowledgements |
|
xvi | |
| Introduction |
|
1 | (2) |
|
1 Exploring the influence of ANT |
|
|
3 | (22) |
|
|
|
|
|
Part I Using ANT: applied planning analyses |
|
|
25 | (132) |
|
2 Constructing `green building': heterogeneous networks and the translation of sustainability into planning in Israel |
|
|
27 | (17) |
|
|
|
3 Planned derailment for new urban futures? An actant network analysis of the `great [ light] rail debate' in Newcastle, Australia |
|
|
44 | (18) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
4 Grants as significant objects in community engagement networks: Kelowna, British Columbia |
|
|
62 | (17) |
|
|
|
|
|
5 Assembling localism: practices of assemblage and building the `Big Society' in Oxfordshire, England |
|
|
79 | (16) |
|
|
|
6 Two exemplar green developments in Norway: tales of qualculation and non-qualculation |
|
|
95 | (16) |
|
|
|
|
|
7 Unpacking the Swedish urban sustainable imaginary: at the World Expo, Shanghai, China |
|
|
111 | (16) |
|
|
|
8 The king and the square: relationships of the material, cultural and political in the redesign of Stortorget, Malmo, Sweden |
|
|
127 | (15) |
|
|
|
9 Assembling energy futures: seawater district heating in The Hague, the Netherlands |
|
|
142 | (15) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Part II The way forward: innovative practices and theoretical controversies |
|
|
157 | (88) |
|
10 Does Actor Network Theory help planners to think about change? |
|
|
159 | (16) |
|
|
|
|
|
11 `Emergent places': innovative practices in Zurich, Switzerland |
|
|
175 | (11) |
|
|
|
|
|
12 Planning tactics of undefined becoming: applications within Urban Living Labs of Flanders' N16 corridor, Belgium |
|
|
186 | (17) |
|
|
|
|
|
13 Hydro-urbanism in London: using co-evolutionary Actor Network Theory as a prospective methodology |
|
|
203 | (14) |
|
|
|
14 Towards an extended symmetry: using ANT to reflect on the theory and practice gap |
|
|
217 | (14) |
|
|
|
15 `A grand question of design': knowledge, space and difference in early and late Latour |
|
|
231 | (14) |
|
|
|
|
| Index |
|
245 | |
Yvonne Rydin, Professor of Planning, Environment and Public Policy, Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, UK.
Laura Tate, PhD, Principal of Laura Tate Associates, a City and Social Planning and Evaluation Consulting firm based in Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
