Actor Networks of Planning: Exploring the influence of Actor Network Theory 9781138886407, 9781315714882

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Actor Networks of Planning

Planning is centrally focused on places that 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 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 chapters 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. 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.

Routledge Research in Planning and Urban Design Series editor: Peter Ache

Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands

Routledge Research in Planning and Urban Design is a series of academic monographs for scholars working in these disciplines and the overlaps between them. Building on Routledge’s history of academic rigour and cutting-edge research, the series contributes to the rapidly expanding literature in all areas of planning and urban design. Brand-Driven City Building and the Virtualizing of Space Alexander Gutzmer Deconstructing Placemaking Mahyar Arefi The Empty Place Democracy and Public Space Teresa Hoskyns Dealing with Deindustrialization Adaptive Resilience in American Midwestern Regions Margaret Cowell Public Space and Relational Perspectives New Challenges for Architecture and Planning Chiara Tornaghi and Sabine Knierbein Heteroglossic Asia The Transformation of Urban Taiwan Francis Chia-Hui Lin Building the Inclusive City Theory and Practice for Confronting Urban Segregation Nilson Ariel Espino

The Robust City Tony Hall Planning Urban Places Self-Organising Places with People in Mind Mary Ganis Planning for the Material World Laura Lieto and Robert Beauregard Planning and Citizenship Luigi Mazza Paris Under Construction Building Sites and Urban Transformation in the 1960s Jacob Paskins Territorial Governance across Europe Pathways, Practices and Prospects Peter Schmitt and Lisa Van Well Actor Networks of Planning Exploring the Influence of Actor Network Theory Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate

‘This is an insightful and valuable book with really useful and engaging chapters on Actor Network Theory that capture the range and multiplicity of this significant way of theorising and understanding planning in its deployment on and within the wider world. Engaging with a range of concepts from “urban imaginaries”, through “undefined becomings”, the book touches on the full gambit of contemporary planning theory in its interrogation of ANT. With contributions by many of the top names on the topic I recommend it most highly to fellow theoreticians, planners and policy students and practitioners.’ Michael Gunder, School of Architecture and Planning, University of Auckland, New Zealand

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Actor Networks of Planning Exploring the influence of Actor Network Theory Edited by Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate

First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate The right of Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Names: Rydin, Yvonne, 1957– editor. | Tate, Laura Ellen, 1966– editor. Title: Actor networks of planning : exploring the influence of ANT / Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate, [editors]. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY : Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge research in planning and urban design | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2015035822  | ISBN 9781138886407 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315714882 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: City planning. | Social planning. | Regional planning. | Actor-network theory. Classification: LCC HT166.A295 2016 | DDC 307.1/216–dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015035822 ISBN: 978-1-138-88640-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-71488-2 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Out of House Publishing

Contents

List of figures and tables List of contributors Acknowledgements

ix x xvi

Introduction

1

1 Exploring the influence of ANT

3

Y VO N N E RY D IN A N D L AURA TATE

Part I: Using ANT: applied planning analyses

25

2 Constructing ‘green building’: heterogeneous networks and the translation of sustainability into planning in Israel

27

S H U L A G O U L DE N

3 Planned derailment for new urban futures? An actant network analysis of the ‘great [light] rail debate’ in Newcastle, Australia

44

K R I S TI A N RU MIN G, KATH L E E N ME E A N D PAULINE MC GU IR K

4 Grants as significant objects in community engagement networks: Kelowna, British Columbia

62

S I LV I A V I L C H ES AN D L AURA TATE

5 Assembling localism: practices of assemblage and building the ‘Big Society’ in Oxfordshire, England

79

S U E B ROW N I LL

6 Two exemplar green developments in Norway: tales of qualculation and non-qualculation TH O M A S B E R KE R AN D STIG L A RSSӔ TH E R

95

viii Contents   7 Unpacking the Swedish urban sustainable imaginary: at the World Expo, Shanghai, China

111

A N N A   H U LT

  8 The king and the square: relationships of the material, cultural and political in the redesign of Stortorget, Malmö, Sweden

127

M ATTI A S K ÄRRH O L M

  9 Assembling energy futures: seawater district heating in The Hague, the Netherlands

142

S I M O N G U Y, GRAE ME SH E RRIFF, CH RIS GOODIER AND K S E N I A C H MUTIN A

Part II: The way forward: innovative practices and theoretical controversies

157

10 Does Actor Network Theory help planners to think about change?

159

RO B E RT A .  B E AURE GARD A N D L AURA L IE TO

11 ‘Emergent places’: innovative practices in Zurich, Switzerland

175

J O R I S VA N WE ZE MAE L A N D JA N SIL B E RB E RGER

12 Planning tactics of undefined becoming: applications within Urban Living Labs of Flanders’ N16 corridor, Belgium

186

L U U K B O E LE N S AN D MA RL E E N GO E TH A L S

13 Hydro-urbanism in London: using co-evolutionary Actor Network Theory as a prospective methodology

203

TS E - H U I   TEH

14 Towards an extended symmetry: using ANT to reflect on the theory and practice gap

217

DAV I D   W E BB

15 ‘A grand question of design’: knowledge, space and difference in early and late Latour

231

M A L C O L M TAIT AN D KIE RA CH A P MAN

Index

245

List of figures and tables

Figures 3.1 Newcastle CBD 3.2 The great light rail debate: launch flyer 7.1 The paper Eric Fung speaking to businessmen in the Swedish Pavilion 8.1 The statue of King Karl X Gustav 8.2 Map of the square 9.1 Schematic representation of the seawater heating system in The Hague 9.2 Human and non-human actors involved in The Hague case study project 12.1 Four grades of complexity 12.2 Four collectives – seven ARA steps – four planning navigation techniques

49 50 119 131 134 146 147 188 191

Tables 4.1 Selected examples of relevant object-focused ANT analyses in planning and policy 5.1 Assembling the Big Society in Oxfordshire – a timeline 8.1 What the inhabitants of Malmö think about Stortorget

65 85 132

List of contributors

Robert A.  Beauregard is a professor of urban planning in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation at Columbia University, USA. His work focuses on planning theory and urban theory. Recent book publications include Planning Matter: Acting with Things (Chicago University Press, 2016)  and Planning for a Material World (Routledge, 2016), co-edited with Laura Lieto. Thomas Berker is professor in science and technology studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway. He coordinates the social scientific activities within the Norwegian Research Centre on Zero Emission Buildings and leads an interdisciplinary research project on methods to close the performance gap in energy-efficient non-residential buildings. His research interests comprise the whole range of economic, social and cultural aspects connected to innovation, with a focus on the diffusion and implementation of new products and services and the acquisition, embedding and use of these innovations in everyday life. Luuk Boelens worked in 1983–1998 for Randstad Holland and in 1998–2002 as a senior planner for large infrastructure projects for Dutch Railways. He obtained his PhD in philosophy, spatial planning and urban design in 1990 at the Universities of Delft, Utrecht and Groningen. Since 2001, Boelens has been acting manager of Urban Unlimited, a consultancy in urban development and town and country planning, and from 2004–2012, part-time extraordinary professor in network planning and governance at the University of Utrecht on behalf of the Dutch ministry of VROM. Since 2012 he is (full) professor of spatial planning and director of the Centre for Mobility and Spatial Planning at Ghent University, Belgium. Sue Brownill is a reader in urban policy and governance at the School of the Built Environment, Oxford Brookes University, UK. Her work focuses on the relationship between citizens and the state in urban planning and regeneration and she has worked with civil society organizations throughout her academic career. Her recent research includes an exploration of neighbourhood planning in England and she has recently

Contributors xi completed a project for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on the role of planning obligations in delivering affordable housing. Kiera Chapman is an independent scholar. She completed a PhD at University College London in 2004 on culture and politics in the early nineteenth century. Ksenia Chmutina is a Lecturer in Sustainable and Resilient Urbanism at Loughborough University, UK, since 2011. Chmutina has a background in sustainability and resilience, and her research includes synergies of resilience and sustainability in the built environment and resilience of small developing island states. Other research interests are related to the stakeholders’ engagement in multi-hazard disaster risk reduction activities, policy environment for the DRR, as well as energy efficiency, decentralized energy and energy policy. Chris Goodier is an experienced civil engineer, chartered builder and researcher in Loughborough University’s School of Civil and Building Engineering, with 20  years’ experience of all aspects of construction, including contracting, consultancy and research. He was the lead expert for construction on the UK government’s Sustainable Energy Management and the Built Environment Futures project, and has published widely in construction technology, in particular cement and concrete science, as well as construction management, offsite construction, future scenarios and community energy. Marleen Goethals is scientific fellow at Ghent University, Belgium, and lecturer in the design studio of the Master’s in urban design and spatial planning at the University of Antwerpen, Belgium. Until 2013 she has worked as a designer in several architectural and urban design firms. As project leader, she has worked on several projects on urban and landscape design, and worked as a coach for urban renewal projects for the Flemish Urban Policy. At the moment she is working towards a PhD regarding the potential roles for designers in co-evolutionary planning processes at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. Shula Goulden is a doctoral researcher at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. She read geography at Cambridge University and holds an MSc in environmental assessment and evaluation from the London School of Economics. Her research interests sit at the intersection of urban environmental policy, socio-technical networks and the construction of environmental knowledge. Her doctoral thesis draws on STS and environmental governance approaches to consider the role of standards in the active definition of sustainability in the built environment, covering energy, buildings and neighbourhoods. Simon Guy is dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Lancaster University, UK, and was previously the founding director of the Manchester Architecture Research Centre at the University of Manchester, UK. A  social scientist by background, Guy’s research is aimed at critically understanding the co-evolution of design and

xii Contributors development strategies and socio-technical-ecological processes shaping cities. His research specialism is in interdisciplinary approaches to sustainable urbanism, engaging with changing forms of architectural knowledge and practice and specifically with debates about buildings, cities and the environment. Anna Hult is a PhD candidate at the department of Urban Planning and Environment at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. In her research she examines how Sweden brands itself in sustainable urban development and how that image translates to practice when Swedish architectural firms masterplan eco-cities in China. Hult works with perspectives from critical geography, science and technology studies and political ecology. She is also one of the co-founders of the Amsterdam based organization CITIES, working with urban research, exhibitions, publications and local action (http://www.citiesfoundation.org/). Mattias Kärrholm is a professor in architectural theory at the Department of Architecture and Built Environment, LTH, Lund University, Sweden. His research deals with territoriality, the use of public space, urban design, materiality, Actor Network Theory, society and space and everyday life. He has published articles in international journals such as Urban Studies, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Journal of Architecture, Social and Cultural Geography, Cities, European Planning Studies and Space & Culture. In 2012 he published the book Retailising Space, Architecture, Retail and the Territorialisation of Public Space (Ashgate). Stig Larssӕther is working as a researcher at the Department of Architectural Design and Management at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway. He holds a PhD within science and technology studies and has recently co-authored a book about the first carbon-neutral settlement to be planned in Norway. His main research interests are the intersection between planning, lifestyle changes and user participation connected to sustainable transition processes, mainly associated with the built environment. Laura Lieto is a professor of urban planning in the Department of Architecture at ‘Federico II’ University of Naples, Italy. She mainly works in the field of planning theory. Among her recent publications are, ‘Place as trading zone: a controversial path of innovation for planning theory and practice’ in R. Mäntysalo and A. Balducci (eds.) Urban Planning as Trading Zone (Springer, 2013) and Planning in a Material World, coedited with R. A. Beauregard (Routledge 2016). Pauline McGuirk is professor of human geography and director of the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research focuses on urban political geography, especially urban governance, its geographies and changing forms. Her current research has two strands:  the assemblage of urban regeneration and

Contributors xiii the roles of urban actors and urban-based experiments in the governance of carbon and energy transition. McGuirk is currently an editor of Progress in Human Geography, and has been a visiting fellow at National University of Ireland (Maynooth), UBC (Vancouver), Trinity College (Dublin) and at the universities of Glasgow, Durham and Bristol. Kathleen Mee is an associate professor in the discipline of geography and environmental studies and deputy director of the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She is an urban cultural geographer and has made important contributions to understanding the meaning of ‘home’ and of public housing as a source of security and belonging. Recent research has explored climate change adaptation in the rental property sector. Her current ARC-funded work, held with Kristian Ruming and Pauline McGuirk, explores ways to widen understandings of how cities are regenerated. She has been a visiting fellow at the universities of Auckland, Glasgow, Tasmania and Macquarie University. Kristian Ruming is an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at Macquarie University, Australia. He is an urban and economic geographer. His research interests centre on issues of housing and urban planning, with current projects exploring the assemblage of urban regeneration, the impacts of regulatory and strategic planning system reform on urban outcomes, social and affordable housing provision, and resident resistance to urban consolidation. Kristian has been a visiting fellow at Simon Fraser University (Vancouver) and at the universities of Newcastle, Sydney and Glasgow. Yvonne Rydin is professor of planning, environment and public policy at University College London’s Bartlett School of Planning, UK. She specializes in urban planning, governance and sustainability but is particularly concerned that planning research should be theoretically informed. She has worked with concepts of governance, social capital and (more recently) governmentality and actor networks. Her latest three single-authored books are Governing for Sustainable Urban Development (Earthscan), The Purpose of Planning:  Creating Sustainable Towns and Cities and The Future of Planning:  Beyond Growth-Dependence (both published by Policy Press). She is currently working on Theorising Urban Policy and Planning for Palgrave. Graeme Sherriff is research fellow at the University of Salford, UK. He is associate director of the Sustainable Housing and Urban Studies Unit (SHUSU). With a background in urban planning, his research explores the social science dimensions of sustainability, including the challenges of facilitating more sustainable practices and in addressing social and environmental justice. He has published in the fields of sustainable transport, energy, retrofitting, urban food, climate change and environmental justice.

xiv Contributors Jan Silberberger is a post-doctoral researcher at ETH Wohnforum – ETH CASE (Centre for Research on Architecture, Society and the Built Environment), Department of Architecture, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. He has studied architecture and urban planning at the University of Stuttgart/Germany and visual communication and fine arts at the Hochschule fuer bildende Kuenste in Hamburg, Germany. Between 2008 and 2011 he did a PhD at the University of Fribourg’s Geography Unit, investigating decision-making within jury boards of architectural competitions. His current research focuses on the circulation of quality within planning processes. Malcolm Tait is professor of planning at the University of Sheffield, UK. His work combines an ethnographic approach to professional practice with a philosophical concern with the ways in which trust, professionalism and the public interest are conceptualized. Laura Tate is an independent community and social planning and evaluation consultant in British Columbia, Canada. She is also concurrently an independent scholar, and received her doctorate from the University of British Columbia in 2009. She has held positions as the Provincial Director of the Community Action Initiative, the BC Ministry of Health, the BC Ministry of Community, Sport and Cultural Development as a manager of regional growth strategies, and as a land-use planner in various Metro Vancouver municipalities. Tse-Hui Teh is a lecturer in the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, UK. She was conferred her PhD from the Department of Civil Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, UCL. She is a Fulbright scholar with a Master’s degree in architecture and urban design from Columbia University and an architectural degree from the University of Technology, Sydney. Prior to becoming an academic she worked as an architect and urban designer in Sydney. She is currently investigating the retrofit of sustainable infrastructure systems and urban spaces to improve wellbeing using a co-evolutionary Actor Network Theory approach. Joris Van Wezemael is fascinated by the metamorphosis of contemporary urban landscapes. He has been trained as an economic geographer, an architectural sociologist, town planner and economist. Van Wezemael contributed to poststructuralist concepts of collective decision-making in spatial planning and urbanism. Empirically he has been working on complexity and decision-making, socio-demographic dynamics and housing and real estate both in Switzerland and in Northern Europe, the UK, Greece and South America. Currently Van Wezemael holds a position as a private lecturer at the Department of Architecture, ETH Zürich, Switzerland. Silvia Vilches is a Mitacs Elevate postdoctoral fellow at Royal Roads University in Western Canada. She has a theoretical and practice interest

Contributors xv in community development and has contributed to works exploring critical feminist methodology; urban planning in Canada; and the impacts of structural welfare reform on lone mothers. She is currently exploring change and leadership in the complex adaptive systems of healthcare and anticipates applying these insights to community development in the not-for-profit sector in the future. David Webb is a lecturer in town Planning in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at Newcastle University, UK. He has a longstanding interest in the implementation of urban policy and in the way that government objectives are translated by the various actors that are required to advance them. Previous work has concentrated on housing market renewal and ongoing interests include the varying institutional cultures of local government, the spaces where planners and academics can have agency and the potential to develop alternative forms of planning.

Acknowledgements

There are many intellectual and practical debts that need to be acknowledged when one creates a collection like this. First and foremost, while Actor Network Theory (ANT) has been influenced by a range of theorists, both authors would agree that a significant intellectual debt is owed to the work of Bruno Latour, whose works on this subject have been the most clear and thought-provoking. And, on a directly related note, Laura would like to thank John Friedmann who, in addition to being an eminent scholar in his own right, first introduced her to Latour’s works by suggesting that she would relate to some of the ideas in Pandora’s Hope. Yvonne has George Myerson to thank for this same introduction and also to Latour’s Aramis: The Love of Technology. Second, we owe an intellectual debt to Ignacio Farías and Thomas Bender, whose collection on ANT and urban studies we believe set an important precedent for this work. Jonathan Murdoch also provides important early and underappreciated work in this vein. Third, both of us owe a debt to the Association of European Schools of Planning conference organizers who jointly hosted in 2013 a conference with the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning in Dublin, which is where we first met and recognized a shared interest in ANT and planning. Besides exposing us to new ideas, conferences can be a wonderful place for people to connect with intellectual kindred spirits and to stimulate new book projects such as this one. Discussions at subsequent events have proved this. Laura would also like to thank Penny Gurstein, Tom Hutton, David Edgington  – all of the University of British Columbia  – and independent scholar Wendy Sarkissian for their ongoing intellectual and academic encouragement. She was thrilled at the opportunity to have a contribution from one of her planning theory heroes on this project: Robert Beauregard, whose pragmatic (and now material) leanings have long been of interest to her. She has appreciated having a terrific editing partner in Yvonne, a wonderful co-writer in Silvia Vilches, and great contributors. Finally, on a more personal note, she would like to thank Nadia Carvalho, Megan Williams,

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Acknowledgements xvii Marg Gilbert and the rest of the Herle-Wilson clan, Bev Tate, Cliff Tate and Allan Herle for their love and moral support. Yvonne would like to thank her colleagues at the UCL Bartlett School of Planning for creating such a supportive environment; particular thanks to Hui for ANT conversations. ANT has formed a long and sometimes invisible thread in Yvonne’s reading and research. Discussions during the PASTILLE project played a part; more significant were those during the CLUES project. Thanks to all co-researchers on those projects, but particularly Simon Guy. Reviewers on certain key journal papers also played an important part  – you know who you are! Yvonne would like to thank the contributors to the volume for their forbearance with our editing but above all for the fantastic quality of their work. Special thanks are due to Laura (and to Al and Gromette) for hospitality and inspiring conversation during the memorable stay in Victoria; co-editing has been a real pleasure. Above all, thanks for the long and fascinating conversation with George, now bringing Simon and Ellie in too.

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Introduction

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1 Exploring the influence of ANT Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate

Introduction We live in an era where there are few quick fixes to perplexing problems. Thoughtful, complex and at times precarious processes and alliances are involved whenever planners respond to challenging social, environmental and economic circumstances. Just as the 1980s saw a discursive or communicative turn that advocated deep dialogue as the catalyst for most planning solutions (Forester, 1985, 1989; Innes, 1996; Innes and Gruber, 2005), which required much of the next decade to explore, the 2000s have seen a material turn whose implications are still preoccupying social scientists. Taking centre-stage within this material turn is the work of Bruno Latour, Michel Callon, John Law and others on Actor Network Theory (ANT). While there remains much debate on what ANT is or is not, what it can and cannot do, its contemporary significance is clear. From its origins in the sociology of scientific knowledge, ANT has become a springboard for analysis in a variety of social science fields. This book explores its application and relevance for planning studies. Taking a broad view of what constitutes an ANT account, it assembles various authors to comment on the theoretical framework from a planning perspective and on planning topics and cases from an ANT perspective. In this introductory chapter, we outline the origins of ANT together with its key features and discuss the potential relevance of this approach for planning studies, emphasizing how it can contribute to our deeper understanding of planning processes and practices. We provide an overview of the insights from the subsequent chapters and conclude with some lessons for both planning practice and scholarship.

The emergence of Actor Network Theory In the late twentieth century, the authority of scientific knowledge was in doubt. Many controversies around environmental and health issues were not readily resolved with scientific expertise, and the discursive turn had declared that scientific knowledge – including its self-presentation as objective truth – was socially constructed. For some this was a step too far, denying the reality of the material world (Collins and Evans, 2002). Into these ‘science wars’ entered ANT. Latour showed how the modernist settlement from

4  Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate the Enlightenment onwards had separated the natural world from society and thus allowed for the idea of society constructing scientific knowledge, potentially unconstrained. Demolishing this society–nature divide, Latour and his collaborators proposed a view of scientific knowledge creation where the materiality of ‘nature’ also had agency and in which it ‘resisted’ certain knowledge constructions (Latour, 1999). This repositioning drew from Deleuze and Guattari’s philosophy, and appreciated the complexity of society. It was distinct from earlier systems theorists, emphasizing the generation of unintended consequences and the limits of formal modelling of factors’ interrelationships. Instead an interest in relational understandings of society emerged. Here society is not put together from distinct elements in an additive way; rather society is the result of the assemblage or agencement of elements in which the relationships between elements – not the elements themselves – are the key focus. Effects are then emergent from these relationships and one element can be implicated in quite a different effect when it is related to another set of elements. It can be difficult at times to keep a handle on such a diffuse analysis of causality but it clearly underpins the interest in the contribution of ANT to understanding our complex society. Scholars frequently cite Callon’s case study of scallop farming and the impact on local fishermen as setting out the key elements of the ANT approach (Callon, 1986). But from these origins ANT has supported research on many different issues. ANT has informed accounts of architectural practice (Yaneva, 2012), anaemia (Mol, 1999), online university teaching (Bigum, 2000), highway reconstruction (Hommels, 2010), low-carbon commercial development (Rydin, 2012), metropolitan growth strategy or spatial plan implementation (Tate, 2013a) – and the chapters in this book provide further diverse examples. In some of this work, ANT yields a fully developed theoretical framework, to be applied in its entirety. In others, ANT offers ideas and concepts for researchers to develop in their own way or to combine with other compatible frameworks. And for some, ANT seems more of a sensibility, a heightened attention to certain relationships and a specific way of being a researcher. The introduction to the landmark edited collection Actor Network Theory and After (Law and Hassard, 1999) cautioned readers against seeing ANT as a single theory, with a single approved set of uses or modes of scholarly practice. Rather, it suggested that the beauty of the method was its own rhizomatic nature. For, as it has spread, ANT has translated itself into something new, indeed in to many things that are new and different from one another. It has converted itself into a range of different practices which… have also absorbed and reflected other points of origin… So actor-network theory is diasporic… But [its parts] are also (here is the point) partially connected. (Law, 1999: 10, emphasis in original)

Exploring the influence of ANT 5 Keeping this flexibility within the ANT corpus of research in mind, the next section suggests some key common elements.

Key features of ANT We emphasize two common areas in ANT-inspired work. The first highlights the central metaphor of the network and the associated emphasis on the work needed to create stability across the network. The second derives from the radical symmetry between the social and the material arising from the dissolution of the modernist compromise. We outline these next and then proceed to discuss certain central concepts within the ANT toolkit. In this necessarily brief introduction, the accounts tend towards the schematic. In the chapters that follow, individual authors will be developing different aspects and concepts in more detail. Given the breadth of ANT work, they may not agree with each other (or indeed with us) in their interpretations but this only adds to the richness of the ANT field of inquiry. The central metaphor in ANT is the network, but it is a potentially confusing metaphor. In sociology and political science, the idea of a network conveys a fixed set of relations or connections between nodes. The ANT network is quite different: ‘network is an expression to check how much energy, movement, and specificity our own reports are able to capture’ (Latour, 2005: 131). Thus the sets of associations or relationships between elements are always mobile, requiring work to create and maintain. There have been calls for replacing the rather static network metaphor with a more fluid and organic one such as rhizome or assemblage/agencement or gel. As DeLanda (2006) emphasizes in his Deleuzian account of assemblage thinking, the connections between elements do not create a unity. Rather the different elements can be involved in more than one network with different consequences; and causality or power arises from the connections between elements in a dispersed manner. Rather than individual actors being considered powerful within a static network (say because of the resources they command), power within ANT is emergent from the associations of all the actors. Assemblage thinking has emerged as a distinctive analytic framework, slightly distinct from ANT itself. It does not utilize the toolbox of concepts of ANT (which we set out below) but rather tends to develop a more empirically grounded account emphasizing the relational dimensions of the collective, the assemblage. The term ‘assemblage’ itself has become the accepted translation of the term ‘agencement’ used by the French theorists. It has been claimed that this is a mistranslation, an overly static account of the dynamics implied by agencement (Phillips, 2006). However, assemblage now has wide currency and is often deployed so as to emphasize dynamic interconnections between elements. As a framework it does offer considerable freedom to the analyst to pursue relational themes particularly pertinent to the case at hand.

6  Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate A consequence of the focus in both ANT and assemblage on bringing elements into relation with each other is to emphasize the work that this involves. Latour famously said that the key question is not how society provides order but rather how society is (actively and constantly) ordered; ‘dispersion, destruction and deconstruction are not the goals but what needs to be overcome’ (Latour, 2005: 10–11). The difficulty in bringing elements into the network and of keeping them within network relations over time becomes an important research focus; and ANT additionally considers the pressures for destabilization. The ANT’s momentum towards the material turn has been fuelled by its the adoption of a ‘radical symmetry’ between the material and the social, with the term ‘actant’ being coined to cover both. This identifies ANT as, if not breaking with social constructivism, at least reconnecting it with a realist ontology. Networks are thus built of associations between all kinds of social and material elements and agency is dispersed across these. This gives rise to the idea that the material exercises agency although it is more in keeping with the ANT approach to say that relationships in which the material is implicated exercise agency. The key methodological advice is, therefore, to ‘follow the actor’ whatever it may be. This could be starting from a social actor and seeing how relationships link her to other social actors and material elements or, equally, starting from the material  – an office desk, a building, a software package – and seeing who and what is connected to this. Such seemingly inanimate ‘things’ can, through their relationships, authorize, allow, encourage, permit, suggest, influence, block, render possible, forbid and so on (Latour, 2005: 72). Such an idea can be controversial, and is not without its critics. Among other things, ANT’s views on objects’ agency risk analytically downplaying the ensuing consequences when a particular technology, building or other object becomes embedded in society (Winner, 1993:  368). Moreover, by attributing inherent qualities and agencies to specific objects, when conducted by less-skilled analysts, ANT runs the risk of universalizing this potential to those objects in all contexts. In fact, such potential may only manifest under certain conditions, through interactions with specific other actants (Whittle and Spicer, 2008: 614–615). And yet, ANT’s focus on the specific material qualities of objects provides us with something truly new, allowing the multifaceted object-human relationships to be viewed through more nuanced lenses. For example, citing the controversial case of the Taser, Dymond (2014: 3) argues that we must consider both how humans use it and how its intrinsic technical characteristics (including how its technological specifications may have shaped perceptions of certain policing situations) can impact the number of times and ways in which it is used problematically. Both sides of the technical-human interface coin become equally relevant in a planning context. In addition, there is the equally overlooked aspect of the nature-human or rather nature-human-technology interface that comes into play.

Exploring the influence of ANT 7 We turn now to some key concepts often deployed in ANT analyses. One tactic that has frequently been useful for structuring research is the four stages framework proposed by Callon (1986) in his study of the scallop fishermen. This distinguished problematization, interessement, enrolment and mobilization as stages in the building and stabilization of a network. Problematization is the identification of a dilemma, a controversy or a problem, which often proved a key starting point for early ANT analyses. Interessement is the process by which actants begin to be brought into association with each other and certain relationships strengthened. The network is then further built by enrolling new actants through new associations and mobilizing allies to the common cause of the network. ANT recognizes the critical role that translation plays in linking actors within a network, most notably through this enrolment process. Translation has a specific meaning here. It occurs when one actant (a single human, a group of humans, an object or a group thereof) helps another to appreciate how their interests will be met by joining the network. It also offers a useful concept for understanding failures of enrolment where there is insufficient appreciation of common interests. Of course, as human beings and agencies are all different, the terms in which those interests make sense to one social actor may differ from those that make sense to another. Latour’s scholarship on ANT is particularly rich here, showing how translation creates equivalencies to enable network co-existence. Latour notes that human social skills play a role in smoothing out translation work. But he also speaks to the role of objects in the process, observing that objects’ qualities can also facilitate this work. For example, classroom walls, while they do not fully equalize student knowledge through lecturing per se, do help the equalizing process by creating the preconditions for learning through blocking out exterior noise (see Latour, 2005: 194–198). Frequently there may need to be a package of multiple objects to create the necessary equivalencies for the translation needed in network enrolment. In a planning context, for a disgruntled local activist group to agree to a new development, (i.e., to enrol the activists) a developer may need to offer amenities and concessions, perhaps including specific viewscapes, a daycare centre on site to cater to the activists’ children, and to preserve a specific wildlife corridor on a priority list for that activist group. But to enrol another group, the developer may need to use different sets of equivalencies, with different objects. Perhaps some neighbours (whose voices still count in the planning approval process) may be less concerned with that development per se, but more worried about the precedent for other nearby sites. This might render them more interested in policy objects rather than development concessions; hence their enrolment might depend on the developer’s ability to help them secure greater policy protection with local politicians from future development impacting their own homes. In short, enrolment requires translations that provide highly context-specific equivalencies, combining human skill and the configuration of objects that are responsive and context-sensitive.

8  Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate Another way of analysing the work of building networks – the net-work – is to assess how intermediaries help bring actants into association with each other. Such intermediaries can take many different forms. They can be particular people or organizational sectors or artefacts. The planner’s role may centrally be one of intermediation but so is that of the plan, the design code, the sustainability forum. Some, including Latour, consider the word ‘intermediary’ too passive and prefer to use mediators to indicate the active work involved in creating these associations. Furthermore such mediators do much more than connect two actants. They can transform, distort and modify the meaning that the elements are carrying across the network (Latour, 2005: 39) and thus close attention to how these mediators work is warranted. In a planning context, enrolment can also strongly depend on mediators such as communication devices, models, photographs and site visits (Beauregard, 2012; Rydin, 2012) and even depend significantly on the materiality of public consultation and stakeholder engagement exercises (Rydin and Natarajan, 2015). A final central concept to consider is that of the black box. Latour borrowed this term from early computer technicians, denoting a device whose details were too complex to be appreciated by the average person:  ‘In its place they draw a little box about which they need to know nothing but its input and output’ (Latour, 1987:  2–3). Once inter-actor network stabilization has been more or less achieved, often a black box has crystallized around an object, for example, around a law or a policy, or building. That law, policy or building then becomes a black box, which is difficult (although not impossible) for current and future actors to open, partly due to the black box’s very nature, and partly due to the social support that has gone into creating and, on an ongoing basis, maintaining it over time. Even more compellingly, however, is that a single black box can be attached to a much larger system or network, and may even be transported to other contexts (ibid.: 139). For example, a policy might be copied and then adapted and used by another jurisdiction within the network or in a separate but related network. Attention to such black boxes thus enables us to understand more about policy mobilities (McCann and Ward, 2012).

ANT and planning studies This sketch of ANT allows one to appreciate some of its potential as an analytic tool. ANT aims to help researchers unpack the specific networks and network processes that emerge and evolve in pursuit of a social goal (Akrich, 1992; Latour, 1991; Young et al., 2010). ANT is being used in several disciplines, including the related discipline of urban studies (e.g., Farías and Bender, 2010); yet its use in planning remains in its infancy. In saying this, credit must be given to the pioneering work of Jonathan Murdoch who, some two decades ago, saw ANT’s value in his studies on the rural environment and, still highly pertinent, the stabilization and destabilization of

Exploring the influence of ANT 9 networks surrounding strategic planning for new development (Murdoch, 2000). It has taken time for his legacy to be built upon. It is our conviction that ANT offers three interwoven attributes of particular relevance for the transformative planner, which are explored further through the scholarship in this collection. These consist of: • • •

an appreciation of the nuanced ways in which plan and policy creation and implementation relationships are developed and nurtured (or not); a complex and context-specific identification of power dynamics, with the potential to build more empowered and sophisticated responses in future cases; and greater understanding of the potential for and challenges of promoting progressive agendas and, with such understanding, potentially creating a launching pad for proactive responses.

Appreciation of the nuanced ways in which plan creation and implementation relationships are developed Regardless of whether or not it uses the four stages framework, ANT scholarship pays attention to the dynamic processes by which networks of relationships become formed, shift and have (or fail to have) effect. For example, planning scholars have addressed the role of network instability in processes leading to the generation of plans (Murdoch, 1998; Murdoch and Marsden, 1995; Ruming, 2008) and attention has also been paid to the role of material actants in the consultation activities of plan-making (Rydin and Natarajan, 2015). And, both outside and within the planning discipline, scholars have begun exploring ANT’s normative potential in creating analytical mindsets that enable problem-solving to further implementation. In a case of action research in a business setting, ANT has helped researchers manage the relationships needed to keep a research project alive under stressful conditions, where expectations for outcomes were high (Lewis, 2007). In that context, ANT concepts helped researchers structure efforts to foster a viable network  – one whose members considered the research project aligned with their own interests. At one point, when shared interests appeared to weaken, researchers consciously undertook enrolment work (informed by ANT scholarship) by creating new documents and essentially reinventing the project so that interests could align once again and new allies could be enrolled. In summing up ANT’s contribution to outcomes, Lewis noted that its concepts provided ‘a language for discussing and planning the social and political interactions and machinations that necessarily surround research done within organizations’ (Lewis, 2007:  595). For Lewis, this is compatible with the notion of reflection in practice called for by scholars such as Schön (1983) and Schein (1995, 1999) – concepts that earlier planning theorists have acknowledged within transformative planning approaches (see, for example, discussion in Healey, 1997: 29; Baum, 1997; Sandercock, 2003; Friedmann, 1987, 1990, 1998, 2002).

10  Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate Some planning scholars have made efforts to acknowledge ANT’s contributions to understanding plan implementation. In their study of the post-war reconstruction of Plymouth, Essex and Brayshay (2007) showed in detail how shifts in notable network actors during plan implementation could reduce access to needed resources and support for some contested plan deliverables. And, from analysing the implementation of a specific regional planning goal in Metro Vancouver, Tate (2013a: 786) suggested that the ability of ANT to inform plan implementation draws from the following characteristics: first there is the idea of black boxes, through which network actors seek to create varying degrees of relationship stability and certainty, since plans rely on and presume the creation of black boxes in the form of supportive sub-policies, regulations, routines and procedures. Then there is the recognition that even seemingly stable black boxes are often subject to change and even stable objects may get used in ways differing from the original intent. An ANT analysis not only allows for but celebrates the existence of multiple realities for would-be plan implementers, and provides the ability to unpack the translation efforts made by network actors to enrol others in the network and support any black boxes needed to implement a plan.

Identification of the complex and context-specific nature of power dynamics ANT has a unique view on power in that it sees it as something to be channelled, rather than held. This is a helpful notion, because it helps us trace the various points where it moves, and to appreciate its constant motion (which makes sense, since power, at its core, involves the capacity for action). ANT also recognizes that power is often channelled through objects, both tangible and abstract (e.g., laws and policies); and in this regard potentially enables one actor to exert an influence over another across great distances. Power dynamics are an important aspect of planning work  – something long recognized by planning theorists from a range of backgrounds (Fischler, 2000; Flyvbjerg, 1998, 2000; Friedmann, 1990; Innes and Gruber, 2005; McGuirk, 2001; Sandercock, 2003). At least three things make the ANT view of power different from prior planning theory scholarship. The first of these is ANT’s interest in the dynamic and, in fact, recursive nature of power relationships (Doak and Karadimitriou, 2007: 211), recursive in the sense that the true nature of power cannot be appreciated without successive interactions between actors. Power here is not a stock or capital but ‘Power and domination have to be produced, made up and composed’ (Latour, 2005: 64). Especially where power relationships appear to be consolidated into a coherent, fully supported conglomerate, ANT explorations of power’s recursive patterns can help explain how that situation arose; the black box concept can be particularly helpful here. At the same time, this recursive quality also suggests that there may be holes, gaps, opportunities

Exploring the influence of ANT 11 for the insertion of new dynamics. For while each successive interaction may strengthen a particular actor’s advantage, the same interactions also create greater potential for shifts and small destabilizations in the black box’s channelling of power (see Farías, 2010: 1). Among other things, this suggests the possibility of going beyond merely lamenting that existing power structures create barriers to emancipatory action. For analyses drawing from ANT can concretely show how small, diverse actions from many seemingly unrelated camps can coalesce around and drive progressive political priorities (Rutland and Aylett, 2008:  633). When an ANT analysis acknowledges and highlights occasions in network activity where the creation of an object (a law, policy or built artefact) causes power to be channelled in new and perhaps unexpected ways, it can illuminate new pathways for transformative action, pathways that might have previously been overlooked or underestimated. In a related vein, ANT can also alert us to pitfalls, showing where desired, beneficial planning goals fail to manifest sufficiently (see Tate, 2013a). In so doing, it can help the would-be progressive actor make informed improvements in successive courses of action, always aware that they are not in control of change. A second important way in which ANT illuminates power dynamics is through its interest in the seemingly mundane, including ‘standard operating procedures, assigned roles, and shifting associations’ (Doak and Karadimitriou, 2007:  217). The work of business scholars Feldman and Pentland (2005) calls attention to the ways routines can themselves both channel power and even shift existing channels. For a routine must be consistently agreed to and upheld by those who practice it even if only tacitly. In reality, routines may be reshaped over time in response to new needs, shifting alliances and the idiosyncrasies of those who practice them, or a combination of all three. Planning documents and regulations may resemble routines, in terms of the way in which they channel power (offering opportunities to govern at a distance; see Rydin, 2012: 42) but they themselves may experience reshaping. Routines, then, have significant power implications, since they can shape the future actions of all those touched by them. For examples of this, we need look no further than the public consultation processes required for development approvals. These may be both formally documented and implicit (e.g., direction provided by planners to developers as ‘standard practice’). Nonetheless, they set out consultation frequency, the type of notification and input to be obtained, and the way in which that input may and may not be used. These are place-specific routines that may contain some shared elements (i.e., on first sight they may look the same as similar routines in other places); and yet the ways in which they are used and maintained may vary greatly upon closer inspection. Importantly, these routines have the ability both to include and exclude and such inclusions and exclusions have place-specific qualities, which will in turn have differential impacts (see Law, 1997 and Hassard and Alcadipani, 2010 for further interrogation of networks and exclusion).

12  Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate The third critical aspect of ANT’s understanding of power, relevant to transformative planning, comes from one specific tool that some ANT scholars advance. This tool consists of the conceptual, four-stage-based model of network action (discussed above and used by Callon, 1986; Essex and Brayshay, 2007; and Selman, 2000). Of particular interest for a concern with power is the process of enrolment. As Rydin (2012: 26) has observed in an earlier paper ‘enrolling actants in networks is not neutral work. It results in the enrolling actant setting parameters for the agency of other; it may involve actants following given scripts set by others.’ Enrolment may be achieved through the skills of key actors to translate the benefits of network membership to others (Latour, 2005). In this vein, the skills of framing may be particularly important (see Tate, 2013b), including the potential for creating group identity framing, which can be particularly effective in achieving group coherence (discussed more broadly in Shmueli et al., 2006). Of course, such framing is never neutral either.

Greater understanding of the implications of progressive agendas As intimated above, there have been criticisms of ANT for being apolitical. Holifield (2009) summarizes these as: ANT neglects uneven relations of social and political power; ANT is merely descriptive and focuses on networks that have already been made; and ANT is insufficiently sensitive to cultural and discursive dimensions of the production of the urban environment. The response to such criticisms has been varied but robust. For Brenner and colleagues (2011: 225) – interested in the critical potential of the assemblage concept specifically – there is a need to combine such thinking with ‘a reinvigorated geopolitical economy’ since without this, there is insufficient appreciation of the importance of ‘structure’ and of ‘the contradictory, hierarchical social relations and institutional forms of capitalism’. But others can see progressive potential within ANT and related theory. Holifield (2009) argues that ANT’s distinctive conception of the ‘social’ opens up new questions about justice, specifically environmental inequalities. Farías (2011) points to how ANT offers a redefinition of democracy in terms of participatory practices that would recognize and incorporate non-humans alongside human beings. McFarlane (2011) suggests that assemblage thinking has generative potential in considering the nature of (urban) politics itself, raising questions about which kinds of politics are privileged and which are excluded. He sees assemblage thinking as offering a new imaginary of the city, one that is profoundly disruptive of the way we conceive of agency and thus has important political consequences. More generally, it can be argued that ANT and ANT-inspired analyses are part of a search for a different way of looking at the world and, ultimately, a different way of being within the world. For Hassard and Alcadipani (2010), ANT’s critical outlook, linked with recognition of the fluid and

Exploring the influence of ANT 13 shifting nature of systems, fosters a worldview where there is always potential to change currently oppressive conditions. Above all, they form part of a larger group that sees the role of ANT in bringing social reality to light as an inherently political act.

Previewing the insights from our explorations in ANT The rest of the book presents 14 discussions exploring the contribution of ANT-inspired thinking in a variety of contexts. Eight of these are analyses of empirical cases, some very classic in their application of the ANT concepts, others exploring the cognate framework of assemblage thinking (see chapters by Guy et al. and Brownill). The remaining six chapters are grouped as a collective discussion of theoretical controversies and innovative practices. The first substantive case study is of green building standards, an increasingly common tool in a planner’s repertoire. Shula Goulden explores this in the context of Israel, looking at how classification schemes used elsewhere influenced the generation of a local standard. Ruming et  al. then look at another classic preoccupation of planners, the attempt to focus urban regeneration around a new transit system in Newcastle, Australia. Moving onto the arena of social planning, Silvia Vilches and Laura Tate uses the ANT perspective of the grant as an object or artefact to understand the role of such grants in the empowerment of community groups; the geographical context here is Kelowna, British Columbia in Canada. This theme of social planning is continued in Sue Brownill’s study of the attempted implementation of the localism agenda in England, focusing on local service provision in Oxfordshire; she adopts an assemblage perspective. Green building is again studied in Trondheim, Norway, with Thomas Berker and Stig Larssӕther examining the processes surrounding two rather different exemplar developments, one a high-status commercial building and the other a community-based residential development. The idea of Nordic planning offering exemplars for sustainability is taken up by Anna Hult in her account of how the Swedish ‘urban sustainable imaginary’ was presented at the World Expo in Shanghai, China. And in southern Sweden, Mattias Kärrholm looks at the controversies surrounding the redesign of the main square, Stortorget in Malmö; understanding them in terms of the interrelationships between the material, cultural and political. The final chapter in this collection of analytic cases looks at an innovative urban energy project in The Hague, the Netherlands, where seawater is used for district heating. Here Guy et al. again find an assemblage framework productive. Attention then turns to theoretical controversies and innovative planning practices. Part II of the book starts with a strongly argued piece by Robert Beauregard and Laura Lieto, using the case of climate change planning in New York, USA to consider whether ANT can be said to offer a theory of change that would be relevant to planning. The next three chapters present innovative practices deriving from an engagement with ANT. Joris Van

14  Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate Wezemael and Jan Silberberger show how ANT influenced the development of ideas for managing a problematic estate in Zurich, Switzerland. Luuk Boelens and Marleen Goethals present the Actor Relational Approach and its application through Living Labs to the N16 corridor in Flanders, Belgium. And, finally in this group, Tse-Hui Teh presents ANT as an prospective methodology for investigating futures collaboratively, in her case considering the future of water technology and water use in London, England. The book concludes with two more general reflective pieces. David Webb addresses the issue of the theory–practice gap and the influence (or not) of planning research on planning practice. He uses ANT as a springboard for considering this gap. Finally, Malcolm Tait and Kiera Chapman look at some of Bruno Latour’s most recent work, contrasting it with his early classic ANT outputs to question provocatively whether ANT can still offer potential for planning studies. These chapters provide a wealth of evidence of the insights provided by close examination of the relationships between a wide array of elements – human and non-human – and of the work involved in bringing them together and keeping them together; some of these cases have seen these difficulties as overwhelming the planning effort, providing equally valuable cases of destabilization and failure. We would point to Goulden’s analysis of green building certification as a case of ANT demonstrating how heterogeneous elements were successfully brought together in the specific context of Israeli urban development to create a new standard and highlighting the role of translation efforts in gaining legitimacy for that standard in this context. By contrast, Ruming et al., Brownill and Kärrholm all offer analyses that identify the difficulties involved in creating such stable networks or assemblages. Taking three very different planning areas, these authors emphasize the work involved in creating these new urban futures and the ways in which plan development and implementation efforts can fail in the face of resistance to enrolment by key actors (such as local communities or politicians) or actants (e.g., the materiality of the Stortorget). Across the case studies, we would point to the particular importance of artefacts of many kinds in enrolling actors and creating networks or assemblages. These includes the grant and grant application forms in Vilches and Tate’s analysis; the construction of facts about the sustainability of Swedish urban development models in Hult’s chapter; the calculation of both carbon and viability in Berker and Larssӕther’s exemplar green developments. Regulations, standards, classification schemes and all sorts of other protocols are central to the work of planners. They are often key to the ability to effect change through generating new or stabilizing existing associations of actors. ANT is particularly effective in promoting our understanding of how these artefacts actually do work. Turning to the role of ANT in the context-specific identification of power dynamics, our chapters provide varied treatment. In Van Wezemael and Silberberger’s case, there is implicit appreciation of how power was

Exploring the influence of ANT 15 channelled through the enrolment strategies of a skilled property manager. There is a similarly implicit exploration in the Kärrholm case, where the story was more one of a failed assemblage, but where resistance (and hence power flows) had been much more dispersed. Perhaps the two cases that demonstrate the most explicit appreciation of power flows come from Brownill and Vilches and Tate, respectively. Among other things, Brownill appreciates how assemblages could potentially transform local places by channelling power and ideas from geographically more remote sites, and she documents the steps taken by well-resourced actors seeking to intensify the resource and idea flows when the risk of transformation failure appeared to increase. Throughout the chapter, Brownill also appreciates the presence of power in routines. Vilches and Tate’s work pays explicit attention to the way in which routines and processes associated with the grant were used to channel power, both in creating a linkage between the grant recipients and the granting agency as well as empowering the grant recipients to later help collaboratively reshape what had been problematic routines and protocols experienced in their own local community, but initially set by a senior government agency. We see this aspect of ANT analysis as fertile ground for additional exploration in future planning analyses. Finally, we claim that ANT can play a role in creating and supporting progressive agendas and could lead to new forms of planning practice. We consider this to be an important claim, especially in the light of frequent criticisms that ANT leads to descriptive accounts and is not able to support planning activity in a constructive way (see Beauregard and Lieto’s chapter). Some of our chapters indicating the potential for using the ANT mindset to rethink what planning practice actually is. Vilches and Tate argue that grant-making processes can be used – when viewed from an ANT perspective – to promote community empowerment. Van Wezemael and Silberberger see the convening of a variety of stakeholders in a quite distinctive way from traditional collaborative planning through using ANT and assemblage thinking. Their theoretical lens allows them to understand the detail of new engagement practices, arguably in more detail than collaborative planning offered. Meanwhile Teh shows how ANT could underpin the use of prospective redesign of water infrastructure and its use through a variety of engagement practices leading to scenarios and design propositions. She was effectively creating her own network through her research, seeking to enrol new actors as a means of exploring future water possibilities. We would argue that this work suggests that ANT can support innovative planning practice but that this involves absorbing the sensibilities of the approach rather than devising toolkits or recipes, as has often been the way. These examples are all about exploring possibilities, using artefacts of various kinds to enrol actors and being very aware to the (unforeseen) implications of any routines and methods of engagement that are being deployed. While we would argue that innovative planning practices can follow from ANT sensibilities, whether this will deliver progressive agendas depends a

16  Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate little on your viewpoint. The emphasis on the small work of such innovative practice may be frustrating to those who seek more rapid social and political change; there is no ‘magic bullet’ from using the ANT framework. And the effects of change resulting from the new networks and assemblage that can be built remain emergent and would need to be studied in their own right. Taking the environment cases in this volume, it is not clear what scale of environmental benefit will result from the deployment of green building standards, new means of district heating or innovative urban development models. These will still have to be identified post hoc. But our claim is that those committed to pursuing progressive agendas can learn from the efficacy of the small work involved in enrolling new actors and creating new networks and assemblage in different contexts. We conclude this chapter with some explicit lessons for practice and scholarship.

Lessons for planning practice For practitioners, most of whom have never heard of something as inaccessible-sounding as ANT, there are a surprising number of useful applications for it in their world. In an environment of complexity, where planners are more likely to need support for the ideas that they bring forward, or the ideas of the constituents that they work with/represent, a key ANT concept of interest to practitioners is that of enrolment and enrolment strategies. Enrolment is vital for the practitioner seeking support for an agenda, which might be as grandiose as support for a policy to reduce street homelessness in a city by a specific date, or as mundane as changing the application form for permission to add a conservatory to a semi-detached house. Some chapters in this volume highlight enrolment tactics, providing the sort of case study learning that, as Bent Flyvbjerg (2001) frequently notes, can foster the deeper wisdom of experts rather than the more generalized understanding of novices. In Guy et al.’s analysis of the implementation of a seawater district heating and cooling system in The Hague, we see a social housing agency enrol its residents in support of the process through a gift of free cookware compatible with the new ovens required under the new system. Gestures such as these, while small, can be integral to the professional toolkit for planners seeking change linked to cultural shifts from those inclined to resist or protest. ANT and assemblage theory also provide a particularly unique vantage point in appreciating the importance of material objects (e.g., cookware). Similarly, other novel engagements with the material such as Teh’s give us a sense of what it might take to shift deeply entrenched behaviours around water use. We can also see cases of failed or inconclusive enrolment (Ruming et al., Brownill), which are equally instructive. The key, of course, still lies with the values and the skills of the planner. ANT can benefit practising planners in better appreciating the process of standard-setting and  – where an existing standard might be problematic and need revisiting  – unpacking that standard for re-examination.

Exploring the influence of ANT 17 Standards can occur at the macro-scale in the form of targets (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions), or at the micro-scale, as in relation to green buildings. For example, Goulden’s chapter takes us through that process in detail relative to standard-setting for green buildings in Israel. Among other things, it reminds us that planners and other bureaucratic agents value standards for their administrative convenience, suggesting that convenience risks dominating the enrolment process of the network to develop some degree of stability around a standard, even when there is a more progressive aim. We would argue that ANT analyses such as this help practitioners with more progressive agendas to be mindful of these tendencies and, in fact, by appreciating the micro-processes of network formation in relation to standard-setting, planners may better anticipate and counterbalance any regressive consequences that any momentum towards convenience might have. In other instances, we see networks form around the process to unpack a standard whenever a local government goes through the process of re-examining its overall zoning regulation, or a particular type of code within the larger scheme (e.g., commercial zones) if that zoning code has suddenly been deemed out of date because it is no longer ‘workable’ in contemporary market conditions. In Berker and Larssӕther’s case, we see an instance where there was pressure to vary the height requirement to accommodate one specific building, but not to unravel it entirely. Yet in other places and times, specific pressures may call for an entire regulatory revamp. For example, renting a privately owned underground parking space to a stranger is illegal under Toronto’s zoning regulations, and a first offence could net a fine of up to $25,000 (Toronto Star, 2013). Not only are regulations such as these extremely punitive, they fail to anticipate the rise of the sharing economy and have become increasingly unpopular with local residents (ibid.). It is pressures like these that can cause a local government to re-examine an ordinance or bylaw in a much more comprehensive manner. And, if one appreciates that a zoning regulation is a black box that has been loosely stabilized over the years by a network, ANT as an analytical method can provide the analytical discipline for the practitioner to trace back the linkages to the different interests that have been shoring it up, as a means of then appreciating who is still supporting that black box, how strong and contingent that support continues to be and what the consequences of adjusting components of the box might be. Planning and city-building activities depend on routines and protocols, and ANT is well-positioned to shed light on these. From outside the planning discipline, Feldman and Pentland (2005) were among the first to note that routines could be an object within an actor network, with implicated actors making daily choices about the extent to which they will support those routines (or not), and about how much to vary those routines as they repeat them over time. Within a local government, the process of upholding and potentially varying from routines might apply to routines for formal public consultation, but it might also include smaller routines around

18  Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate inter-departmental consultation (e.g., when does the engineering department bother to consult the planning department). ANT’s deep learning can illuminate for practitioners the choices within routines that might not initially have been read as choices – behaviours presumed to be automatic or taken for granted. As Brownill’s chapter shows, routine operations such as running a library or youth centre are blown apart when a new governance model known as the ‘Big Society’ is superimposed. And the Vilches and Tate case study sheds light not only on how the structure of forms and reporting documents can impact relationships between community groups, but also how a granting agency could then indirectly empower a community to shift broader senior government protocols that created barriers for youth transitioning out of foster care. Finally, Kärrholm’s work speaks of the use of routine devices such as questionnaires, heritage, archaeological and other technical studies used as standard procedure to justify and depoliticize landscape redesign. Translation and equivalencies also become an important part of the practising planner’s toolkit with which ANT can assist. Many authors in this collection speak of the value of translation in promoting enrolment (Goulden, Brownill, Ruming et  al., Teh). This process depends on equivalencies. One example of this can be an alternate regulation to achieve a socially inclusive goal. In many North American jurisdictions, single detached homes can be retrofitted to add additional rental units or ‘mortgage-helpers’ known as secondary suites, which can enhance affordability in cities where land and housing costs are high. One example of this occurred in a suburb of Vancouver, which created a set of alternative building code regulations to ensure that these units could be retrofitted into older buildings while still ensuring basic safety provisions and preventing conversions without proper permits from happening on a large scale (see Coquitlam, 2015). By starting with a socially inclusive goal (affordable housing) and working with technical staff to create equivalencies, planners can bring that goal to fruition by enrolling more people in action-focused networks that would support these goals. ANT analyses can help unpack what it takes to succeed in these situations and, we would argue, the very discipline of conducting ANT analyses also begins to help one to develop the mindset of what successful network-building looks like.

Lessons for planning scholarship We hope that the chapters in this volume demonstrate the value of using an ANT-inspired perspective in planning scholarship. For us, there are clearly a number of roles that such a perspective is able to offer. It can deliver a detailed account of the relationships  – across human and non-human actors – that generate a particular ensemble. This can help explain effects through emergent action. We see such ensembles as being nested, so that

Exploring the influence of ANT 19 micro-analyses can co-exist with accounts of the macro context; we see ANT as being just as capable of analysing the aggregate as the constituent. Indeed this offers the scope for tracing associations across scales and activating the idea of a flat ontology that underpins ANT. Routines and standards, involving classification or quantification, are particularly amenable to ANT analysis, allowing their impact within networks to be highlighted. But if this is what (at a minimum) ANT scholarship is able to offer to planning studies, it is clear that there are things it will not deliver. It will not provide a grand narrative, a big storyline on how societal change is occurring. It will not highlight structural forces or suggest a priori that action is constrained by particular forces, actors or in certain directions. This has been frustrating for some analysts and has even led to the dismissal of the value of ANT. If a scholar considers such a storyline to be essential to their work, then ANT will not be for them. The value of ANT is also highly dependent on how the analysis is conducted, perhaps even more so than other conceptual framings. And while the chapters in this volume testify to the potential of high quality ANT-inspired analyses, it is also probably true that ANT has been rejected by some on the basis of examples of inadequate examples. It is incumbent on an ANT analyst to use the tools that the framework provides. This can prove problematic for two reasons. Often it is tempting just to use ANT concepts to name a particular feature of a network or assemblage (e.g., a particular black box) rather than explain the dynamic processes involved (in black-boxing). The central feature of ANT is a process-oriented analysis of creating associations, operationalizing enrolment strategies, creating equivalencies and opening/ closing black boxes. Naming mediators, intermediaries, black boxes, actants, etc. will not yield the insights that ANT is capable of. Second, the terminology of ANT is often confusing, perhaps because of the origins of some terms in French rather than English. The problems generated by the linguistic translation of agencement as assemblage have been well-documented (Phillips, 2006). But it is easy to read everyday meanings of the terms into the words:  translation (as already used above), black boxes, intermediaries, assemblage, etc. all have meaning that we think we are familiar with. It requires a continuous mental effort to use the terms in the ways that will bring out the distinctive elements of an ANT analysis, rather than using ANT terms in what can stay as a more conventional governance, network or alliance-building account of a planning case. The ANT toolkit of terms provides a discipline for the analyst and this can underpin and guide research. But for some this can also be constraining. It is here that the assemblage perspective does, perhaps, have some advantages. Assemblage thinking offers considerable freedom in how to build the analysis and the themes to develop. It has proved particularly adept at enabling the understanding of place and territoriality (as Brownill’s chapter demonstrates). But we would sound a slightly cautionary note. The quality of analysis is paramount in assemblage work; there is no ready toolkit of

20  Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate concepts available as in ANT and so the skills and life experience of the analyst is important. In this sense, assemblage analysis carries risks but they may be risks worth taking, as some of the chapters in this volume demonstrate. One particular challenge that ANT yields – which some of our contributors such as Hult and Goulden accept – is the potential to analyse absences. This is often very difficult, as we tend to focus on the visible, on what we can see is happening, on the presence of actants. But the invisible, the hidden and the absences are also significant and deserving of more attention with ANT. We see ANT as having particular strengths in uncovering the hidden through analytic processes such as opening the black box, tracing the network behind the artefact and following through on the implications of quantification, classification or qualculation, as Berker and Larssӕther do. This challenge may prove a particularly fruitful agenda for planning scholarship in the future. Our hope is that this volume will support the development of such an ANT-inspired agenda for other scholars.

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Part I

Using ANT Applied planning analyses

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2 Constructing ‘green building’ Heterogeneous networks and the translation of sustainability into planning in Israel Shula Goulden Introduction: green building, planning and the standardization of sustainable design Local governments and planners in particular have a significant role in encouraging sustainability at the urban scale (Theaker and Cole, 2001; Retzlaff, 2009a). At the same time, approaches to sustainability in the built environment have been hugely influenced by private and third-sector initiatives to develop and market tools for the environmental assessment of buildings (and, more latterly, neighbourhoods). These tools are increasingly being adopted by local governments and other jurisdictions as methods to put sustainability policy into practice. This chapter surveys the development of the environmental assessment of buildings – more colloquially ‘green building’ – both as a concept in the private market and its increasing inclusion in policy and planning, based on a case study of the emergence of a green building standard in Israel. The case explores these developments in localized Israeli governance conditions where, amid the broader context of political and economic pressures, green building has developed under the strong influence of a very international field with shared green building institutions (Sedlacek, 2014) and standards (Cole and Valdebenito, 2013). An Actor-Network Theory (ANT) framework invites a questioning of how concepts and artefacts take hold and become considered legitimate. Advocating for complexity over over-simplified meta-narratives (Farías and Bender, 2009; Farías, 2011), and with a heuristic stance of symmetry between human and non-human actors, ANT serves as the conceptual framework for this current study’s attempt to understand the interaction of different objects of research, such as human actors, institutions, policy tools and physical artefacts, and how these co-evolve in sociotechnical processes to produce a particular, largely taken-for-granted, outcome for both urban environmental policy and built form. Examining the contingency between definitions, tools and resource allocation creates a lens through which to examine how this approach to sustainability takes on meaning. Building environmental assessment methods have created a comprehensive approach to assessing the environmental performance of buildings. The

28  Shula Goulden earliest examples of this type of method, BREEAM launched in the UK in 1990 and LEED in the US in 1999, have been followed by many similar country-based schemes, as well as international adoption of these leading tools (Cole and Valdebenito, 2013). Buildings have been an object of energy policy since the energy crisis of the 1970s (Toke, 2000) but the significance of ‘green building’ assessments has been in the creation of an overall environmental score (Cole, 1998) that has turned buildings into a key site of environmental policy. The most obvious aspect of green building tools is the process of assessment and certification, but to describe these as merely assessment tools implies that there is an independent notion of environmental impact that they rate. In practice, the tools themselves create a classification, as standards do (Bowker and Star, 2000), of what the relationship between buildings and the environment ought to be. With their increasing uptake ‘they are moving from systems for the measurement of sustainability to systems which ontologically define what is sustainable’ (Berardi, 2011: 278). This definition includes, prioritizes and excludes certain environmental criteria, and temporal and spatial scales. In fact, analysing what is absent from the tools’ scope highlights the extent to which active definition has taken place. They focus on technical potential demonstrated during design, with less consideration of the impacts of pre-construction manufacture and of actual performance once in use, and emphasize buildings as individual units without considering the urban context (although newer, neighbourhood-level tools have begun to broaden this scope). As voluntary systems they also balance ‘two conflicting requirements’ (Retzlaff, 2009a: 7): to be sufficiently stringent for environmental credibility and sufficiently attractive for building owners and developers to use them. These characteristics of ‘green building’ reflect their origins as mostly market-based labelling schemes for developers whose reach and interest extended to design (not use) and the individual building unit. In different market and governance conditions, this relationship between buildings and the environment might be defined in quite different ways (consider regenerative design (Cole, 2012) or the use of lifecycle analysis methodology (Berardi, 2011)); yet it is this approach to green building that has overwhelmingly shaped a discourse of sustainability in construction (Cole, 2005; Rees, 2009). Significantly, this discourse has travelled beyond the private sector as many local authorities (as well as other bodies such as universities) have adopted independent green building tools to implement sustainability policy (Cole, 2005; Retzlaff, 2009b; Schindler, 2010). In an ideal sense, local governments are probably the best placed to implement sustainable building policies (Theaker and Cole, 2001). They normally have control of land-use decisions and building permits, are charged with integrated planning and may also be able to offer incentives to help offset upfront costs associated with green building (Retzlaff, 2009b). But which tools are being adopted to achieve this and why? In the US, more than

Constructing ‘green building’ 29 400 local authorities have adopted Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), often as a requirement for new public buildings but also as a benchmark for incentives such as tax exemptions and planning easement in private construction, and in fewer cases as a precondition for all new construction (Retzlaff, 2009b; Schindler, 2010; Keller, 2011). In Israel, as described below, the local official green building standard, SI 5281, has been adopted by some of the country’s largest municipalities as a condition of planning approval for new buildings. Many green building methods that began as voluntary, third-party tools are becoming embedded more formally in the planning system.1 As the following case study as well as existing literature suggests, a major reason for the adoption of a particular green building tool is the administrative convenience of using an established tool, rather than its particular environmental approach (Retzlaff, 2009b). Moreover, critics, particularly legal authors in the United States writing about the adoption of LEED, highlight the environmental and ethical issues that arise from the adoption of a mechanism created, and often also validated, by a third party (Schindler, 2010; Boxler, 2011; DeLaPaz, 2013). The latter type of critique questions the appropriateness of green building standards as a result of their diffusion to new contexts. In contrast, the line of inquiry taken here suggests that seeing the adoption of a green building tool as the output of a heterogeneous network, and examining its translation, is important for understanding how such changes are able to gain legitimacy and make sense in the local planning context. This is a significant question methodologically as well as empirically if we consider the impact of local environmental planning policies. Seeing green building standards as artefacts within a heterogeneous network highlights how actors make and are made by green building and raises additional questions about how these tools are applied.

Green building through the lens of ANT ANT is an ‘alternative social theory’ (Latour, 2005: x) most associated with the writings of Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and John Law (ibid.). Its perspective on the development of knowledge, and the implications for understanding ‘society’ more broadly (Callon and Latour, 1981), as well as the much debated symmetry given to human and non-human actors, has led it to be applied to many different areas of social science research, beyond the field of science and technology studies from which it emerged. Fittingly, for a theory that rests on the idea of ‘translation’, different studies emphasize various aspects of ANT and it is therefore of use to provide an outline of the ANT ‘lens’ being considered here. ANT proposes a framework for understanding how knowledge is developed and legitimized via heterogeneous networks of both human and non-human actors. Its emphasis on the idea that facts are created by ‘translation’ between different actors (and are not predetermined ideas that are

30  Shula Goulden simply diffused) (Latour, 1987) creates an indelible connection between the actors involved in a network and the knowledge and concepts that are held to be true. Using ANT as an overarching framework demands examination of these networks in terms of their components and over time. The borders of the network are illustrated by those actors who challenge or betray the glue of translations and enrolments that hold them together. Green building here is perceived not as something neutral or preordained, but as an idea formed through the successful enrolment and mobilization of many actors. Flexibility in translation is central, and the resulting definition of green building is an outcome of parameters that have (and have not) been successful in mobilizing other actors. In the case studied here, it is argued that the definition of environmental engagement around a building’s design and construction, the involvement of relevant actors, institutions and a particular tool are all mutually contingent, and have been successful in producing a currently stable network. Encompassing a broad range of environmental parameters, green building enables collaboration between proponents of many issues including energy efficiency, water conservation, recycled and recyclable materials and sustainable planning. The creation of an independent green building assessment tool also produces value in – and draws collaboration from – many sectors:  industry, NGOs, government and experts. The vagueness of ‘green’ is unsurprising in its ability to act as an environmental catchall, but ‘building’, despite seeming more materially bounded, also lends itself to a broad network, straddling designers, manufacturers and developers; building users; and going beyond the individual building level to planners, communities and cities. The ‘building’ in this understanding of green building acts as a conflation of materiality and use, combining permanence in space with fluidity in its potential for interaction with different users and usages, what Guggenheim terms a ‘quasi-technology’ (Guggenheim, 2009). Using ANT also brings the role of artefacts in the work of policy to the fore. Standards for green building create a material linchpin around which the field’s many proponents are harnessed and they stabilize an otherwise potentially vague and ever-expanding definition. I suggest here that a green building standard encompasses different green building components promoted by actors in the network and then, via its standardized definition, goes on to shape the actions of these and other actors, redistributing their agency though a printed, approved standard. As a standard-actor, green building operates as a black box, offering the promise of neutrality and scientific certainty, while concealing interests and decisions that went into its standardization (Lampland and Star, 2009). This creates an abstraction, a mobile calculation of sustainability (resonant of Latour’s (1987) immutable mobiles), which can be transferred between localities without consideration for its original context. As green building certification tools become a de facto definition of sustainable buildings for many practitioners, considering

Constructing ‘green building’ 31 such tools within their networks sheds light on how they take on significance and the implications of this for planning.

Green building and planning in Israel: an ANT perspective Background Environmental planning in Israel has developed against – or even in spite of – the backdrop of political and economic challenges of regional geopolitical struggles and large waves of immigration, with environmental issues receiving less political and financial prioritization than most Western democracies (Feitelson, 1998). While land-use policy has been influenced by a paradigm of political-demographic control, encouraging sprawl and development of increasing terrain, it is also being shaped by a more recent and competing environmental protection paradigm emphasizing compact development and environmental preservation (Orenstein and Hamburg, 2009). In particular, in the major population centres in the country’s centre, where environmental rather than geopolitical considerations are more immediately visible, a sustainability discourse has entered the construction sector over the past decade, driven by both local and national environmental policy goals and private sector companies seeking market differentiation. With a strongly centralized planning system (Hemmings, 2011) that is resistant to change, the rapid expansion of this discourse has occurred with the introduction of green building governance models found abroad, driven by market-led approaches and cross-sector collaboration (Sedlacek, 2014). The concept of green building in Israel was originally introduced into the national policy agenda with a government decision to create a strategic plan for sustainable development in 2003 (Government Decision #246) (Bar-Ilan et  al., 2010). Each ministry was charged with creating a plan for topics related to their jurisdiction, which included different aspects of green building principles for the Ministries of Interior, Infrastructure, and Construction and Housing. Implementation of the government decision overall was limited and did not result in the introduction of green building as intended (ibid.). Shortly after, in 2005, Israel’s first official green building standard, ‘SI 5281:  Sustainable building (green building)’, was published under the auspices of the Standards Institution of Israel (SII), with funding by the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MOEP) and involvement of the Israel Association for the Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment (IAISBE), an NGO established in 2004. The standard included four environmental categories and was applied to office and residential buildings. While a significant milestone, government support for the standard was limited (ibid.) and its uptake was poor with only six buildings certified between 2005 and 2010. A state comptroller’s report published in 2011 criticized the lack of coordination between ministries on the preparation of the standard (State

32  Shula Goulden Comptroller and Ombudsman, 2011). Reflecting on the standard today, stakeholders consider it to have been too narrow with vague guidelines and criteria. In 2007, the Israel Green Building Council (ILGBC) was established and it joined the network of the World Green Building Council, bringing with it an international approach to stewardship and governance promoted by the world council (see Sedlacek, 2014). The founding members of the ILGBC represented a broad range of organizations including private sector firms (construction companies, material manufacturers and importers, and design firms), government agencies, professional organizations, NGOs and academic institutions. One of the main goals of the newly formed organization was to bring about an improved green building standard to encourage growth of the field in Israel. Given the limitations of the original standard, there was discussion over whether to promote a new standard, revise the existing standard or adopt an international tool. Eventually the ILGBC and relevant ministries agreed on a substantial revision of the existing standard by the SII with funding from the MOEP. In the interim, green building had been placed more firmly on the policy agenda, being cited as one of the most cost-effective measures for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under a McKinsey & Co. GHG abatement-cost study prepared for Israel in 2009 (McKinsey & Co., 2009). At the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting in Copenhagen in 2009, President Shimon Peres publicly declared Israel would make ‘best efforts’ to reduce GHG emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 compared to a business-as-usual scenario (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2009). This was followed by a government decision to implement a national plan to reduce GHG emissions in 2010, which included green building as a strategy and allocated funding to revise the official standard (Israeli, 2011). In the summer of 2011, a revised version of SI 5281 was introduced with vastly expanded criteria and sections for seven building types (residential, offices, commercial, public assembly, healthcare, education and hotels). The revision process included two rounds of large stakeholder sessions with the participation of two consultants from the UK’s Building Research Establishment (BRE  – developers of the British BREEAM standard) who advised on environmental indicators to be included, based on the local context and available expertise. One consultant described the ‘vast number’ of stakeholders present and that this was ‘a key to success’, emphasizing the importance of encouraging stakeholder participation in the standardization process in order to facilitate later implementation. The green building field has continued to grow. The first public meeting of the ILGBC in 2009 numbered 35 people, whereas their annual conference in 2014 drew an audience of 1,000. By 2014, 49 buildings had been certified by the standard (either the original or revised version) and another 200 buildings were in the process. A later but significant addition of support for the standard came from local authorities. In 2008, ‘Forum 15’, a union of 15 of the country’s largest

Constructing ‘green building’ 33 and financially independent local authorities, signed a convention with commitments to reduce GHG emissions and air pollution2 (an Israeli version of the international Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) programme described by Betsill and Bulkeley (2004)). After municipal surveys pointed to a larger than expected proportion of emissions related to energy use in buildings, a ‘municipal forum for green building’ was established to promote the implementation of green building. This eventually led to a declaration by the forum’s municipalities in 2013 that they would gradually adopt SI 5281 as a requirement for planning permits, based on a three-year phased plan from 2014 to 2016. Network, enrolments, translations: multiple rationales for green building The broad support for the revised green building standard, across sectors and levels of governance, was reliant on green building being simultaneously ‘translated’ to meet different environmental goals. The most obvious translation, as hinted at in the description above, was the equivalence made between green building and the reduction of GHG emissions. This account will not go into a detailed discussion of the link between green building certification and reductions in energy use and GHG emissions (as others such as Newsham et al., 2009 and Scofield, 2009 have done), but suffice it to say that there is no automatic equation between the two. Green building certification reflects a range of environmental measures, only some of which relate to energy, and it gives an indication of potential energy performance and not an actual measure of improvement. Moreover, GHG emissions per capita won’t be reduced by energy-efficient buildings if larger homes are built. Green buildings are in themselves black boxes, with often a plaque on the wall being the only visible representation of everything that has been done to gain certification. Without subsequent evaluation of energy performance, there is little information to support or challenge this link. The McKinsey & Co. cost-abatement curve and the subsequent government decision on reducing GHG emissions that supported green building translated the green building standard into a proxy for reaching this policy goal. This translation was then redoubled when local authorities promoted adoption of the standard as one means of meeting their own GHG emission commitments under the CCP. The strong energy component of the standard managed to create an equivalency between green building and climate change policy, enabling enrolment of many more actors in the network for its implementation. This equivalency between green building and GHGs appears to be a fact that only became more true over time (Latour, 1987), and it is still used to explain the adoption of the green building standard. However it was apparent from research interviews that a lot of work went into establishing green building as a path of action. A municipal actor who promoted green building stated:

34  Shula Goulden It’s personal and it needs explanation and education to take people out of the normal path of the things they normally do… There was a process of education inside the system, a kind of NGO activity within the organization, and now slowly they’re forgetting that it was created, and that’s OK, that’s the best. At the same time, green building was translated as sustainability of the built environment more broadly, not just the individual building and not just energy. This was a view put forward by planners involved in the process, both governmental and NGO, and some representatives of the ILGBC who saw an opportunity to promote urban sustainability more widely. The concept’s malleability encouraged an active definition process, as described by an NGO representative: A few years ago we… began to see this combination of words [green building] and we tried to understand what it means. We recognized at some point that it had a very significant environmental impact and that it’s actually an environmental topic, not necessarily with an architectural focus… At the beginning everyone heard ‘building’ and said it’s only connected to architects… After, we understood that it had to be part of the position of every environmental organization dealing with environmental improvement in general. When asked about the significance of green building, the response by a Ministry of Construction and Housing official emphasized the flexibility between these two aspects: Is the focus on green building specifically or sustainable planning in general? In the beginning we objected to the term ‘green building’… we saw the subject of sustainable planning and development as something more holistic, broader, which looks at the whole picture, whereas the construction of houses… is the last link in that chain. This dual translation only went so far. The proponents of sustainable spatial planning saw the limitations of a building-level standard: The problem lies in the urban building plan… approved by the regional committee, which has critical things: land use, bicycles or no bicycles, building orientation, all of these kinds of things. Even if the greenest developer comes along and says I want to get approval for LEED Platinum, we still need to go up one stage and integrate these principles into the whole planning system. (environmental NGO)

Constructing ‘green building’ 35 When SI 5281 was revised, a neighbourhood-level standard was proposed but wasn’t developed. It was prioritized below the other standards and was resisted by some. When extended to the neighbourhood level, ‘green building’ would no longer be ‘the last link in the chain’ but a parallel framework for sustainable planning. The actor network that enrolled many actors around a building-level definition of green building was unable to enrol further actors to enable translation of the concept to planning at the urban scale. From consensus to black box: actor network invisibility The green building field in Israel is characterized by broad support and collaboration. Organizations such as environmental NGOs and large development firms that had been in opposing camps on development issues found themselves cooperating under the same banner. It helps… our position as an environmental organization saying build green; it’s not like saying don’t build here, or build less, or this needs to be open space and not built up. It comes from a positive direction. (environmental NGO) Speaking at a conference in 2014, a representative of the ILGBC described the council’s conference in 2009: ‘it was the first time that people from all the sectors came; government alongside industry, civil society, professional organizations and academia’. ‘Partnership’ and ‘a common language’ come up time and again among proponents describing the field. The standardization process conducted within the SII comprises separate committees for each building type (e.g., residential, commercial) and each of the standard’s environmental categories (e.g., energy, water, land). On each committee there are representatives of different organizations and the process is built around broad participation and consensus. In meetings, an MOEP representative emphasized that decisions were taken by consensus and that the standard, despite being funded by the MOEP, was not under the rule of any one body. Green building also encouraged collaboration among compartmentalized government ministries  – Environmental Protection; Energy; Housing; and Interior (responsible for planning). Their previous lack of coordination hindered development of green building both with the government decision on sustainable development in 2003 and in the design of the first version of the standard in 2005. In 2011, the revision process emphasized collaboration and consensus among many government and non-governmental stakeholders and more recently it has been described by the SII under the slogan ‘transparency and consensus’. This broad network of collaboration contributed to the leverage of the standard but it also defined its terms. The organizations involved are

36  Shula Goulden represented by different individuals on standardization committees and, as described by a government official involved in the process, ‘everyone comes with their own baggage’. There is a balance of national, local, public and private interests and these together produce a particular outcome. I think the balance is right because… if the standard was just governmental no one would apply it, and if it was just business no one would apply it. It needs to be a smart compromise between opposing interests. (government official) It is clearly acknowledged that the standardization process is made up of different interested parties rather than externally set goals, and that the logic of this collaboration is consensus. Like other voluntary standards, the Israeli standard needed to balance rigour with being sufficiently attractive to the market in order to be implemented (Cole, 1998; Retzlaff, 2009a). In the transition to implementation, however, this process is black-boxed as the standard takes on meaning as an impartial symbol of green building, unmarred by interests and decisions. This black-boxing is seen in the fact that green building standards have been shown to be adopted because of administrative convenience (Retzlaff, 2009b) while the authorities responsible for the adoption place less emphasis on whether they are the most appropriate tool environmentally. In the Israeli case, in 2012 the Forum 15 municipalities debated whether to adopt the official SI 5281 or to continue implementing their own green building guidelines, which had been introduced before SI 5281 was revised and improved. The debate centred on parameters related to procedure and administration: whether municipalities had the resources available to create, maintain and update standards for the verification process, and the credibility of the different standards. This weighed in favour of using SI 5281, effectively outsourcing the standardization work from the municipality. The appropriateness of the standard was taken for granted; the context of the standardization process and the content of the standard weren’t topics of debate. Retzlaff (2009a:  11)  states:  ‘Because of the subjective nature of building assessment systems, it is important for planners to complete a thorough assessment and a comparison of the various systems before deciding on which one to use.’ Standards as black boxes detract attention from their subjective nature and the impact different actors have had on the form they take, delineating the space in which this apparently rational decision takes place. Moreover, the accumulation of resources inherent in the technical detail that created the ‘fact’ of the standard (Latour, 1987) would require decision-makers to have substantial resources in order to fully assess or challenge this legitimacy. Like all practitioners, planners work with mechanisms of calculation (Rydin, 2014), enabling parameters to be assessed and decisions to be taken

Constructing ‘green building’ 37 with a universal, objectified tool that can also be replicated to deliver balanced policy in different circumstances. This persistence across time and space is a characteristic and strength of standards (Bowker and Star, 2000). Despite Retzlaff’s statement, this reading of the decision-making process suggests that existing artefacts, and the modes of calculation they represent, are privileged in their dissemination between localities, and as such, planners and local authorities take a decision without the resources to fully consider the processes that led to the make-up of a particular standard or to suggest an alternative. The standard as an artefact has influence based on the resources of an entire network, beyond the simplistic appearance of an assessment tool. Material enrolment: defining green building The significance of green building as described until now seems buoyed by two seemingly contradictory yet complementary processes. On one hand, support for green building is constructed and expanded by the involvement of a range of actors who connect to a broad, undefined concept. It provides a common goal and language, and in doing so intentionally maintains breadth and fuzzy boundaries to enable more and more actors to join the fray. In parallel, the connection to a non-negotiable green building ‘standard’ that defines sustainability in the built environment lends credibility and substance to this otherwise broad and loose collaboration. In this study, the green building network was enrolled not just around the general concept but around the newly revised standard as a necessary representation of this. While green building was being actively promoted, ‘greenwash’ by companies offering projects that weren’t as comprehensive as the standard was a concern. In 2014, the MOEP published a Guide to Reliable Environmental Claims:  Preventing Greenwash (Ministry of Environmental Protection, 2014) to inform consumers about the characteristics of different environmental products. While not yet enshrined in consumer protection law, these guidelines recommended that the term ‘green building’ should only be used in publications about projects certified by the official Israeli standard or a number of named international standards. At a workshop held to discuss the guide in May 2013, the owner of a construction firm, an early adopter of green building, pointed out that once ‘green building’ was solely used to mean certification by one of the stipulated standards, the standard had taken ownership of the phrase. This was considered to be in the best interests of the market as it avoided blatant green building greenwash. However, as others pointed out, it also excluded any project built according to green principles that didn’t seek certification or that prioritized other sustainability principles. Green building became something that couldn’t exist without the standard, and this needed to be policed. The standard was the point where further ‘translation’ of green building was halted, in order to avoid the network being betrayed by alternative, potentially watered-down versions of the concept.

38  Shula Goulden The certifiable aspect of a standard, not just any green building approach, was central to the growing network of green building. It defined a goal and connection between actors and strengthened their position. The network then became more than just individuals or organizations interested in an approach but an enrolment with a particular assessment tool. Each standard ‘valorizes some point of view and silences another’ (Bowker and Star, 2000: 5). In the workshop, the standard was strengthened, concomitantly requiring those present to reject other possible green building approaches and interpretations. Mandatory adoption of green building: a synthesis The case of the rapid and widespread adoption of the Israeli green building standard by local authorities perhaps best illustrates the impacts of the heterogeneous green building network described here. While the green building standard was developed as a national, voluntary tool under the SII, based on the broad consensus described, the MOEP emphasized that local authorities, responsible for planning permits, had the greatest potential to implement it. Once the standard was produced, context and content were merged (Latour, 1987) and a particular definition of green building was taken to be an independent tool that could be transferred between localities and different governance levels. When authorities discussed adoption of the standard, as described above, it was as a pre-existing assessment system. Only its implementation and administration were discussed and not its internal environmental approach. In a call to replace diffusionist models of policy transfer with Latourean translation, Jacobs states: The concept of translation brings back in not only the forgotten many who carry policies but also the crowds of acting entities that shape the affiliations that form around a thing on the move. These entities meaningfully contribute to how coherent and convincing something that moves remains or becomes, and so the extent to which it is likely to take hold or not take hold. (Jacobs, 2012: 418) The translation of green building as a proxy for reducing GHG emissions made way for strong local government support for the standard. Despite the fact that in terms of energy use, green building was not the most direct solution, as I have argued, the strength of the network appears to have made it an obvious answer to the policy issue nonetheless. As a black box, the standard could be legitimately extended both from a national voluntary system to a local mandatory tool, and from a broad environmental assessment to a calculative artefact that could suit a more specific policy goal. The essence of the tool shifted from broad consensus and transparency

Constructing ‘green building’ 39 in the standardization process to an emphasis on calculation and figures when implemented. Green building could provide many benefits but it was presented as an answer to GHG emissions. Speaking at a conference, the director of Forum 15 described the process as such: On average [between the cities’ surveys], approximately 72% of greenhouse gas emissions were derived from energy consumption in buildings… This finding of course led us to the conclusion that we need to advance the field of green building and energy efficiency as a central topic within the implementation of the climate convention which we signed. As a result, in 2010 we established the Municipal Forum for Green Building… The role of the forum is to work to arrange and promote green building policy in the Forum 15’s cities. ‘Interessement is the group of actions by which an entity… attempts to impose and stabilize the identity of the other actors it defines through its problematization. Different devices are used to implement these actions’ (Callon, 1986:  207). As different actors join forces they also create an identity and role for their allies. The standard offered the municipalities a means to implement their goals, but to do this it has to live up to the goal defined for it. Artefacts are capable of betraying the roles prescribed to them by the network (Callon, 1986) and as green buildings become more prevalent, evaluation of their energy performance may increase and complicate the equivalency between green building standards and GHG emissions. Yet questioning the connection between the standard and GHG emissions is not an independent critique of the standard but a betrayal of an entire network built upon this alliance.

Discussion ‘Green buildings give many fields a common goal, and perhaps planners, with the integrating role in government, can help overcome the barriers to collaboration’ (Retzlaff, 2009a: 5–6). A recurring theme with green building is its offer of a common language for different groups and this resonates with the role attributed to planners to synthesize between diverse elements (Rydin, 2014). Overall, the emphasis on green building as a product of translation highlights the tension between the advantages of that common language and the layered, differing interpretations needed to build that common ground. Green building standards offer the resources of a predetermined tool, as seen in the case of adoption by municipalities, yet at the same time they reflect entrenched values and interests, as well as complex modes of calculation, which may be adopted without being revealed or questioned. Green building as an integrated sustainability concept should serve planning departments well (Retzlaff, 2009a) but the potential depends on how policy actors use and interpret green building tools and the extent to which

40  Shula Goulden these tools are relied upon to shape a definition of sustainability in the built environment. As a framework, ANT emphasizes the complexity and contingency between actors and resists assumptions about the agency and intent of any particular actor to explain processes and change. ANT ‘promotes a more open and explorative form of engagement with the world; in a word inquiry, not critique’ (Farías, 2011: 365–366). Private companies influencing the public policy domain, economic interests of standardization bodies and the environmental limitations of a neoliberal approach to sustainable construction are all themes that could be used to explain the emergence and characteristics of green building. Here I suggest that a network of different actors, human and non-human, including the standard, is what enabled any of these individual driving factors to exert influence. This ANT perspective looks to the network to describe how the concept arises and also highlights the impact of the characteristics of the standard on policy decisions. This tool – which is able to incorporate different translations via a flexible use of multiple environmental criteria and at the same time impart a standardized ‘mathematical’ approach, simplified and made visible via a physical plaque on a building – is as inherent to the essence of green building as the human actors who developed it. The definitions, values and interests that go into forming standards remain durable even when they are taken up elsewhere and social actors change. ‘By associating materials of different durability, a set of practices is placed in a hierarchy in such a way that some become stable and need no longer be considered. Only thus can one “grow” ’ (Callon and Latour, 1981: 284). The labelling of the standard as the only legitimate use of the term ‘green building’ not only resisted greenwash but enabled the network to expand. The standard was easily transferred from a voluntary to mandatory tool, national to local, market choice to public policy, with no need to be tailored or reconsidered in light of this new context. The transfer was reliant on an assemblage that supported its rationality as a policy response, bounded by a particular interpretation of green building. The adoption of third-party standards by local authorities may partly be explained by the lack of resources available to authorities and the attraction of pre-existing tools that provide administrative savings. Yet a network that accounts for the agency of the tool provides a more nuanced explanation. The existing standard, supported by a broad network, embodies a legitimacy that makes it a natural choice. Once the standard was created, the network actively worked to diffuse it and avoid competing translations of the concept. This reading of green building emphasizes overall the complexity of the concept, contingent on many different actors being in place – including individuals, institutions, a physical scale, laws, budgets, assessment methods and

Constructing ‘green building’ 41 buildings themselves that could be presented as ‘green’. Critiques of green building standards and of their adoption by local government are right to point out their environmental, and in some cases ethical and legal shortcomings. Yet in order to offer an alternative vision, it is first useful to understand the contingent parts that have made the growth of this particular approach so rapid and successful, and to consider which actors would be lost if it were to change. Any changes to the network in the name of greater environmental rigour or any other principles need to consider how to intervene as part of this assemblage and what the impacts will be.

Notes 1 In the UK, the government-owned Code for Sustainable Homes (required for social housing and in some local authorities for general planning approval) was based on a BREEAM residential standard (BREEAM, 2015), but this suggests a different model of directed adaptation by government, rather than straightforward adoption of an independent green building standard. 2 The convention was signed by the 15 member municipalities plus an additional three: Jerusalem, Ashkelon and Bat Yam.

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42  Shula Goulden Cole, R.J. (2012) Transitioning from green to regenerative design. Building Research & Information, 40(1): 39–53. Cole, R.J. and M.J. Valdebenito (2013) The importation of building environmental certification systems:  international usages of BREEAM and LEED. Building Research & Information, 41(6): 1–15. DeLaPaz, A. (2013) LEED locally: how local governments can effectively mandate green building standards. University of Illinois Law Review, 2013: 1211–1250. Farías, I. (2011) The politics of urban assemblages. City, 15(3–4): 365–374. Feitelson, E. (1998) Muddling toward sustainability:  the transformation of environmental planning in Israel: introduction. Progress in Planning, 49(1): 3–5. Guggenheim, M. (2009) Mutable immobiles:  building conversion as a problem of quasi-technologies. In I. Farías and T. Bender (eds.), Urban Assemblages: How Actor Network Theory Changes Urban Studies. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 161–178. Hemmings, P. (2011) How to improve the economic policy framework for the housing market in Israel. In OECD Economics Department Working Papers, No. 912. Paris: OECD Publishing. Israeli, T. (2011) Green Building in Israel:  The Benefit of Mandatory Adoption of Green Standards in New Residential Construction, www.mifellows.org/ research/HEB_S/49-HB-S.pdf (in Hebrew). Jacobs, J.M. (2012) Urban geographies I: still thinking cities relationally. Progress in Human Geography, 36(3): 412–422 Keller, K. (2011) LEEDing in the wrong direction: addressing concerns with today’s green building policy. Southern California Law Review, 85: 1377–1412. Lampland, M. and S.L. Star (2009) Standards and Their Stories: How Quantifying, Classifying, and Formalizing Practices Shape Everyday Life. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Latour, B. (1987) Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social:  An Introduction to Actor-NetworkTheory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McKinsey & Co. (2009) Greenhouse Gas Abatement Potential in Israel, www.sviva. gov.il/InfoServices/ReservoirInfo/DocLib2/Publications/P0501-P0600/p0560. pdf (in Hebrew). Ministry of Environmental Protection (2014) Guide to Reliable Environmental Claims:  Preventing Greenwash, www.sviva.gov.il/InfoServices/ReservoirInfo/ DocLib2/Publications/P0701-P0800/P0734Eng.pdf. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2009) Address by President Peres to the UN Climate Change Conference, http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/2009/Pages/ President_Peres_UN_Climate_Change_Conference_17-Dec-2009.aspx. Newsham, G.R., S. Mancini and B.J. Birt (2009) Do LEED-certified buildings save energy? Yes, but…. Energy and Buildings, 41(8): 897–905. Orenstein, D.E. and S.P. Hamburg (2009) To populate or preserve? Evolving political-demographic and environmental paradigms in Israeli land-use policy. Land Use Policy, 26(4): 984–1000. Rees, W.E. (2009) The ecological crisis and self-delusion:  implications for the building sector. Building Research & Information, 37(3): 300–311. Retzlaff, R.C. (2009a) Green buildings and building assessment systems: a new area of interest for planners. Journal of Planning Literature, 24(1): 3–21.

Constructing ‘green building’ 43 Retzlaff, R.C. (2009b) The use of LEED in planning and development regulation: an exploratory analysis. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 29(1): 67–77. Rydin, Y. (2014) The challenges of the ‘material turn’ for planning studies. Planning Theory & Practice, 15(4): 590–595. Scofield, J.H. (2009) Do LEED-certified buildings save energy? Not really…. Energy and Buildings, 41(12): 1386–1390. Schindler, S.B. (2010) Following industry’s LEED:  municipal adoption of private green building standards. Florida Law Review, 62: 285–350. Sedlacek, S. (2014) Non-governmental organizations as governance actors for sustainable development:  the case of green building councils. Environmental Policy and Governance, 24(4): 247–261. State Comptroller and Ombudsman (2011) Annual Report 61b, section on the Ministry of the Environment, www.mevaker.gov.il/he/Reports/Report_14 9/1e56d16d-d354-45c3-9644-5616da02b6e2/7021.pdf (in Hebrew). Theaker, I.G. and R.J. Cole (2001) The role of local governments in fostering ‘green’ buildings: a case study. Building Research & Information, 29(5): 394–408. Toke, D. (2000) Policy network creation:  the case of energy efficiency. Public Administration, 78(4): 835–854.

3 Planned derailment for new urban futures? An actant network analysis of the ‘great [light] rail debate’ in Newcastle, Australia Kristian Ruming, Kathleen Mee and Pauline McGuirk1 Introduction With urban and economic restructuring, facilitating urban regeneration for rundown post-industrial cities has become a central urban planning policy objective in Western cities since the late twentieth century, leaving some centres in prolonged social and economic decline. This chapter explores one example of planning policies seeking to regenerate an urban centre. Our focus is Newcastle, approximately 160km (100 miles) north of Sydney, Australia. Newcastle has a long history as an industrial city, dominated by manufacturing and coal-mining in the surrounding Hunter Valley. The port of Newcastle remains the world’s largest coal export port. In 1999, BHP closed the Newcastle Steel Mill, triggering industrial restructuring and catalysing significant urban transformation. Despite a flurry of planning activity, regeneration of the central business district (CBD), waterfront and brownfield industrial sites has been slow. The most recent round of planning for the Newcastle CBD saw the release of the Newcastle Urban Renewal Strategy in 2012 (2012 NURS) (DPI, 2012) and its revision in 2014 (2014 NURS) (DPE, 2014). Arriving two years after the original, the 2014 NURS presents a significantly different urban future, premised on ceasing the heavy rail services into Newcastle CBD, to be replaced by light rail (among other developments). We explore these strategies aided by the Actor Network Theory (ANT) concept of translation. Planning documents convene social actors and define the relationship between material and non-material (physical) actors (Rydin, 2013) creating new meanings that build from both the social and physical characteristics of places (Bylund, 2013). They work as intermediaries and mediators that circulate to create and maintain urban change networks (Rydin, 2013). In adopting an ANT framework, our approach is ‘strategic and illustrative, rather than comprehensive’ (Jacobs et al., 2007: 609). The decision to truncate the heavy rail line disrupted the 2012 NURS, which sought ‘to recommend an integrated package of initiatives aimed at developing a solid basis for the long term successful renewal of the city

Planned derailment for urban futures? 45 centre’ (DPI, 2012: xvi). In exploring the central role of rail infrastructure in Newcastle planning, we adopt a socio-technical perspective that recognizes plans and transport systems as combinations of technologies, institutional arrangements, market processes, legislative frameworks, human agents and non-human actants. We trace the way planning in Newcastle has centred on the extent to which alternative socio-technical networks – different rail systems – can become stable, resist challenge and seek to define the future city. The first section of this chapter reviews ANT as a theoretical approach to planning and, drawing on this approach, the second section explores the planning process in Newcastle, focusing on the proposed replacement of the existing heavy rail system with a new light rail system.

Actor Network Theory and planning It is no surprise that ANT has been adopted by planning scholars given that, as a discipline and professional practice, planning lies at the nexus of physical/material things and the social (Rydin and Tate, 2015). As Beauregard (2012:  182)  notes, the problems planners confront are ‘inseparable from physical objects’. Urban regeneration as a planning ideal and development logic rests on addressing perceived problems with both the physical/material (e.g., the rundown buildings, inadequate transport) and the social (e.g., population decline, unemployment). In recognizing the influence of both the physical/material and the social, ANT offers a theoretical approach for better understanding the complex, fluid and multidimensional nature of the city. ANT conceives networks as a metaphor for the associations of heterogeneous elements that constitute reality, where connections between actors and objects are changeable (Tait, 2002; Tait and Jenson, 2007). For Rydin (2013), ANT offers planning a useful lens for examining periods of change, controversy and conflict. Rather than accepting the apparent stability of plans or the ease with which new enrolments and translations can be realized, analysts explore the ways in which plans are formed and positioned as stable artefacts (Tait, 2002). Of course, some plans do not stabilize, and ANT is equally useful for exploring situations where plans and their underlying logics are contested. ANT-oriented analysis of planning has the potential to dissolve hierarchical understandings of relationships and position the material/ non-human as actants able to define network configurations (Boelens, 2010). ANT focuses on the ways in which networks are made stable, albeit that this stability may be temporary as network configurations fracture and are abandoned (Tait, 2002). This reflects ANT’s central premise of symmetry; the recognition of the non-human/inanimate/material/technical as well as the human/social in the construction and maintenance of networks (Latour, 2005; Rydin, 2010; 2014; Farías, 2010). The planner, a key actor, is not a coherent, independent social being, but an actor operating within a relational space with other actors and objects (Gabriel and

46  Ruming, Mee and McGuirk Jacobs, 2008). Following Rydin (2010: 267), ANT allows planning policy, practice and scholarship to recognize the complexity of actant interactions that produce ‘outcomes which are a mix of the desired and the un-desired, the intended and the unintended’. Plans come to represent networks of diverse and competing actants, each actively pursuing its own ideal urban environment as some actants attempt to gain control over network configurations. As actants enrol others to produce a reality conducive to their own ends, development planning becomes a potential arena of struggle over strategy (McGuirk, 2000). It becomes a site of translation in which problematization, interessement, enrolment and mobilization occur (Rydin and Tate 2015). Translation, of course, cannot be taken for granted, as the strategies used and the interpretations expressed depend upon the particular circumstances in which they develop and as actors potentially transform objects and arrangements (Callon, 1986a; 1986b; Latour, 2005; Bryson et al., 2009). Translation is the process that ‘induces two mediators into coexisting’ (Latour, 2005: 108). As a product of a co-existence translation is, for Latour (1997, cited in Boelens 2010), the process whereby actors operate by themselves, but in line with the desires of a dominant actor. Through the process of translation, some actors are able to exert influence over the network. The power of the translator is that it speaks on behalf of these actants, yet does not necessarily need to pursue goals of its constituents. However, the relational nature of actant networks and the capacity for associations to break down means that unpredictability and dissent is always possible as actants operate in ways unforeseen by translators. By analysing planning in the Newcastle CBD, we explore contested attempts at translation, particularly the use of modelling and imagery by both planners and those opposed to the removal of the heavy rail line. Enrolling is the process by which ‘actants constitute other actants in their own agency involving them in network relations on specific terms’ (Rydin, 2013:  26). All actants draw things together, albeit in particular ways and styles (Law, 2000). Central to the process of enrolling is the notion of an intermediary. According to Callon (1991: 134) an intermediary is ‘anything passing between actors which defines the relationship between them’. He identifies four primary types of intermediaries: literary inscriptions (books, articles, patents, etc.); technical artefacts (machines and other non-human artefacts); human beings (in particular their skills and knowledge); and money (as an institutional means of exchange). The difference between actants and intermediaries is the capacity to act as an author, ‘an [actant] is an intermediary that puts other intermediaries into circulation’ (Callon, 1991: 141). For Tait (2002), planning texts can be as well. Here we trace some of the material and technical intermediaries enrolled to define urban regeneration in Newcastle, emphasizing planning models, imagery/photographs and (transport) data. Three elements are central to the process of enrolment and translation: immutable mobiles, black boxes and mutability.

Planned derailment for urban futures? 47 First, immutable mobiles are those network actants that facilitate its expansion. They are considered immutable as their network identity is fixed even as the relations between actants alter. Research has highlighted how immutable mobiles (texts) are vital to long-distance control, being durable enough to retain their shape as they travel (Callon et  al., 1986; Bylund, 2013). Scholars have also increasingly recognized these objects as allowing knowledge to travel beyond its place of origin (Latham, 2002) and that work to standardize practice and to translate planning and development processes to multiple audiences (Holifield, 2009). Second, black boxes are those relations that no longer need to be considered as their constitutive facts and artefacts have achieved temporary stability (Hinchliffe, 1996). Black boxes of knowledge and technology thus allow planning to occur at a distance (Bylund, 2013). By successfully creating a black box, the translation is insulated from questioning, effectively removing the threat of challenge and instability (Jacobs et al., 2007). Urban planning abounds with examples of black boxes (e.g., demographic projections), where the complex interactions between urban actants are rendered unchallengeable. Stabilization conceals internal processes, with relations and conflicts hidden behind a coherent actor network identity. Third, Bylund (2013) argues that there needs to be a level of mutability. Networks are fluid in that the actors, forms and materials can change in response to specific network circumstances (Kärrholm, 2013). So it is essential that some actants are open to the possibilities of influence from other actors. It is here that mediators are important. Mediators transform, distort and modify associations and meanings, thereby shaping network configurations (Latour, 2005; Rydin, 2014). For Latour (2005), the uncertainty around whether entities are acting as intermediaries or mediators is central to any ANT analysis. Recognizing actants as mediators rather than passive intermediaries allows networks to develop in unexpected ways (Cowan et  al., 2009) and also opens the door to recognizing the multiple sites of translation or ‘flows of translations’ that enable network change (Latour, 2005). The artefacts produced through the planning process (plans, studies, designs, maps, diagrams) must be positioned as mediators influencing network change (Bryson et al., 2009). Thus, for actant networks/intermediaries to gain stability, mediators must be operating in ways that seek to maintain credibility and network power. The final stage, mobilization, involves circulating network agency, including the process by which some actors are able to start speaking for others. By this stage, the actant network coherence means the network has become stable and coordinated, allowing concepts to move across network space (Tait and Jenson, 2007). The mobilization of network configurations weakens alternative network possibilities (Doak and Karadimitriou, 2007). In this stage, network translators may represent networks without fear that they might be betrayed by others (Callon, 1986b). For Allen (2003) the mobilization

48  Ruming, Mee and McGuirk of artefacts, such as planning documents, enables central network actors (administrators, politicians or scientists) to impose order on distant others. The remainder of the chapter explores the process of network development and efforts at stabilization, centring the role of alternative socio-technical networks of transportation. Similar to Rydin (2013), methodologically this chapter is centred on a close reading of relevant planning documents, media coverage, promotional material and public planning submissions. It is supplemented by a series of key informant interviews, which help us identify and follow key associations, actants and intermediaries as they are related to each other (Ruming, 2009).

Conflicting problematizions: the ‘great [light] rail debate’ The inner Newcastle heavy rail line first opened in 1831, and was debated from at least the 1950s (Kirkwood, 2012). By the late 1990s, removing the railway was a planning focus, with local mayors and the state government calling for the truncation of the railway and development of a transport interchange outside the CBD. Nevertheless, support for railway truncation/ removal has been far from universal, with a local opposition group, Save Our Rail, established in 1992 and playing a central role in challenging any proposed removal of the heavy rail (Kirkwood, 2012). The most recent debates began in 2008 when a large developer and the Hunter Development Corporation2 called for the railway line to be truncated and replaced by a light rail system, joined by a transport interchange to the east of the current CBD in the suburb of Wickham (Figure 3.1). Wickham was identified as the site of the future CBD in the 2012 NURS. Results of a 2011 state election and a 2012 local election (and the platforms leading up to these) were viewed by many as a mandate for truncating the rail line. As the first stage of translating the benefits of light rail potential to those outside the supporter network, advocates adopted a particular form of problematization, positioning Newcastle’s existing urban form as a development obstacle, an issue that required a (technical planning, development and transport) solution. In particular, the heavy rail was problematized as something inhibiting urban regeneration as it acted as a barrier (physically and metaphorically) between the CBD and the harbour foreshore. Local planners positioned the rail infrastructure change as an opportunity to reduce car dependence in the city and increase public transport usage:  ‘the light rail option has potential to significantly improve things if it’s done properly’ (Newcastle City Council planner interview). There was support for railway removal by many local businesses, developers and their representatives, politicians, bureaucrats and government employees and some community members. In strengthening the problematization of heavy rail as a barrier to regeneration, the convening of a broad set of actors supporting the removal of heavy rail represents interessement, the second stage of network consolidation. A process of coalition-building between interested actors is apparent

Planned derailment for urban futures? 49

Figure 3.1 Newcastle CBD

as actors connect with each other and certain relationships strengthened (Tait and Jenson, 2007; Rydin and Tate, 2015). This process is presented in Figure 3.2, a flyer for an October 2013 business lunch debating rail infrastructure’s future in Newcastle. In addition to presenting urban alternatives which remove the problematic heavy rail via images of future Newcastle, the flyer identifies actors who support a document translating the benefits of a solution truncating heavy rail. Central actors include: industry advocates (including lunch host, the Property Council of Australia); state and local politicians (as invited speakers); state planning, transport and infrastructure agencies (as invited speakers  – Newcastle CBD Renewal Taskforce  – and sponsors – Urban Growth NSW) and expert speakers (keynote speaker and moderator) used to support a particular urban vision. A vocal segment of the community, led by Save Our Rail, challenged the decision to replace the existing heavy rail infrastructure with light rail. For opponents, the NSW government’s decision to truncate the rail line and connect its replacement to the lease of the port was widely recognized as a ‘political’ decision: This has just been dropped in front of Newcastle as an inducement to accept the sale of their major asset. (Save Our Rail interview) While Save Our Rail have been the most prominent opponents to removing heavy rail, there was a more general critique of light rail as an appropriate

50  Ruming, Mee and McGuirk

Figure 3.2  The great light rail debate: launch flyer

local transport option for Newcastle. As the first stage of an alternative urban vision, this problematization critiqued light rail given the costs of replacing one form of rail technology with another; issues of accessibility to the Hunter Valley, Sydney or Newcastle beaches3 and local business

Planned derailment for urban futures? 51 impacts: ‘What’s planned currently is a disaster for Newcastle and for the region’ (Save Our Rail interview). This alternative problematization saw the assembly of a diverse set of actors including Save Our Rail, the Greens4 political party, the NSW Labor Party, some local businesses, alternative transport groups (Newcastle Cycleway movement), the local indigenous community (Awabakal Land Council), local residents (protest meetings and comments to local media), some CBD businesses and public transport advocates. Thus, if the first stage of network development is problematization where problems are ‘presented in a new light, to reconfigure or represent the situation at hand so that it has particular importance to particular actors’ (Tait and Jenson, 2007: 112), then translating the benefits of a particular solution for Newcastle started on shaky foundations, with little consensus between (human) actors. In the face of conflicting problematizations of issues and solutions to the future of Newcastle, a series of alternative enrolments and mobilizations occurred in an attempt to generate a coherent planning solution or supporting actant network. Given that the 2012 NURS made no assumption that light rail would be provided, the late 2012 decision to replace the heavy rail with light rail destabilized the planning actant network and prompted a new round of enrolment and mobilization. The 2012 NURS actant network was rendered unstable. The subsequent enrolment and mobilization strategies were replete with models of urban regeneration, data models, expert testimony, imagery and maps operative collectively as immutable mobiles, black boxes and mediators.

A new planning translation: 2014 Newcastle Urban Regeneration Strategy (Update) Planning for Newcastle now needed to translate urban realties with light rail. Planners and planning documents were put to work to enrol light rail as part of the revitalization of Newcastle. A new planning vision was expressed in the Newcastle Urban Renewal and Transport Program announced as part of the NSW government’s 2013–2014 budget. Led by UrbanGrowth NSW5 the program was charged with managing two major regeneration components: (1) ceasing rail services to the CBD and the development of the transport interchange; and (2) providing light rail. The remainder of the chapter explores three central points in the translation of alternative planning actant networks in Newcastle. Translation point I: models of urban form and data A central objective of the 2014 NURS was to present light rail as a superior transport technology capable of underpinning a particular form of urban regeneration, and of changing transport patterns in Newcastle. In both cases, the capacity of the 2014 NURS to present an alternative urban vision

52  Ruming, Mee and McGuirk rested upon the capacity of planning networks to enrol models and data to claim authority over urban futures. Urban form and function models are not simply labels for describing and categorizing the world, but arrangements that influence how actors interact (Kärrholm, 2013). Adopting a model of urban form renders visible the process of ‘problematization’ as outlined by Callon (1986b), in that there is a general consensus what the problem is and that the model adopted is one that addresses these perceived issues. Models come to represent black boxes that stabilize network assemblages. In planning for Newcastle, two types of models were mobilized: urban form models and data models. The urban form model enrolled and mobilized in planning documents was one of transit-oriented development (TOD). According to one Transport for NSW interviewee, Newcastle was positioned as ‘a great opportunity for [TOD]’: The [2014] Newcastle Urban Renewal Strategy has a vision for revitalising Newcastle using light rail. Consistent with experiences in other parts of Australia and internationally, light rail has a proven record in assisting to revitalise cities. Light rail can travel safely through areas where people live and work, efficiently connecting neighbourhoods, key centres and retail areas. (Transport for NSW, 2014) TOD was advanced in planning documents supporting light rail implementation, such as the Wickham Interchange Review of Environmental Effect (Transport for NSW, 2014), ministerial media releases (Berejiklian, 2014) and community consultation documents (NSW Government, 2014). This model hinged the success of urban regeneration on light rail, justifying the establishment of an associated new socio-material network. The technical capacities of light rail construction is mobilized as a solution to transportation challenges and as a catalyst for urban regeneration. Informed by transport data and expert testimony, data models were enrolled and mobilized in an attempt to secure the 2014 NURS. Modelling is common in urban planning, and planning Newcastle’s regeneration certainly involved ‘lots of modelling’ (TfNSW interview). Rydin (2013) identified models and their outputs as black boxes that hide the detail, complexity, assumptions and associations that generate a particular translation of reality – they lose any transparency. Facts, used to build models, are often contested by ‘experts’ in the planning field (Holifield, 2009). Facts therefore come to represent ‘socio-technical’ configurations, where some claims of truth (facts) are more durable than others as a product of the network configurations (Gabriel and Jacobs, 2008). Yet, such models are not immutable and are prone to breakdown as they are translated into new network locations, where the models can be rejected outright or reconfigured into hybrid arrangements (Tait and Jenson, 2007). They operate as mediators changing

Planned derailment for urban futures? 53 network configurations. The authority of models rests upon the willingness of the rest of the network to recognize them as legitimate. Claims to legitimacy are often enacted through use of scientific studies and consultancy reports (Bylund, 2013). In Newcastle, data models were mobilized in an effort to present the realities of an alternative socio-technical transport (actant) network. In particular, patronage data were mobilized to support and to challenge alternative socio-technical configurations. Through this process, the train line in Newcastle ceases to be a material product linking the CBD with other parts of the Hunter region and Sydney and is repositioned as a data point around patronage (X passengers per day), shaped around an understanding of movement within or to the CBD. While the future is unknown, the capacity of the transport planning policy to claim some knowledge of use, based on internationally accepted models, is essential in mobilizing the urban regeneration vision of the 2014 NURS. Consultants were hired to generate data associated with economic viability and patronage estimates (Harris, 2014). The studies help render aspects of the network knowable by simplifying and quantifying diverse associations. They are technologies/ techniques for black-boxing parts of the complex actant network and promoting its stabilization (Latour, 2005). ‘Expert’, ‘independent’ consultancy reports were mobilized by transport planners as part of translating the benefits of planning solutions that included light rail. Low patronage numbers (as expressed via the models) were mobilized to justify the removal of heavy rail, positioned as a commuting-based transport infrastructure, for a different transport technology promoting movement within the CBD. Modelling patronage on both the existing heavy rail and potential light rail was central to the translation process, especially data generated by the Bureau of Transport Statistics. The most recent NSW Bureau of Transport Statistics data put the average barrier counts (in and out) for Newcastle Station at, on average, 2,300 per day in 2013.6 These figures were enrolled and mobilized to support light rail: [A]‌ctually the numbers are relatively small. We know that about… 5,500 entries and exits a day [into the CBD on the heavy rail line]. So you can reasonably halve [the barrier counts] to get the number of people you’re talking about [who use the rail line].7 (TfNSW interview) While facts foster consensus building around network assemblages, they are also habitually contested. As Latour (2004: 63) points out, it is impossible to establish ‘a common front of indubitable matters of fact that politicians could subsequently use to support their decisions’. Thus, it is not necessarily the data that matter but rather their role as mediators, able to deploy to circulate, secure and strengthen the translation (Latour, 2005). Such was the case around the data and expertise used to ‘black box’ patronage levels.

54  Ruming, Mee and McGuirk Despite acting as black boxes that hide the assumptions behind patronage estimates, the hidden quality of such models opened them to challenge from actors seeking to destabilize the 2014 NURS. In challenging the 2014 NURS, opponents also enrolled and mobilized expert consultation, data, technical knowledge and the gravitas of university affiliation: [One consultancy report] acknowledged that if you cut that line, the patronage would drop dramatically. Now, every report has said the same thing… The Council at the time decided to get an independent transport and sustainability person and they got Professor [XXX] from Monash University… to examine the whole thing. He totally and absolutely rubbished it. (Save Our Rail interview) Nonetheless, the authority of the 2014 NURS was weakened due its inability to successfully ‘black-box’ and render immutable the data and methodologies used to define patronage. At no point did the usage data come to represent accepted fact, fully circulated through the network, as important parts of the modelling and planning process were withheld: The state government is sitting on key reports for Newcastle’s light rail project, including the business case, because it says the documents contain ‘commercially sensitive’ information or are intended for cabinet. (Harris, 2014) Following Latour (2005), the facts mobilized to support alternative planning visions for Newcastle (patronage data) are fabrications, which exist in many different shapes and at different stages of completion. The failure to release details of the models opened the 2014 NURS to critique, and contributed to a lack of trust in the models used and the planning process more generally. Translation point II: alternative urban mobilities Compared to heavy rail, the 2014 NURS mobilized light rail as a fundamentally different form of urban transport technology, and one that responded to the geography of the city in two ways. First, light rail was identified as the transport technology best able to address the CBD’s unique geography; elongated over 2km along a peninsula with no access from the north due to the harbour or east due to the Pacific Ocean. The current heavy rail corridor runs along the northern edge of the CBD and was identified by actors supporting truncation as a barrier between the CBD and the harbour foreshore: The geography’s quite a challenge… but I think that’s why we are taking out the rail line… it is a peninsula and a lot of it’s taken up by some

Planned derailment for urban futures? 55 really ugly rail lines. So really opening up a bit more potential for the city I think is really important. (TfNSW interview) Second, light rail was positioned as a transport technology to fundamentally change mobility within the CBD. It was mobilized as a new technology promoting fast, regular and easy movement within the CBD. In doing so, it would enable regeneration through more stops (compared to the existing heavy rail) and linking key ‘trip generator’ sites (thereby strengthening the model of TOD). In contrast, existing heavy rail was characterized as a ‘commuter’ railway line facilitating movement to and from the CBD. It was an inefficient transport technology because it failed to link key CBD sites, services were irregular and stops were too far apart. As these planners argued: The heavy rail was an old system, you needed to replicate a people-movement model that is more contemporary and suited to its environment and economics and, thus, the light rail. (planning consultant interview) We’re removing essentially a commuter rail line… So light rail is about serving people who are using the city in a different way… so if you come off that heavy rail you’ve got a kilometre between stops at the moment. (TfNSW interview) In supporting the implementation of a short light rail system, planners enrolled and mobilized other locations with similar transport systems, claiming light rail was not unique to Newcastle and has been part of urban regeneration elsewhere  – again reinforcing the TOD model as the international standard: So [the light rail is] going to be probably about 2.5 kilometres… There has been a lot of criticism around that. There are other examples internationally of quite short light rail. I  think Seattle, Washington and Tacoma, for example, off the top of my head. (TfNSW interview) In contrast, and supporting their alternative problematization, a key point opponents mobilized was heavy rail’s success as a transport technology facilitating movement to and from the CBD. Heavy rail was mobilized as a vital service to those looking to come to the CBD and who lack access to other transport (primarily private motor vehicles). In addition, other locations (origins and destinations) are enrolled and mobilized to support maintaining the heavy rail. The alternative socio-technical network (light rail and interchange) was positioned as incapable of maintaining effective access to

56  Ruming, Mee and McGuirk these destinations. Heavy rail removal, the development of a transport interchange and the need to change forms of transport (from heavy to light rail) was seen to severely disadvantage commuters, reflecting the support for the rail line from other Hunter councils: There are several [Hunter Valley] councils that have actually recently on their books, motions to oppose the truncation of the rail line. (Save Our Rail interview) Planners and opponents mobilized different forms of mobility (either movement within or movement to and from) and different beneficiaries of alternative transport technology (people within the CBD as opposed to those attempting to access the CBD). Planners attempted to stabilize transport’s crucial role within the CBD for regeneration, while shifting the focus away from how the CBD was connected to other places via the rail. Opponents, on the other hand, were more concerned with the role of the Newcastle CBD as a destination for Hunter residents using the train, and potential visitors from elsewhere (especially Sydney) who might appreciate a revitalized city centre. Translation point III: imagery and maps Maps and images work to materialize planning translations (Bylund, 2013). They are circulated to the broader public via planning documents themselves, but also via information sheets, public presentations and media coverage. Maps and images represent network complexity and are mediators charged with presenting the socio-technical network. In Newcastle’s case, the maps and images represent the new socio-technical network. While objects such as maps and images might represent planning aspirations, they have an agency of their own as actors/intermediaries enrolled in urban networks to create a reality. For state government planners, light rail significantly enhanced urban permeability and movement. Urban mobility and permeability was most clearly articulated in a community information sheet, Revitalising Newcastle: Light Rail from Wickham to the Beach, released by the NSW Government to promote the 2014 NURS. This document relied on images presenting urban form. The socio-technical realities of light rail are translated in two ways, both centring on the enrolment and mobilization of other sites of light rail. First, a series of international examples, from Dublin, Bordeaux and Seville, are publicly displayed to present future transport in Newcastle. These images represent black boxes by rendering the complex assemblages of light rail in each of these cities invisible as they are mobilized as exemplars of global best practice. Despite uncertainty about the type of light rail system at the time of publication, these images present a

Planned derailment for urban futures? 57 particular type of urban form – the European higher density city. In mobilizing these images, planners make a claim for the need for increased urban densities which, according to the enrolled model of urban form (TOD), are essential. Opponents cite examples of other European cities to argue that heavy rail in the centre of a city is an essential part of the transport infrastructure. The use of images to translate urban possibilities is included in an earlier promotional document released by Transport for NSW, as a mock-up of a future light rail system enrolling Wickham as the destination. By doing so, it enrols a future transport interchange at that location into the light rail actor network. Including the NSW government logo on the light rail also enrols a level of commitment to the project from the state government, which will be responsible for funding the system’s implementation and ongoing management. Second, the international examples of light rail are enrolled to support an alternative urban mobility. At the centre of the 2014 NURS is the claim that light rail will increase access to the harbour foreshore: There’s a bit of a misconception that we’re going to be putting fences… there’ll be fences along some of the platforms… But we’re not talking about running fences the length of the light rail corridor. People will be able to move around more freely than they can now. (TfNSW interview) The 2014 NURS promotes walking and cycling as an essential aspect of urban regeneration and vibrancy. The Seville light rail system is held up as an example to emphasize light rail’s permeability, foregrounding an urban environment which occurs around this fluid infrastructure. Light rail is presented as a temporary barrier that allows for the easy movement of urban citizens. These images are mobilized to present a future Newcastle, which will be characterized by a connected CBD and harbour foreshore. Despite planners’ efforts to present light rail as permeable, temporary and promoting alternative forms of urban mobility, opponents have a different view. For opponents, the images of light rail are misleading: I think [supporters of the implementation of light rail] believe that some dinky little thing called a light rail is somehow more attractive and prettier and nicer to have around you… Pretty pictures have been put in the papers about these light rail carriages… They’ve been misled. (Save Our Rail interview) Opponents argue that the light rail lacks the aesthetic and mobility benefits claimed. They also attempted to present light rail as dangerous. However their position is weakened by the inability to enrol and mobilize other actors, such as data on injuries or images suggesting the dangers of light rail.

58  Ruming, Mee and McGuirk

Conclusion: fragile planning actant networks Newcastle’s planning remains in flux. While heavy rail was halted at Wickham on Boxing Day 2014, the efforts to translate the benefits of planning solutions presented in the 2014 NURS have yet to fully materialize in network cohesion. Despite the mobilization of an urban vision centred on a new socio-technical network (light rail), planning for Newcastle has been destabilized as opponents have enrolled a broader set of actants in their opposition. A series of events/associations/assemblages have worked to render the 2014 NURS planning vision as unstable and temporary. First, in December 2014, Save Our Rail lodged a legal challenge in the NSW Supreme Court. The proceedings challenged the capacity of the NSW government to remove heavy rail infrastructure without an Act of Parliament. The Transport Administration Act 1988 states that if land is sold or tracks removed, parliamentary approval must be forthcoming. This did not occur in Newcastle. On Christmas Eve, the NSW Supreme Court approved an injunction on the removal of the heavy rail and ruled that approval was required by parliament. This issue remains unresolved and the permanent removal of the heavy rail has not begun (at the time of writing). Second, in October 2014 an Upper House Inquiry was launched to explore claims of planning corruption in Newcastle, centred on the role of the (then) liberal state member and the (then) independent (developer) lord mayor. Claims were made that the state rejected expert advice about the route of the light rail, instead opting for a more expensive option. In early March 2015, the inquiry reported no evidence of corruption, but identified conflicts of interest for key actors involved in planning regeneration. In media reports, the chair of the inquiry claimed ‘the committee believes this conflict is unacceptable and detracts from public confidence in the planning system’ (Harris, 2015). Third, the political make-up of Newcastle has changed markedly since late 2014. State and city by-elections resulted in victory for candidates from the Labor Party. Both campaigned on opposing railway line removal and positioned their election as a mandate for retaining heavy rail. Then on 28 March, a general state election was held. The new Labor state member retained his seat. However, the Liberal Party retained government and remain determined to remove the heavy rail. Finally, in January 2015, the Awabakal Local Aboriginal Land Council lodged a land claim on the 2km heavy rail corridor, on behalf of the Worimi and Awabakal peoples claiming that the land was likely to contain items of cultural significance. The land council expressed concerns at the lack of consultation and the potential destruction of Aboriginal artefacts. The claim was rejected by the state government, but the land council may challenge this decision in the courts. In addition, the land council has also lodged a land claim on the entrance to Newcastle Harbour. If the claim is successful, it will threaten the lease of the Newcastle Port, on which the funding of the light rail is premised.

Planned derailment for urban futures? 59 These developments notwithstanding, the NSW government and its planners remain committed to the urban vision outlined in the 2014 NURS. To date, work on permanently removing the heavy rail or the construction of the transport interchange has yet to commence, and a timeline for the implementation of the light rail is yet to be fixed due to the ongoing court challenge. What is clear is that future network consolidation for Newcastle’s planning future will be required, which better enrols and mobilizes these diverse network associations/actants. The case of planning for urban regeneration and the implementation of light rail in Newcastle provides a useful example of the utility of ANT as a framework for examining the plan-making and implementation processes. As Rydin (2014) points out, while the planner might periodically play a role in translating the benefits of network membership, he/she is rarely the most important actant. Ultimately, urban planning can be positioned as a process of translation, and where ultimately a diverse set of actants – physical/material things and the social – come together to create a reality. ANT analyses of planning need to recognize that network configurations are dynamic, constituted by both human and non-human actors that exert influence over the network structure and outcomes. They transform, rather than simply transport objects through time and space (Bryson et al., 2009). Reflecting on Newcastle, planning is inherently multifarious and problematic given the complexity of cities; and ANT provides us with an approach that emphasizes contingency and fragility (Doak and Karadimitriou, 2007).

Notes 1 We acknowledge the research assistance of Jill Sweeney in to this chapter. We would also like to thank key informants for their time and the editors for their insightful comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. 2 A state-owned agency responsible for developing parts of Newcastle and facilitating private development in the region. 3 Proponents of the introduction of light rail were generally concerned with access to the harbour from the CBD. Opponents of the removal of the heavy rail were more often concerned with access to the CBD and Newcastle’s beaches. Newcastle is relatively unique in having high-quality beaches in close proximity to the CBD. Access of young people from across the Hunter region to the beach became an important point of contention in debates around the light rail. At community consultation sessions transport planners were repeatedly asked about the possibilities for carrying beach equipment such as surf boards and boogie boards on the light rail. 4 The Greens are a generally left-leaning political party in Australia. They currently hold several seats in the NSW lower and upper houses and on Newcastle City Council. Greens representatives in Newcastle have been vocal critics of the planning of regeneration in Newcastle, including the removal of the heavy rail. 5 A government agency responsible for managing large-scale redevelopment projects across NSW. 6 http://visual.bts.nsw.gov.au/barrier (accessed 4 April 2015). 7 The quotation refers to entries and exists on all stations between Wickham and Newcastle.

60  Ruming, Mee and McGuirk

References Allen, J. (2003) Lost Geographies of Power. Malden: Blackwell. Beauregard, R.A. (2012) Planning with things. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 32(2): 182–190. Berejiklian, G. (2014) Media Release: Local Jobs for Newcastle Light Rail Planning Contract as Geotechnical Works Begin, 4 September. Sydney: NSW Government. Boelens, L. (2010) Theorizing practice and practising theory:  outlines for an actor-relational – approach in planning. Planning Theory, 9(1): 28–62. Bryson, J., B. Crosby and J. Bryson (2009) Understanding strategic planning and the formulation and implementation of strategic plans as a way of knowing:  the contributions of Actor-Network Theory. International Public Management Journal, 12(2): 172–207. Bylund, J. (2013) Plassein:  on the fluid mobility of place and urban qualities in planning. Planning Theory, 12(3): 244–266. Callon, M. (1986a) The sociology of an actor-network: the case of the electric vehicle. In M. Callon, J. Law and A. Rip (eds.), Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology: Sociology of Science in the Real World. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Callon, M. (1986b) Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (ed.), Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge? London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Callon, M. (1991) Techno-economic networks and irreversibility. In J. Law (ed.), A Sociology of Monsters:  Essays on Power, Technology and Domination. London: Routledge. Callon, M., J. Law and A. Rip (1986) Putting texts in their place. In M. Callon, J. Law and A. Rip (eds.), Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology: Sociology of Science in the Real World. Basingstoke: MacMillan. Cowan, D., K. Morgan and M. McDermont (2009) Nominations: an Actor-Network approach. Housing Studies, 24(3): 281–300. Doak, J. and N. Karadimitriou (2007) (Re)development, complexity and networks: a framework for research. Urban Studies, 44: 209–229. DPE (2014) Newcastle Urban Renewal Strategy 2014 Update. Sydney: Department of Planning and Environment. DPI (2012) Newcastle Urban Renewal Strategy 2012. Sydney:  Department of Planning and Infrastructure. Farías, I. (2010) Introduction:  decentring the object of urban studies. In I. Farías and T. Bender (eds.), Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Studies. Florence, USA: Taylor & Francis. Gabriel, M. and K. Jacobs (2008) The post-social turn:  challenges for housing research. Housing Studies, 23(4): 527–540. Harris, M (2014) Rail reports seen as too ‘commercially sensitive’. Newcastle Herald, 6 June, www.theherald.com.au/story/2335397/rail-reports-seen-as-toocommercially-sensitive. Harris, M. (2015) Inquiry says Bob Hawes has ‘conflict of interest’. Newcastle Herald, 3 March, www.theherald.com.au/story/2918577/inquiry-rail-shouldbe-reinstated-bob-hawes-conflict-of-interest. Hinchliffe, S. (1996) Technology, power, and space  – the means and ends of geographies of technology. Environment and Planning D:  Society and Space, 14: 659–682.

Planned derailment for urban futures? 61 Holifield, R. (2009) Actor-Network Theory as a critical approach to environmental justice:  a case against synthesis with urban political economy. Antipode, 41(4): 637–658. Jacobs, J., S. Cairns and I. Strebel (2007) ‘A tall storey… but, a fact just the same’: the red road high-rise as a black box. Urban Studies, 44(3): 609–629. Kärrholm, M. (2013) Building type productions and everyday life:  rethinking building types through actor-network theory and object oriented philosophy. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 31: 1109–1124. Kirkwood, I. (2012) Plan demands leap of Hunter faith. Newcastle Herald, 15 December, www.theherald.com.au/story/1187792/poll-video-plan-demands-leap-ofhunter-faith. Latham, A. (2002) Retheorising the scale of globalisation: topologies, actor-networks, and cosmopolitanism. In A. Herod and M.W. Wright (eds.), Geographies of Power: Placing Scale. Malden: Blackwell. Latour, B. (2004) Politics of Nature, How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social:  An Introduction to Actor-NetworkTheory. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Law, J. (2000) Economics as Interference (Draft). Lancaster:  Centre for Science Studies and the Department of Sociology, Lancaster University. McGuirk, P. (2000) Power and policy networks in urban governance: local government and property-led regeneration in Dublin. Urban Studies, 37: 651–672. NSW Government (2014) Revitalising Newcastle: Light Rail from Wickham to the Beach. Sydney: NSW Government. Ruming, K. (2009) Following the actors:  mobilizing an actor-network theory methodology in geography. Australian Geographer, 40(4): 451–469. Rydin, Y. (2010) Actor-network theory and planning theory: a response to Boelens. Planning Theory, 9(3): 265–268. Rydin, Y. (2013) Using Actor-Network Theory to understand planning practice: exploring relationships between actants in regulating low-carbon commercial development. Planning Theory, 12(1): 23–45. Rydin, Y. (2014) The challenges of the ‘material turn’ for planning studies. Planning Theory and Practice, 15(4): 590–595. Rydin, Y, and L. Tate (2015) Introduction. In Y. Rydin and L. Tate (eds.), Materiality and Planning:  Exploring the Influence of Actor-Network Theory. London: Routledge. Tait, M. (2002) Room for manoeuvre? An Actor-Network study of centre-local relations in development plan making. Planning Theory and Practice, 3(1): 69–85. Tait, M. and O. Jenson (2007) Travelling ideas, power and place: the cases of urban villages and business improvement districts. International Planning Studies, 12(2): 107–128. Transport for NSW (2014) Wickham Transport Interchange: Review of Environmental Effects – Submissions Report. Sydney: Transport for NSW.

4 Grants as significant objects in community engagement networks Kelowna, British Columbia Silvia Vilches and Laura Tate

Introduction In this chapter, we focus on community engagement by examining the granting process for a community-based partnership programme through the lens of Actor Network Theory (ANT) to reflect on what might assist planners, social agencies and communities to foster engagement effectively. A key concern for community planning and place-making is how to support the evolution of liveable communities that are inclusive to all citizens, and represent and support social justice. This is particularly salient for vulnerable citizens with mental health and substance use issues who are at risk of homelessness, who may have ill health and who are vulnerable to violence. The Community Action Initiative (CAI) is a foundation established in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, to engage and empower communities to develop solutions for local mental health and/or substance use challenges that community members identify as priorities. The CAI supports this goal by distributing grants across the province to community-based partnerships to encourage the development of coalitions that engage local citizens in understanding and supporting people with mental health and substance use issues. However, a key question is how, or in what way, these grants actually foster engagement. Engagement theory provides one possible lens for exploring the question of whether community granting programmes are effective. The answer to this question is critical for the granting agency, which needs to know if its programme is successful and how to improve it. Community engagement emerged as a governance approach under the Clinton administration in the US, which sought to foster liveable communities by deepening civic engagement (Ilcan, 2009:  211, citing Hay, 2003). Community engagement often works through partnerships between citizens, local government agencies and planners. Critiques of the move to encourage community engagement stress that these approaches may be undermined by lack of attention to social justice (Fainstein, 2010), by lack of credible democratic engagement (Donelson, 2004; Geddes, 2006) or by drawing volunteers into performance measurement systems governed by distant third-party organizations,

Grants in community engagement 63 whether they are government or other funders (Chouinard and Crook, 2008; North, 2000). Critiques, while highlighting vulnerabilities of this approach, have failed to provide funders or government agencies with useful information that might help them improve such initiatives. To explore the question of how granting works, we begin by briefly discussing the potential theoretical contribution of ANT to understanding community engagement processes. We then apply an ANT lens to one of the individual projects funded by the CAI: the Kelowna-based Connected by 25 (CB25) project. In this analysis, we describe how the grant focused partners on conceiving of and collaborating on a project to address service gaps faced by youth transitioning out of foster care. Many of these youth are at risk for mental health and/or substance use challenges, are vulnerable to poverty and find themselves in precarious housing conditions (Rutman et al., 2001). Finally, we reflect on how the object-focused analytical approach in ANT helps us to appreciate the relationships between agencies and the extent to which the CAI’s community engagement goals were achieved.

Engagement and Actor Network Theory (ANT) An ANT lens may give unique planning insights on community engagement in several ways. First, as Rydin and Tate acknowledge in their introduction to this volume, ANT provides a context-specific unveiling of power dynamics, which does not automatically presume power is only understood through an individual’s status. For planners seeking to promote progressive agendas, including empowerment, a methodology that allows for this complexity is both nuanced and hopeful. Second, while not inherently normative, ANT can highlight how small, diverse actions can accumulate and create sufficient momentum around a progressive agenda (Rydin and Tate, 2016; see also Rutland and Aylett, 2008:  633). Third, the methodology reveals how non-human components may significantly shape desired outcomes. By considering the grant itself as an object, with agency in its own right and the power to mould action, ANT helps illuminate direct and indirect agency-based forms of engagement and empowerment, and the extent to which granting processes do and do not support these endeavours/ accomplishments. For the sake of brevity, we only call attention to specific aspects of ANT that have relevance to engagement: 1. When using ANT, the focus is on how actors use objects, artefacts or standards as storehouses for the relationships (see Beauregard, 2012; Tait, 2002). In this case, the grant itself is considered as an object that helps organize or structure relationships. 2. Objects, artefacts or standards (also labelled by Latour as ‘black boxes’) are able to take on a life of their own as they channel power between actors and reshape the relationships between actors. Such channelling

64  Silvia Vilches and Laura Tate may involve actors who are geographically remote from each other in a way that invokes or represents the geographically remote actor(s) (see for example discussion in Law, 1999: 6–7; Latour, 2007: 173–190; Beauregard, 2012:  183–186). In this case, we examine the grant-asobject to see how it may or may not order relationships. 3. ANT allows for the co-existence of multiple truths, and a more nuanced evaluation and understanding of what might be occurring in a given event. Rather than labelling a given action or episode in a social policy context with a singular label such as ‘inept’, ‘masterful’, ‘successful’ or ‘exclusive’, a theoretical perspective of multiplicity can allow many layers of truth to be seen to co-exist at once (see discussions in Mol, 1999: 81–86; Tate, 2013: 793–797). Rather than assuming that a community granting process just ‘is’, and looking beyond the grant to results, we examine the grant’s significance on several levels as an object to the various actors in a network. As a methodology, ANT analysis often starts by looking at an object of significance within a given network and by exploring either how that object came to exist in relation to the actors who helped to create it, or how that object has had a significant impact on network activities (Latour, 2007; Farías, 2010). Table  4.1 summarizes key ways in which ANT has been applied by scholars in planning and policy studies, whose work has helped us better appreciate just how objects might get used by progressive actors and/or policymakers in ways that are germane to the CB25 case. During the network enrolment processes (described below), new objects may be created in an attempt to solidify network relationships and enhance the likelihood that all network members will honour the commitments that they have made to each other. These new commitments may be formally ratified through objects such as legislation or contracts,1 but they may also be represented by letters of agreement, memoranda of understanding, certificates or, as in this case, by grants and partnership agreements. Other representations of enrolment may include practices such as routines (see Feldman and Pentland, 2005), which could presumably include regularly scheduled processes such as bi-weekly meetings in partnerships between agencies, as would occur in this case. According to ANT, these objects and their connections to network actors are ripe with analytical possibilities. Moreover, even a single object, labelled as ‘black boxes’ (Latour, 1999), often contains within it many other smaller embedded objects, both tangible and abstract. As Table 4.1 demonstrates, object-focused analyses may shed valuable light on critical micro-processes in various social activities relevant to planners as well as others with an interest in communities. As will become apparent in the following case study analysis, objects such as routines and commitments can be examined to illuminate the micro-processes of engagement. For an agency such as the CAI, which is

Table 4.1  Selected examples of relevant object-focused ANT analyses in planning and policy Study author and year

Object(s)

Beauregard, 2012

Scale building model

Beauregard, 2012

Feldman and Pentland, 2005

Rydin, 2012

Key study observation

(1) Object is being used to convey developer’s investment in project, and reluctance to revise proposal. (2) Reinforces planner’s technical expertise. Photographs Brings site (i.e., some significant but geographically remote entity) ‘into’ negotiation or meeting room, and enable planners to comment on proposal’s impact on surrounding neighbourhood. In this particular case, and a photograph is used to channel power of another object from a distance. Routines/standard Routines within organizations organizational processes can’t be taken for granted; Actors choose to undertake them, and they must repeatedly choose the degree of fidelity with which they undertake them. This is true of permitting processes – and of any other kind of regularized or routinized exercise a group undertakes or agrees to undertake. Materiality of site frames (1) Planning protocols – and how development how they are worded – are negotiations proceed deeply significant because but planning regulations they create the space in also frame how parties that progressive actors can engage with the operate. materiality of planning (2) Planners need to sites understand the subject matter and the consequences of the detailed prescriptions of these regulations (energy modelling in the case study at hand).

66  Silvia Vilches and Laura Tate wishing to understand the impact of its activity from an empowerment perspective, we believe a methodology like ANT can help.

A case study: CB25 of Kelowna The case examined in this chapter was drawn from one of the more than 40 CAI projects funded to date. Connected by 25 (CB25) aimed to connect youth aging out of the foster care (or child protection) system with community supports, including housing, through active facilitated guidance or navigation services. Youth in care are a particularly vulnerable group. As Rutman et al. (2001) have documented, and practitioners frequently find, many youth do not have the skills that they need to successfully take on the tasks of daily living. CB25  ‘Provides young people at risk of falling through the cracks in their transition to adulthood with tangible support and real resources on the ground, while also looking at systemic barriers to service’ (CMHA Kelowna, 2013). The CB25 case provides a strong example of good working relationships, strong governance and effective achievement of outcomes. The specific objects – the grants – were two separate but linked grants provided by the CAI. First, a smaller convening grant enabled a cluster of non-profit and government agencies, led by the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) Kelowna branch, to discuss issues related to youth in their community. This was followed by a decision to apply for a two-year service innovation grant (SIG) from the CAI, which was successful, resulting in the funded CB25 project. Data for exploring the case were drawn from multiple types of sources. The first sources of information were the applications and regular progress reports submitted by the lead grant recipient agency (CMHS) to the CAI.2 In addition to the original grant applications, which described the projected partnerships, applicants submitted a midterm progress report, a final outcomes report and, in this case, a self-commissioned evaluation report.3 The second set of sources comprised three interviews with staff of the applicant and partner agencies conducted for this ANT review.4 The interviews were conducted by Tate, who as provincial director, knew the partners, and Vilches, who had previously led an evaluation of partnership engagement in 28 CAI projects (Vilches et al., 2014). The third source of information was the personal experience of Tate and the CAI staff. Tate, who is also an independent scholar, had been the provincial director of the CAI for more than four years, and previously worked in a related portfolio for the provincial government. The four or five CAI staff developed close working relationships with their grantees, and Tate’s insights into the partnering process are acknowledged here as providing an important overview of the granting processes and projects. Tate was formally interviewed by Vilches to identify her knowledge and perspectives in respect to the CB25 project. Together, Vilches and Tate were able to query each other’s perceptions, from the more personally grounded perspective of Tate to the more removed overview of

Grants in community engagement 67 Vilches, to allow for thorough reflections on their interpretations of events. The fourth source of data was comprised of evaluative reports conducted by agencies external to CAI such as that by SPARC BC and MNP (2013), and the previously mentioned review of successful partnership parameters by Vilches et al. (2014). Together these four sources of data filled in potential data gaps in the various sources and provided for robust cross-checks.

Enrolment: promoting wellness for youth emerging from the child protection system In this section, we take a closer look at how the granting process might be viewed as a process of enrolment. The project began when CMHA Kelowna partnered with several other organizations to address dilemmas posed by service gaps for vulnerable youth. The goal of the CB25 project was to provide a linking service from youth supports to adult services in three ways. The first way was to hire of a youth navigator to help youth access services. In the first four months of the service, demand exceeded expectation, and the agency added a second navigator to the project (CMHA Kelowna and Chau, 2014: 8). Throughout the two-year funding period, 123 youth received some type of service through the CB25 programme. In addition, 12 youth were referred elsewhere, and 50 did not receive any service at all (ibid.: 7). The second way of achieving CB25’s goals was to ensure that community service agencies gained a better understanding of how the structure of their services created barriers to youth and how regulatory systems sometimes worked at cross-purposes to each other. The third way goals were worked toward was by providing ancillary social activities for the youth.5 The CMHA Kelowna’s SIG proposal also outlined how the CB25 would document need and advocate with provincial bodies to change the funding structure so that bridging funding would be provided for youth exiting care. CMHA Kelowna targeted a range of types of partners to engage in this endeavour, most of whom had also previously been engaged in discussions funded by the initial CAI convening grant. These partners included service delivery agencies such as school districts and ministry child protection offices, as well as elected government officials, who CB25 wanted to bring on board as allies, private sector industrial partners to provide ongoing funding, psychiatric services, and a range of non-profit community service agencies. Some grant application features helped set parameters for project initialization. Applicants had to clearly articulate a role for each primary partner; and, in turn, each partner had to complete and sign a collaborator form, which asked that agency to explicitly identify resources it intended to commit to the two-year service delivery project. Partners also had to anticipate their project roles. These roles and related resource commitments were not contractually binding; yet by articulating them in writing, partners were tacitly expected to remain committed to them over

68  Silvia Vilches and Laura Tate the two-year period. For, if nothing else, the written document was a symbol of project commitment. Applicants also had to articulate a rationale for the proposed project, linked to research evidence and, if applicable, indigenous knowledge that would suggest its likelihood of providing for improved mental health and/or substance use outcomes in the community. (Indigenous knowledge could include connection to cultural practice and/or language.6) The form then asked applicants to clearly state how the target population – in this case, vulnerable youth – would be actively engaged through the project implementation. The form further included more standard granting components, such as project description, milestones, budgeting or other grant activities. Enrolment was thus formally structured through the grant specifications. Once the grant had been awarded, CMHA Kelowna had to sign a contribution agreement with the CAI that functioned like a contract and spelled out the conditions under which grant payments would be made. While 50 per cent of funds were released upfront, facilitating project launch, further payments were contingent on satisfactory progress reports. Required details within progress reports included: •

• •

Number of participants directly and indirectly helped. This enabled the grantors to determine if any grantee was experiencing engagement challenges by enabling comparisons between actual participants and numbers promised in the initial grant application. The grantors (CAI staff) could and did assist staff on any projects in apparent difficulty. Total contributions from other funders (this helped the CAI to report external leveraging to its own funders). Project description – elevator pitch. This short, pithy, description (125 words or less) was intended to help project leads to better market their projects and develop sustaining funding for after CAI funding ended.

The funding and reporting process were thus structured to further reinforce partnerships and relationships with clients launched at the start of the process, and to assist the granting agency to troubleshoot, if needed, should these not prove satisfactory. Those organizations that report to agencies or to whom agencies report, and other potential partners, were enrolled in the project through formal supports. Fortunately, the CB25 team had, by the midterm report, hired a community-based navigator for the youth, met with eight elected officials, organized a meeting with the local psychiatric unit and was organizing a community forum. The team was also working with a range of community partners and directly serving 60 youth. The CAI grants that enabled CB25 possessed several features with potential engagement implications. First, as noted above, the convening grant provided money and space to enable engagement during a start-up phase when many groups struggle for resources, especially in an era of increased resource constraints. As the lead staff member for CB25 noted, the convening grant

Grants in community engagement 69 appeared to promise unique and much-needed resources to address a wicked local problem for youth exiting the foster care or child protection systems: I had spent my career working for youth serving originations… but coming into an adult-serving organization and seeing the same faces from ten years ago, and seeing them in a worse state of affairs than when in the youth system, reinforced the need to do something. I was also aware of a network of other professionals in the community, and other groups who had identified youth as an area… including youth [in foster care] who had talked about doing something for 25 years who had never been able to do anything about it. So when [the CAI convening] grant [competition first] came out, I saw an opportunity to have an impact in this area. [I sensed that] even just the process of convening would open doors… building relationships that might not have happened otherwise. As a catalyst to discuss the issue the convening grant was very beneficial. (interviewee, 18 September 2014) An interviewee from a partner agency also confirmed that the granting process had been instrumental in a primary partnership between the lead agency and her agency: The granting process forced the two agencies to come together and brought other agencies to come together and create our wish list and identify who could fill that component. The convening process did this. And then decision at the advisory [committee] level was  – who could best be CMHA [Kelowna]’s [main] partner? Because CMHA was always wanting to be in the lead. The Bridge was the logical choice because of its expertise in youth transitions. (interviewee, 14 September 2014) The convening grant was found to be similarly valuable for a range of CAI grant recipients (SPARC BC and MNP, 2013: 28). From the ANT perspective, this provides important information about the value of supporting the enrolment phase. Other grant features also had important enrolment implications. The first was that the full complement of resources funnelled to the community was significant, and translated into continuing support. After completion of the CAI-funded CB25 project, the lead agency (CMHA Kelowna) leveraged additional monies from external funders, allowing the project to continue another year. This provided the opportunity to extend and deepen community engagement, increasing the likelihood of entrenching services to vulnerable youth who are transitioning out of foster or state care. The third feature was that, as described above, the SIG application and subsequent progress reports set parameters that channelled partner engagement. Grant

70  Silvia Vilches and Laura Tate competition rules specified that successful applicants had to have the support of other prospective partner agencies who were willing to commit time and/or resources to the project. As an object, therefore, the SIG granting process application forms, contracts and mandatory reports were able to structure relationships between groups in the community; i.e., to structure the engagement process. The steadiness of the object was maintained through the formal reporting process. The progress report format had been created by the CAI Leadership Council (the granting agency’s equivalent of a board of directors) many of whose members were themselves representatives of service providers or granting agencies such as government departments and had received or given grants themselves. They thus had had lived experience and could speak to what worked and what did not work in structuring relationships between partner agencies in a grant-funded project (Tate, interviewed by Vilches, 10 February 2015). Lead agencies were required to comment on how the partnerships were developing in each progress report; a process that lent the lead agency some subtle structured assistance for promoting partnership engagement over the project’s lifespan. In addition, the forms requiring resource commitments brought the CAI’s structuring assistance (as funder) ‘into the room’ to orient the lead agency in its ongoing relationship with its partners. This echoes Beauregard’s (2012) notion of photographs bringing a physically remote development site into a negotiating room (see Table 4.1). As Rydin (2013) implies (see Figure  4.1), the micro-level detail of planning protocols became important for creating the space for progressive actors. As the ‘distance’ narrows between grantor and grantee, partially through the structuring presence of the reporting protocols and resources, the protocol creators are brought to the project and must engage in understanding the subject matter and protocol consequences. This view of the granting process as object highlights the way vertical relationships are structured as well as the horizontal community relationships. The last important feature of the granting process for understanding enrolment was the shift in community position of the lead agency, CMHA Kelowna, which was able to cement a new position for itself as a pivotal actor in youth service provision networks within the Kelowna region. This was despite initially not having had a focus on youth services at the outset. One of the community-based interviewees illustrated the power of this: The [partner agency that I work for] called the initial meeting to discuss how to partner, with different ideas thrown around the table… Then we came up with the project that we thought would work. The reason we went with [it was because my agency] has the youth transitions program with the [provincial government program for youth in foster care] transitioning out of care. [Conversely, the agency that became the

Grants in community engagement 71 lead agency] has experience in navigating systems in the adult world. We wanted to bring the two together. (interviewee, 14 September 2014) Eventually, when the larger service innovation grant was awarded, the combination of resources and pairing of strengths did in fact create momentum. According to the same interviewee: Historically [my agency] did a life skills workshops and had supper. But [once the grant enabled the] CB25 project, [the combined lead agency and partners] took [our] curriculum and was able to shape the supper club – which has surpassed any expectation I ever had. What CMHA brought is the great facility  – commercial kitchen, pool table. Also, CMHA has been creative in getting other funding, and brought another facilitator with a new skill set. It started out with life skills and became a social network for youth to come together. A lot of the youth had a hard time fitting into school system. A lot of them now feel quite ‘equal’. We had some youth that were street involved, others with Asperger’s Syndrome. Unveiling the power dynamics through an ANT lens demonstrates both a complex and context-specific momentum towards a progressive outcome. This progress was enabled by the skills of lead agency staff who were enrolled in the project problematization, as well as through the significant grant resources, which provided the lead agency with positioning, momentum, skills, status and ultimately legitimacy to act in the youth service space.

Discussion: was CB25 successful at engagement? A key question is whether these features of the grant as object  – i.e. the granting process  – successfully engaged the community and empowered local agencies to address key local challenges. A  review of the interviews and reports suggests that engagement with partners has had many affirming aspects. The first success of note, according to one partner, was the increased effectiveness of referrals for youth exiting care: CB25 literally saved us days and weeks with sharing information about accessing income assistance. There’s a lot of trust and rapport, opening doors that aren’t easy to find. (reconnect worker, Okanagan Boys and Girls Clubs, cited in CMHA Kelowna and Chau, 2014: 14) This staff member speaks to an important goal of community-based grants, which is achieving a social justice outcome for a marginalized group. Looking at the grant as an object highlights the progress made in the

72  Silvia Vilches and Laura Tate community between the grantee and its partners in seeing the gap in services as an important and officially recognized gap. A second key success was the creation of a memorandum of understanding or transitions protocol between the lead agency and one of its partners, the Okanagan Boys and Girls Clubs, which is an organization providing supports to youth in vulnerable situations. The work of Feldman and Pentland (2005) and Rydin (2013) both suggest that standard processes and protocols are significant modes through which power is transmitted. An agreement by the network to shift protocols in ways that allow vulnerable youth to benefit from higher levels of service (i.e., to achieve progressive service outcomes) would suggest significant empowerment and thus a rich level of engagement. A  further outcome of the protocol development was a transitions working group between CMHA Kelowna and five other agencies, including the ministry responsible for youth in foster care and the local health authority. These relationships were still ongoing at the time of writing (CMHA Kelowna, 2014; interviewee, CMHA Kelowna, 13 October 2014). A third success of the CB25 project was in the creation of a sustainable network through regular meetings of a working group that focused on resolving cross-sectoral issues with external agencies. Coordination has been increasingly difficult to achieve in challenging fiscal times, according to one CB25 grant recipient (interviewee, 18 September 2014) and other CAI grant recipients (SPARC BC and MNP, 2013). These regular meetings are similar to the organizational routines that Feldman and Pentland (2005) tell us need constant support, both in terms of the frequency as well as the intensity and consistency of that support. In this respect, the ANT analysis of the grant emphasized the importance of the tactics of the grant, which provided resources for and reinforced an important type of routine that supported a sustained effort towards one of the original project goals. The empowerment brought about by the grant did have its limits: There was recognition that the process was resource-intensive and that the grant had limits in engaging the full range of stakeholders who would be needed to tackle the challenge: Significant energy was dedicated to community development activities. Multiple stakeholders were engaged through the process on a local level and through connection to politicians. Capacity building discussions also took place with [other] funders, including the Vancouver Foundation, as the organization has made youth aging out of foster care a primary focus of their youth homeless initiative. CB25 would be well served to connect and engage with stakeholders that can offer different perspectives and broader community input. Some of this work has been done, but the overall potential has not yet been realized. For example, engaging the business sector and broader community at large as outlying stakeholders would require more time and resources for the project

Grants in community engagement 73 to reach its full potential and to expand on community development initiatives that have been undertaken. (CMHA Kelowna and Chau, 2014: 17) Moreover, even within a partnership that was predominantly deemed a successful one, there could be moments of tension at times: CB25 was very successful. One challenge? [My agency was not the lead agency, and I was seconded or loaned to the project.] At times I felt, in secondment, felt pulled between two organizations. CMHA was getting all the credit for the programme. When there were media events, [my agency] wouldn’t get equal billing. This was not the fault of CMHA, but it was a challenge – hard to get a sense of equality for everyone. But because of prior relationships, it always worked. I could point it out to [the lead staff at the lead agency], and [they were sensitive to it]. I was always honoured and respected, but it could just get lost in the process. I ended up with an office at CMHA – I had an office in both places, which was awesome… until [my agency] moved offices and they were 20 minutes apart. (interviewee, 18 September 2014)

The ANT lens reveals engagement Working through the CB25 project, the CAI granting process appears to have engaged the Kelowna-based agencies to self-actualize by addressing these local mental health and substance use matters. Of interest is how this occurred and whether this is of a lasting and rich nature. As noted initially, it is somewhat paradoxical for planners from elsewhere and for external agencies to be stimulating engagement for empowerment purposes. By examining some of the tools used to stimulate this engagement, and recognizing the grant itself as an actor in an engagement network, which an ANT lens allows us to do, we hope to better appreciate this dynamic. Problem identification related to network formation, known as the ‘problematization’ phase, occurred in the grant application (GA) process when youth aged 16–25 in the community who had aged (or were about to age) out of foster care were identified as in need of appropriate supports during the grant application (GA). The GA identified a critical mental health gap for youth who needed supports from a range of agencies whose rules and processes could be difficult for them to understand and access. This established the service gap as the core problem. In the process of problematization, this youth group was identified as particularly vulnerable, not only in the present time, but in future time. This reframed the challenge that the agencies were working to solve, situating it as a problem of a gap in the jurisdictions of the agencies. The youth need, in this perspective, became

74  Silvia Vilches and Laura Tate the external given fact, or context, to which the organization of services is responding. ANT draws our attention to the power and structure of the relations between these organizations. The convening grant (CG) established the applicant or lead agency and one of its primary partners as holders of expertise, showcasing the lead agency as a credible fundraising organization. The terminology of collaborating and partnership used throughout the grant application process established a communal respect for expertise of all the agencies, and emphasized the end result of service to the youth client group. Thus all the agencies, including CMHA Kelowna, which had previously excluded youth from their service, coordinated across the administrative jurisdictions without objectifying the ‘problem’ of policy gaps and alienating other service providers. The focus on routines as objects (Feldman and Pentland, 2005) highlights how new coordination of youth services was achieved through the CB25 project. Referral routines were altered, not because the information was new, but because the agencies came to see that the problem was relevant to their own mandates. Although looking at interaction between organizations invokes parallels with boundary theorization, from an ANT perspective, the routines themselves become the object of a set of organizing relations. An interviewee described how CMHA Kelowna began to change when it acknowledged the link between youth challenges and adult population needs, and to see this group as at high risk for future support needs. This group of vulnerable youth therefore came to be seen as part of their future client group, and so the agency and its partners became willing to alter their routines of referral. The immediate outcome was the enabling of inter-agency collaboration between community actors who were already in touch, and who in some cases had moved agencies and intimately knew the problem from several perspectives, but previously could not act on their knowledge given how the object (problem) was defined (via age-segregated specific client categories). The CB25 project empowered actors to act in accordance with their knowledge. The ANT perspective focuses us on how network activities were used to question and adjust routines for progressive ends, enabling this empowerment. As a practical outcome, interviewees and the final reports confirmed that the altered routines changed the youths’ abilities to navigate community systems of support as they exited the status of youth in care or foster care and became independent adults, albeit young adults who needed support. The micro-activities of the granting process demonstrate how granting agency processes and requirements structured the object (grant) and helped the lead agency solidify its relationships with community-based partners early on in the process. The motivation for the structure of the granting process is an attempt to reduce the amount of potentially problematic and costly flux for both the grantor and the lead agency, which might occur in the absence of articulating these details. From an ANT perspective, the usage of forms to structure relationships reinforces the point

Grants in community engagement 75 Rydin (2013) makes in reference to planning that details, such as the wording of local planning regulations and operationalizing documents, matter because they create the arena in which progressive actors might make a difference or fail to do so. The structure of the granting process also appears to exemplify Beauregard’s (2012) finding that objects can play valuable roles in a planning contexts by symbolizing an investment in something much larger and more significant. This time, however, instead of referring to a developer in a building project, as Beauregard does, the object was the grant from the CAI, ostensibly a remote granting agency in Vancouver, directly bestowed upon a local social agency partner in the CB25 project to address the needs of youth aging out of foster care. The ANT lens also focuses our attention on how local protocols and agency-level policies and directives operate in a parallel way to the ordering of relations through processes that occur in municipal planning. In this case, the influence of social agency protocols on the liveability of communities is highlighted as a material influence on community concerns for youth such as homelessness, mental health distress and family/ household continuity. The ANT lens has proved useful for highlighting the transformative potential of attending to how these protocols interact. From a macro-level perspective, referring back to Beauregard (2012), the ANT perspective enables us to see how the micro-processes of reimagining and reshaping the object (a gap in youth services) enabled a reconfiguration and empowerment of local networks and actors. Drawing a parallel again to Beauregard’s analogy of photographs and scale models, the ANT perspective also addresses another puzzle in social planning. This puzzle is specifically how local challenges such as homelessness, which need to be addressed to sustain high-quality liveable communities, are connected to what is largely a regulatory and policy sphere that governs social issues but feels far away. In this case, statutory regulations and policy that govern how youth in foster and state care transition out of care are made in the provincial capital of Victoria, which is 600km away, and applied universally across the province. ANT provides another way to understand how these policies are experienced, adhered to and tinkered with in Kelowna. Focusing on the problematization and response  – particularly as it has been enabled by a grant – enables us to see the progressive possibilities. The material outcomes of the community engagement partnership grant seem obvious, but the ANT lens highlights some underlying processes that may support better granting processes. First, the grant signifies the agency’s investment in the community, and, not unlike Beauregard’s 2012 example of the scale model, enables the lead agency, which has head offices in Vancouver, to be ‘present in the room’. The apparent distance is collapsed through the granting process and the ANT lens enables an understanding of the roles of the various partners, proving that it is possible to work at a distance and yet provide conditions that help stimulate local engagement. Further, by highlighting enrolment, the ANT lens makes apparent

76  Silvia Vilches and Laura Tate the extension of commitment into the future, evidenced by the continued partner engagement, securing of additional funds and changes in operating relationships, which will last into the future. The granting process can thus be understood as achieving sustainable change. The grant also confirmed the lead agency (CMHA Kelowna) as a credible and pivotal provider in the youth support provision network, despite lack of prior specialization. This momentum confirms Rutland and Aylet’s (2008) observations about how small, diverse actions can accumulate around progressive shared agendas to generate significant movement. Importantly for CAI, the ANT lens demonstrates that the nested objects of the partner modules and progress reports helped set parameters for channelling partner engagement, and also brought the lead agency close together with its partners in this endeavour. Finally, the ANT lens links the outcome, which was to enhance services and supports to youth transitioning out of care, to the importance of routines, demonstrating how protocols can serve as objects, as discussed by Feldman and Pentland (2005). As Rydin (2013) has suggested, getting the details of appropriate planning protocols right is important to the outcomes. The CAI foundation can now review ways in which the object is shaped through the granting process, and view altered community relationships that arise out of enrolment as a successful outcome. As a methodology that explicitly considers relationships between and among actors and objects, ANT gives space to acknowledge that objectivity is a fraught concept, and allows for an analysis that can problematize these matters. In this case, ANT has helped us appreciate several things: first, the ANT preoccupation with objects calls attention to the role of a smaller convening grant, which is followed by a larger service innovation grant, as an object in itself that channels resources into a community in ways that facilitate engagement in somewhat novel means. Second, the ANT preoccupation with objects, including the more mundane aspects thereof (the associated paperwork related to the grants) has helped us appreciate how inter-agency engagement can be structured  – to varying degrees of success in advance of a process. It also gives us tools and techniques for interrogating the continued engagement between those agencies whose relationships are crucial to the delivery of a service to vulnerable youth transitioning out of foster care. If the relationships are not effective, then the services may be at risk. The progress reports and the ways in which these are managed by the granting agency are shown to provide an opportunity for influencing the project. For example, when the CAI asks lead agencies to reflect on their engagement with other community-based agencies, it constitutes a subtle reminder that engagement is important to the granting agency. Finally, the ANT focus on flux helps us appreciate the temporal nature of the process and the indirect effects of the granting process. We hope that a practitioner-actor may be able to ‘see’ themselves more clearly in the flow of a granting process, becoming the kind of virtuoso social actor that Flyvbjerg (2001) recommends.

Grants in community engagement 77

Notes 1 The reader is reminded that ANT recognizes that objects do not have to be three-dimensional things but also can include the two-dimensional and the conceptual, such as legal documents and processes. 2 All grant applicants are advised that their applications are not confidential and are required to sign agreements that formal documents submitted to CAI, such as reports, may be used for secondary analysis or excerpted for publication. However, they are also promised that if excerpts from any of these applications or reports are used publicly by CAI they will be given credit and consulted beforehand by CAI. 3 Convening grant materials were not available as they have been archived in an older data storage system. 4 Explicit permission was requested and granted by the interviewee for permission to use a telephone interview for the purpose of publication. 5 To watch a four-minute video clip that vividly illustrates this programme, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-ngolPNJcw&feature=player_embedded. 6 Studies have linked connection to indigenous cultural to improved mental wellness outcomes for Aboriginal people. See for example Chandler and Lalonde (1998).

References Beauregard, R.A. (2012) Planning with things. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 32(2): 182–190. Chandler, M.J. and C. Lalonde (1998) Cultural continuity as a hedge against suicide in Canada’s First Nations. Transcultural Psychiatry, 35: 191–219. Chouinard, V. and V. Crook (2008) Negotiating neoliberal environments in British Columbia and Ontario, Canada:  Restructuring of state–voluntary sector relations and disability organizations’ struggles to survive. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 26(1): 173–190. CMHA Kelowna (2013) Connected by 25: Unpublished Mid-term Progress Report to Community Action Initiative. Kelowna, BC: CMHA Kelowna. CMHA Kelowna (2014) Connected by 25:  Final Progress Report to Community Action Initiative. Kelowna, BC: CMHA Kelowna. CMHA Kelowna and S. Chau (2014) Connected by 25: Project Evaluation. Kelowna, BC: CMHA Kelowna. Donelson, A. (2004) The role of NGOs and NGO networks in meeting the needs of US colonias. Community Development Journal, 39(4): 332–344. Fainstein, S.S. (2010) The Just City. Cornell, NY: Cornell University. Farías, I. (2010) Introduction. In I. Farías and T. Bender (eds.), Urban Assemblages: How ANT Changes Urban Studies. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 1–24. Feldman, M. and B. Pentland (2005) Organizational routines and the macro-actor. In B. Czarniawska and T. Hernes (eds.), Actor Network Theory and Organizing. Copenhagen: Business School Press, pp. 91–111. Flyvbjerg, B. (2001) Making Social Science Matter:  Why Social Inquiry Fails and How it Can Succeed Again, trans. S. Sampson. Cambridge, MA:  Cambridge University Press. Geddes, M. (2006) Partnership and the limits to local governance in England:  Institutionalist analysis and neoliberalism. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 30(1): 76–97.

78  Silvia Vilches and Laura Tate Hay, J. (2003) Unaided virtues: the (neo) liberalization of the domestic sphere and the new architecture of community. In J. Bratich, J. Packer and C. McCarthy (eds.), Foucault, Cultural Studies, and Governmentality. Albany, NY: University of New York, pp. 165–206. Ilcan, S. (2009) Privatizing responsibility:  Public sector reform under neoliberal government. Canadian Review of Sociology, 46(3): 207–234. Latour, B. (1999) Pandora’s Hope:  Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (2007) Reassembling the Social:  An Introduction to Actor Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Law, J. (1999) After ANT: complexity, naming and topology. In J. Law and J. Hassard (eds.), Actor Network Theory and After. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 1–14. Law, J. (2003) Making a Mess with Method. Lancaster: Centre for Science Studies, Lancaster University. Mol, A. (1999) Ontological politics. In J. Law and J. Hassard (eds.), Actor Network Theory and After. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 74–89. North, P. (2000) Is there space for organisation from below within the UK government’s action zones? A Test of ‘Collaborative Planning’. Urban Studies, 37(8):1261–1278. Rutland, T. and A. Aylett (2008) The work of policy: Actor networks, governmentality, and local action on climate change in Portland, Oregon. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 26(4): 627–646. Rutman, D., A. Barlow C. Hubberstey, D. Alusik and E. Brown (2001) Supporting Young People’s Transitions from Government Care. Project Report. Vancouver, BC: BC Health Research Foundation. Rydin, Y. (2013) Using Actor–Network Theory to understand planning practice: exploring relationships between actants in regulating low-carbon commercial development. Planning Theory, 12(1): 23–45. Rydin, Y. and L. Tate (2016). Exploring the influence of ANT. In Y. Rydin and L. Tate (eds.), Actor Networks of Planning: Exploring the Influence of Actor Network Theory. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 3–23. SPARC BC and MNP (2013) Midterm Evaluation of the Community Action Initiative: Taking Stock of Early Results. Vancouver, BC: Planning and Research Council of British Columbia (SPARC BC). Tait, M. (2002) Room for manoeuvre? An actor-network study of central-local relations in development plan making. Planning Theory and Practice, 3(1): 69–85. Tate, L.E. (2013) Growth management implementation in Metropolitan Vancouver:  lessons from Actor-Network Theory. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 40(5): 783–800. Vilches, S., K. Kittredge, C. Gladue and R. Ng (2014) Connecting the Disconnected: Successful Partnerships for Mental Wellness and Substance Use Prevention. Vancouver, BC: Community Action Initiative.

5 Assembling localism Practices of assemblage and building the ‘Big Society’ in Oxfordshire, England Sue Brownill

Introduction Taking as its starting point the broad view of what constitutes an Actor Network Theory (ANT) approach outlined in Chapter 1, this chapter focuses on what thinking with assemblage can add to planning studies. It applies an analytical framework based on the concept of practices of assemblage to explore the implementation of the emerging localism agenda in England. In doing this, it addresses some of the debates about the possibilities and limitations of assemblage thinking; in particular whether an empirical focus on the work of bringing and holding together initiatives can account for the operation of power and the identification of political alternatives. The chapter begins by outlining a critical framework based on assemblage and the practices of assemblage. It then uses this to frame a case study of the rolling out of localism and the ‘Big Society’, the UK government’s latest attempts to recast the boundaries between the state and civil society in England. Following events over a year in Oxfordshire, the research involved a series of 15 interviews with officers in public agencies, locally elected officials and members of voluntary and community organizations and campaigns. This was accompanied by analysis of secondary sources including press reports, policy documents, websites and blogs from key actors. It reveals how thinking with assemblage can be of value in framing analyses of the implementation of planning and related initiatives. This includes the ability to reveal a complex picture of the contested nature of the remaking of publics and places and the sometimes messy and contingent nature of governing the local. The possibilities for ‘the local’ to be assembled and reassembled differentially across time and space also emerge. Furthermore the case study reveals opportunities for ‘working the spaces of power’ (Newman, 2012) and destabilizing assemblages within the reconfigured landscapes of governance. However, in order to overcome potential limitation of assemblage such as privileging processes over outcomes, describing rather than analysing unequal power relations and over celebrating alternatives, the chapter concludes with some reflections on the need for a critical analytic of assemblage.

80  Sue Brownill

Planning, localism and practices of assemblage Governing the local has become an increasingly important arena as calls for more locally responsible and democratic processes have been responded to by governments around the world. In England,1 these elements have been enshrined within the Localism Act (HM Government 2011), which sets out the 2010–2015 coalition government’s commitment to ‘pass power back to where it belongs… to local public servants, to communities and to individuals’ (DCLG 2010: 1). The shifting scales of planning are evident in the removal of the regional tier of plan-making and the granting of rights for neighbourhoods to draw up their own statutory plans. Localism in England is, however, a wider agenda than just planning, aiming to ‘completely recast the relationship between people and the state’ (Cabinet Office, 2010: 8) through the overarching theme or ‘model’ (Painter et al., 2011) of the Big Society. Promoted passionately by David Cameron as leader of the opposition, prime minister and Oxfordshire MP, the Big Society aimed to counter the twin evils of Big Government and Broken Britain (‘deficient’ people and places) by the reassertion of the role of civic associations, community asset-ownership and voluntarism (Cabinet Office, 2010; Stott, 2011; Davies and Pill, 2012). The Big Society is about a huge culture change where people, in their everyday lives, in their homes, in their neighbourhoods… don’t always turn to officials, local authorities or central government for answers to the problems they face but instead feel both free and powerful enough to help themselves and their own communities. (Cameron, 2010) Therefore, within the discourse of the localism developed by the coalition government, a crucial element is the remaking of places and publics; it is about turning the public into active citizens and turning the local into a spatial metaphor for good governance and empowerment. However as Davoudi and Mandanipour (2015:  1)  point out, it is a discourse that ‘evokes multiple and contested meanings’ within which seemingly paradoxical tendencies are apparent:  discourses of local empowerment proliferate while many decisions are shifted out of the public realm altogether or retained in the centre (Davies and Pill, 2012); citizen control over services at the local level is promoted at the same time as major reductions in welfare budgets (Levitas, 2012). Furthermore there is a differential potential for different localities to engage and thrive in this policy landscape. As a result, accounts have emerged that reinforce the binaries and contradictions embedded within current policy. Lowndes and Pratchett (2012) have observed that one of the outcomes of the current agenda could be that localities are left to ‘sink or swim’; with those communities

Assembling localism 81 with the social, financial and technical skills to take advantage of localism swimming while others sink under the impact of public sector withdrawal. Davies and Pill (2012) draw attention to another potential binary between ‘empowerment and abandonment’. While useful in highlighting the gaps between the rhetoric and possible realities of localism, as the research progressed, these dichotomies were unable to capture the complexities of what was emerging. Equally, emerging understandings linking localism to forms of post political governance (Swyngedouw, 2009) and neoliberal governance (Hall, 2011) can be criticized for closing off the possibilities of alternatives and presenting a monolithic view of governance; focusing on the abstract and ignoring the ‘messy’ attempts to govern and the ‘prosaics’ (Painter, 2006: 759) of the practices and relations by which state effects are created. It is here, I would argue that a focus on assemblage and the practices of assemblage can be of value. Put simply, the term ‘assemblage’ is used to emphasize the ‘composition of diverse elements into some form of provisional socio-spatial formation’ (Anderson and MacFarlane, 2011: 124) and ‘the idea that the institutionalization of specific projects involves the work of assembling diverse elements into an apparently coherent form’ (Newman and Clarke, 2009:9). Developed from initial work by Deleuze and Guattari (1988), assemblage therefore refers not only to the form that projects and initiatives may take but the continuous and difficult task of bringing and holding together the diverse and potentially contradictory elements including people, places, discourses, policies, objects, laws and administrative measures that constitute them. There are a number of reasons why assemblage may be particularly appropriate to an exploration of the emerging localism agenda. First, by focusing on how diverse elements come together in particular places, assemblage thinking prioritizes an engagement with ‘actually emerging localisms’ rather than reading off outcomes as inevitable or fitting them to a predefined dichotomy. It also affords the potential for different forms of localism to emerge in different places as the elements of the assemblage are variously brought together. Second, this is enhanced by the stress on the relations between the material and the social and between territoriality and relationality (McCann and Ward, 2011), which opens up a range of perspectives for exploring how localities are being made and remade. Sassen (2006), for example, explores how territories are variously assembled and reassembled through time and space. Drawing on this, Allen and Cochrane (2007) look at the construction of regions in England showing how areas such as the south-east, through an assemblage including political actors, policy documents and visions of other places, were reimagined as engines of growth in a global knowledge economy in the same way that under localism neighbourhoods are to be remodelled as spaces of empowerment and service provision. In this way, the local becomes an element within particular assemblages that acts on events but

82  Sue Brownill is itself constituted and reconstituted through the processes and practices of assemblage itself. A third way in which thinking with assemblage is of value is its ability to capture some of the complexities in the shifting power relations between different spatial levels of governance and between the state and its citizens. Allen and Cochrane (2010), for example, argue for a move away from seeing the reshaping of governance relations as a topography:  a hierarchical relationship between scales or a horizontal one of networks. Instead they depict a topology whereby places are ‘based upon an assemblage of political actors, where elements of the central state are “lodged” within the region, not acting “above”, “below” or “alongside” it’ (Allen and Cochrane, 2010: 1071). In this way, power is seen less as moving up and down hierarchies and more as operating through the negotiations and tensions that result from this complex ‘topology’. This would therefore suggest that an initiative such as ‘localism’ needs to be viewed as a more intricate process than decentralization from the centre to the local (empowerment) or the continuing entrenchment of powerful interests (marketization). It also points to how the construction of places is linked to these ‘assemblages of power’ (Allen and Cochrane, 2010) as actors, interests and agencies of governance negotiate, clash or form some uneasy alliance over the meaning of places within contemporary policy frameworks. In moving away from generalized accounts to explore how governance and other projects become translated into practices on the ground in particular places, the discourses and practices of governance can be made visible (Stenson, 2008) and the possibility to see governance as contested and difficult as opposed to all-powerful or intended emerges. As Painter (2006) argues, this represents an important refocusing of work on policy implementation, which has been relatively neglected and under-theorized since the 1980s (see, for example, Barrett and Fudge, 1981). It can illuminate the ‘how’ questions: how do policies become (or fail to become) workable in practice; how do governments build support round implementing particular agendas; how do opposing interests respond to and engage with policy initiatives? This is especially relevant for new initiatives, such as localism in England. Of particular value here is work by Li (2007b), who has identified a variety of practices of assemblage that delineate the work involved in making policies work (or fail). There are some resonances here with stages of network analysis, but Li goes beyond exploring building networks of actors to the assembly of policies and programmes themselves. These practices of assemblage are: forging alignments (bringing actors on board and remaking publics); authorizing knowledge (or using information to define problems and solutions); managing failures and contradictions; rendering technical and anti-politics (reposing political questions as matters of technique to overcome opposition) and finally reassembling (or redefining the policy in an attempt to overcome contradictions or to meet changed circumstances).

Assembling localism 83 Such a framework enables enquiry to move from the abstract to the concrete. Further, it affords the possibility that within these contradictory processes, spaces may be opened up for diverse and alternative forms to emerge. By focusing on the changing role of the situated actors – the officers, politicians, members of the public and others – the potential for resistance, challenge and agency that they can employ, what Newman (2012) refers to as ‘working the spaces of power’ are highlighted. For all these advantages, there are also some limitations associated with assemblage. One significant criticism is that Li’s practices of assemblage as they stand ignore the crucial aspect of the spatial dimensions of assemblage discussed above. Therefore in the following empirical example a further spatial practice of assemblage; the making and remaking of places is also explored. More generally, Anderson and MacFarlane (2011: 162) note that assemblage can be used in many ways including as a ‘concept, descriptor or ethos’ and there is the danger that the proliferation of its usage is devaluing its academic currency. Even proponents suggest it does not necessarily involve ‘judging the rights and wrongs of particular policies’ (Li, 2007b:  263)  but explores how they come together and play out on the ground, potentially leading to an overemphasis on the processes of governance and the possibilities of challenge as opposed to outcomes (Stenson, 2008). This is of particular relevance to this research undertaken in a time of austerity governance. Similarly, the richness of the empirical focus that assemblage thinking promotes can easily slip into uncritical description without some methodological and conceptual clarity (Allen, 2011). To avoid this, some writers have placed their usage of assemblage within what Li (2007a) terms ‘an analytic of assemblage’. Examples of what might also be termed a ‘critical assemblage’ approach include McCann’s (2011) analysis of policy mobility within a perspective on urbanization informed by political economy. Li (2007a: 18), in turn, talks about the three pillars of her analysis; practices of assemblage, neoliberalism and Foucauldian notions of power. Arguably this sidesteps issues of whether these traditions are compatible but, as Li (2007a:  19)  points out, it is important to ‘tolerate the untidiness and tension introduced by different theoretical traditions to draw benefits from the questions and tools they offer to analysis’. This therefore does not deny the influence of neoliberalism but places it within an assemblage, along with other discourses, actors and practices, rather than in a situation of over-determination. Bearing this in mind, the analytic of assemblage used to explore localism in this research is based on practices of assemblage (expanded to include spatial practices); a topological view of power and neoliberalism. The chapter now shifts to use this lens to explore a recent initiative to remake the spaces of local governance in England; building the Big Society in Oxfordshire. While the Big Society may appear less relevant to planning than other aspects of the localism agenda such as neighbourhood planning, the purpose here is to indicate how the analytical framework can be

84  Sue Brownill applied. Further the underlying rationales of the remodelling of publics and places are evident across the localism agenda. The ‘flagship’ 2011 Localism Bill, for example, explicitly states that its measures to lift bureaucracy, shift decision-making to localities and increase community control of assets will ‘ensure empowerment and the Big Society becomes a reality’ (DCLG, 2010: 2). Therefore, exploring the empirical reality of Big Society localism on the ground will provide insights that can be applied more widely.

From the abstract to the concrete: assembling the Big Society in Oxfordshire In November 2010, Oxfordshire County Council called on the public to take over the running of selected services and the ownership of public buildings in their localities as an example of the Big Society in action. Aiming to save £155 million in the running of the library and youth services, 22 out of 43 libraries and 20 youth centres outside statutory early intervention hubs would be closed by the council unless communities took over service provision and buildings (Williams, 2010). At first sight, this could be seen as a simple story about cuts and areas possibly sinking or swimming as the state retreats. However, as events unfolded, some decisions were reversed, unexpected spatial outcomes emerged, the leader of the council was forced to step down and new policy initiatives appeared. By exploring these events through an analytical of assemblage, this more complex picture of the remaking of policy, publics and places can be revealed. Furthermore, the apparent ‘failure’ to implement the policy as intended shows how the state need not be monolithic and how assemblages can be destabilized. ‘If the Big Society can’t work in Oxfordshire, it won’t work anywhere’ Assemblages are not seamless; they contain contradictions, diverse elements, a range of situated actors more or less willing to be involved and a localized context. The local element to the assemblage of the Big Society in Oxfordshire is significant. As one of the interviewees for this research indicates above, Oxfordshire  – as a relatively affluent semi-rural county with more than 4,500 voluntary organizations – is a place which could be expected to ‘swim’ in the tide of localism. Yet behind the image of the ‘dreaming spires’, there are great socio-spatial polarities, particularly in the City of Oxford where small areas fall in the top 1 per cent in the country for low skills and education and ‘pockets’ of deprivation also exist within the 40 per cent of the population classified as rural (Oxfordshire Data Observatory, 2011). In UK local government terms, the county is non-unitary, which means responsibilities are split between Oxford County Council (OCC) (e.g., education, transport, cultural, social and youth services) and five district

Assembling localism 85 Table 5.1  Assembling the Big Society in Oxfordshire – a timeline November 2010 December 2010

January 2011 February 2011 May 2011 July 2011 August 2011 Sept 2011 Oct 2011 Nov 2011 Dec 2011 March 2015

Proposals to cut budgets and close libraries and youth centres announced. Save Our Libraries (SOL) formed at public meeting in Oxford Town Hall addressed by novelist Philip Pullman. Start of local campaigns and events around libraries and youth centre proposals. Big Society Fund (BSF) announced. BBC Analysis programme on Big Society in Oxford, further national and local press coverage. Reprieve for libraries and second round of consultation. First round of BSF-funded youth projects announced. Cameron makes speech on UK riots from Base 33 youth centre in Witney as it faces closure. BSF-funded youth projects take over from council run services. Second round of BSF-funded youth projects announced. Keith Mitchell announces he will stand down as council leader. Council approves final proposals for core and community libraries until 2015. BSF closes.

councils (planning, housing, and waste, etc.). At the time covered by this research, the county council was dominated by Conservatives and Liberal Democrats (60 out of 72 councillors) and only one of the district councils, Oxford City Council (Labour) was not Conservative-controlled. Oxfordshire MPs included prime minister and Big Society advocate David Cameron, then-culture secretary Ed Vaizey and one of the architects of the localized planning system, John Howell. There is an obvious contradiction in a localism agenda driven by central government; as Cameron said in his Big Society speech. ‘we must use the state to change society’ (quoted in Conservatives, 2010:1). It would be very easy therefore to ‘read off’ the Big Society initiative in Oxfordshire as the top-down imposition of national policy. Yet, one officer said ‘even if we hadn’t had the Big Society from central government, we were looking to do it anyway’. As early as 2007 the council had begun a ‘closer to communities’ policy (relaunched in 2010) intended to coordinate service provision in 14 localities throughout the area and to proactively involve the public in their delivery (OCC, 2010). A  variety of other initiatives to remodel the relationship between the council and its public are discussed later. Interestingly interviewees referred to some unease about adopting the Big Society label because of national criticisms but of ‘going with it as it was familiar to the public’. Therefore, from the start, the ‘lodging’, to use Allen and Cochrane’s term, of central government priorities and policies (including budget reductions) in the locality was evident where they were to interact with local relations and agents as they are negotiated, resisted or implemented. One of the benefits of using an assemblage perspective is its ability to illuminate the

86  Sue Brownill dynamics of these relations. Therefore, given that OCC was ‘committed to building a Big Society in Oxfordshire’ (OCC, 2011a), in what follows, the practices of assemblage it used to do this are explored. Framing the arena for intervention: authorizing knowledge Building the Big Society entailed initially defining the problem in a way that particular interventions could be presented as solutions, what Li refers to as ‘authorizing knowledge’. OCC attempted to present Big Society localism as the solution to the problem of disempowered communities. As the Cabinet member for policy coordination at the time stated: It is communities, individuals, voluntary groups taking back power to themselves, running the services for their community the way they would like to see them done and not run how a council or Government department, or the EU tells them they have to be run. (Williams, 2011) This framing of the problem was intended to bring the public into the assemblage and also suggests the remaking of the locality as the place of better service provision and empowerment in line with the discourses of localism. OCC also used authorized knowledge from elsewhere (Allen and Cochrane, 2010:  McCann and Ward, 2011) in its attempts build support quoting a report by a local government think tank, which placed it ‘at the cutting edge of localism’ for its efforts to remake the role of the local councillor from a ‘Mr or Mrs Fix-it’ to a social entrepreneur; bringing in resources to their areas and getting constituents to volunteer. The then-leader of the council, Keith Mitchell, wrote in the forward, ‘the government is proposing to create 5,000  “community organisers” to take forward Big Society programmes. Forget it! They are here. They are called councillors. They are up for it’ (LGG and OCC, 2011: 1; Mitchell, 2011a), indicating how councillors were also envisaged as part of the Big Society assemblage. Forging alliances: remaking publics and places The practice of forging alliances also entailed remodelling the public into providers rather than consumers of services, and the construction of localities as spaces within which service delivery could be remodelled and public buildings remade as community assets. Thinking with assemblage therefore reveals that the fissure between the state and its citizens can be a line of fracture or uneasy fusion, with the ‘public’ either accepting or rejecting its envisioned role. The difficulty for OCC, as with the coalition government in general, was that the public did not see the ‘problem’ as one of poor services and disempowered communities, but of budget reductions. This was not helped

Assembling localism 87 by most people being unaware of the work around locality reviews and remodelling services that had been going on (interview with library group member). In the case of the libraries, the reaction to the proposals was one of resistance. In the immediate aftermath of the cuts announcement, a number of ‘Friends’ groups were established around each library, which came together in an umbrella group called Save Our Libraries (SOL). The group drew on the experience and ‘social capital’ within the region not to join the Big Society but to run a well-organized and high-profile campaign against it. SOL was chaired by a retired voluntary sector CEO. Members of local groups included journalists on national newspapers, solicitors, parents of young children, young people themselves and other library users. Oxford’s image as a literary centre was also used to good effect to reach out from the local area to have a national impact, with prominent local author Philip Pullman addressing the inaugural SOL meeting packed meeting in December 2010 (Pullman, 2010). At the annual International Literary Festival, other authors wore purple ribbons proclaiming SOL. This was followed by coverage in the national media (BBC, 2010). Locally, Friends groups ran effective campaigns ‘especially the parents with young children’ (interview with library campaign member) with the children writing their own banners and turning up en masse at events. Another feature of the campaign was that it went against the ‘sink or swim’ scenario of localism. In an interview a library campaigner from Summertown, a wealthy area in North Oxford that had initially begun to mobilize financial and social capital to take over their library, talked about how they deliberately stepped back from their ‘buyout’ plans to prevent the campaign fragmenting and to ensure that communities with less social capital were not disadvantaged. The campaign therefore resisted the model of the public and the citizen being promoted by the council and promoted a counter-narrative that a library service should be publicly run, not through volunteers. This echoes Newman’s (2007) findings about the role of libraries in the public imagination and the resonance of the arguments for the need for public access to knowledge. By contrast, the youth campaign was less visible, despite have some high-profile events, such as young people delivering a petition to Cameron’s constituency office to save the threatened Base 33 youth club from where he had made his national speech following the 2010 UK riots (Malik, 2011). In part, this was because volunteers and others had already been involved in service delivery, making this line between the state and the public more one of convergence than fracture. As one officer said ‘and in the case of libraries, it wasn’t something the public were as comfortable to take on as the youth services. Which is interesting to me as they are both professional.’ It also reveals how an assemblage approach can reveal different ‘localisms’ as they emerge around particular issues. This reconstruction of the local also entailed using knowledge from outside the area indicating the spatial complexities of the practices of

88  Sue Brownill assemblage used. Visits to view ‘best-practice’ in places such as the London Borough of Hillingdon where libraries had been transformed into community hubs complete with coffee shops were organized. Attempts were also made to bring in other actors to the assemblage through the suggestion that a private US organization may take over the running of the libraries and an unsuccessful approach to international NGO Oxfam (based in Oxford) to organize the hoped for ‘volunteer army’. Another less subtle tactic used by council leader Mitchell to bring the public on board was to label those resisting the Big Society narrative as ‘deficit deniers’ threatening other services, rather than a public putting forward their own view of how public services should be run; ‘Personally, I’m disappointed people do not rate social care – old people with dementia and young disabled kids – a bit more highly, but they don’t. Yet they walk past their library once a week’ (Sloan, 2011a; Mitchell, 2011b). Managing failure: enter the Big Society Fund In the face of this opposition, OCC introduced a further practice of assemblage; that of managing the apparent failure by introducing new elements. In January 2011 it announced the £600,000 Big Society Fund (OCC, 2011a). Set up from underspends and ‘more government grant than expected’ (OCC officer), the fund was open to applications from community groups who were interested in running services or taking over venues, but it explicitly excluded staffing costs. Political arguments over closing services could as a result be converted into technical questions of whether bids met the fund’s criteria of innovation, meeting community need, having a sustainable business case and involving the local community. In this sense, openings can become closures when something that appears as an avenue for promoting community governance at the same time enables the closing down of political debate and conflict over the nature of public provision. In its efforts to achieve its objectives, this form of anti-politics was a way for OCC to keep the assemblage governable. Many youth projects applied to the first round of the Big Society Fund (BSF). In Wolvercote, next-door to Summertown, where the youth centre was threatened with closure, a councillor, the local primary school and a voluntary group came together to bid for a reduced service through the BSF, match-funded in part by voluntary contributions of up to £100 per year from better-off households gained through doorstep campaigns (interview with local councillor). Even Cameron’s Base 33 survived (Witney Gazette, 2011). OCC saw this emergence of an assemblage around a remodelled youth service as ‘vindicating the Big Society idea’ (Sloan, 2011b). However, this image of ‘success’ masked the fact that youth workers had been made redundant and provision had been reduced in many areas. It also ignored the fact that SOL kept open the political space by refusing to apply to the

Assembling localism 89 BSF. Once again, this indicates the complexities of assembling the local across spatial and service areas. The operation of the BSF also continued the remodelling of the roles of councillors and officers already referred to. Each BSF bid needed a councillor as ‘champion’: ‘So in terms of the bids that were successful, that’s not determined by how wealthy your community is, it’s about how engaged your councillor is’ (OCC officer). This could be seen as another example of anti-politics drawing in the small number of opposition councillors who had to decide whether to use the cuts as political ammunition or to work with communities to continue service provision. Yet not all councillors embraced this new role willingly; as one said in interview ‘I didn’t come into politics to run a youth centre and a library’. Officers were tasked with breaking out of ‘silos’ to deliver projects that combined property management, voluntary sector funding and setting service standards; ‘it’s a very different way of behaving – in effect we function quite a lot as mediators and try to broker a deal which sounds bizarre’ (interview with OCC officer). This, however, opened up spaces for officers and communities to work together to renegotiate how these services may be provided. Reassembling: a victory or a stay of execution? In the face of the continued opposition to its library plans, the council was forced to reassemble its Big Society visions. Just before the local elections in May 2011 in what appeared to be a dramatic U-turn, OCC announced there would be no library closures in in the period to March 2015 (Sloan, 2011a). Revised proposals were put forward, including OCC retaining ownership of the buildings and providing minimal core services for every library, but proposing a three-tier system with some libraries remaining fully staffed (including Summertown) but with others (mainly affluent rural areas) depending on either one-third or two-thirds volunteer input (OCC, 2011b). The council claimed this was possible through additional central government funding, but sources in the library campaign linked this to a direct intervention by Cameron, embarrassed at the national coverage the campaign in his own backyard was receiving in an election period. If true, this is another example of central actors entering the assemblage. A similar raft of practices were deployed to try and secure this revised assemblage. Claims of improved service provision were made; ‘the Council is determined to emerge from the difficulties arising from government grant cuts with modern, high-class services for future years’ (OCC 2011c p5). National studies were used as authorized knowledge to support OCC’s definition of a ‘comprehensive’ service under the Public Libraries and Museums Act, and the situation was ‘rendered technical’ by using quantitative techniques to draw up the three bands of libraries. Alternative models emerged in some places. In Summertown, the Friends group and library staff negotiated a plan to ‘add value to’ rather than replace the county service, not

90  Sue Brownill through buying the building but through providing additional resources in a model paralleling the idea of co-provision. Therefore, despite a vigorous campaign by SOL, in December 2011 the revised proposals were approved by the council. And after a final attempt to blame ‘lefties’ and ‘well-heeled worthies’ for cuts, council leader Mitchell lost the confidence of his party and resigned (OCC, 2011d). Therefore, an uneasy assemblage of Big Society localism emerged, with variations between services and localities, underlining the ability of assemblage thinking to reveal the messy, evolving and provisional nature of governing the local. Yet is also important to view the spaces opened up through these practices as constrained; cuts were made, some young people were disempowered and some attempts to render the political technical, and therefore neutral, succeeded. This was, of course, not the end of the story and the assemblage continued to evolve. Some interviewees pointed to its provisional nature until a review planned for 2015, seeing it as a stay of execution rather than a bright new service. The BSF evolved into a fund for councillors who, as social entrepreneurs, bid for small pots of money to distribute to projects in their areas but was closed in 2015. OCC still maintained a commitment to the Big Society on its website up to the 2015 elections but focused more on the community rights of neighbourhood planning and asset transfer. It is therefore clear that the tensions and contradictions in efforts to assemble and reassemble localism in Oxfordshire will continue.

Conclusions: using assemblage to think through localism This chapter focused on one particular element of the localism agenda as it is emerging in England  – the Big Society. It has revealed how an assemblage approach can provide some methodological as well as conceptual tools through which to view the evolving landscapes of localism, which move away from easy narratives of sink or swim or the centralization or decentralization of power. Such an approach reveals a dynamic process, constantly changing to accommodate contradictions and make policies work, which is therefore contingent and can be challenged. In particular, there is much that can be learnt from focusing on the everyday practices of assemblage and how in attempts to forge alliances and render the political technical, an assemblage can be destabilized by practices that resist such overtures and repoliticize debates. The state is not monolithic and new political spaces are constantly being opened up. Within this, a focus on the spatial practices of the making and remaking of places has revealed how the local is a contested site with politicians’ images of caring, empowered communities being challenged by those same communities articulating their own forms of localism. It also suggests that attempts to assemble localism are likely to play out differently in different places depending on the interplay between the different elements involved rather than follow predetermined spatial logics.

Assembling localism 91 Working with assemblage is not, however, without its dilemmas and difficulties. As outlined in the introduction and illustrated by the case study, there is a danger that in identifying these new political spaces, their potential could be overestimated and the empirical focus on the prosaics of governance loses sight of the context within which they are placed. For example, the case study itself could on one level be read as a ‘failure’ of OCC to put together its desired assemblage. However, that would overlook the cuts that were made and the fact that some sections of the community, albeit reluctantly, were drawn into the Big Society tent. The case study could be equally read as a ‘failure’ of the groups to fully overturn the proposals, particularly in the case of youth services, and to achieve their alternative visions of co-production and more progressive forms of localism. However, while success and failure may be another dichotomy to be avoided, an assemblage perspective reveals these potential processes of destabilizing and what can be learnt from them. This underlines the need for a critical ‘analytic’ that encompasses topological notions of power and recognizes that practices of assemblage have to be seen in the context of the neoliberalization of governance. Such an analytic makes it possible to identify and reveal the new arenas of politics surrounding the remaking of citizens and places precisely to expose the emerging lines of fissure and action within society they reveal; in effect to re-render what is political in the face of governance processes that are trying to de-politicize these processes and to recognize the contribution of those active subjects working spaces of power. However, it recognizes the constrained nature of the spaces that are opened up and in this way it is possible to keep some balance between the despondency of post-politics and the celebration of accounts of empowered localities This framework could be usefully applied to other elements in the localism agenda to explore, for example, how neighbourhood planning is being assembled differently in different localities (Brownill, 2014) and how publics are coming together to generate a more progressive form of localism (Featherstone et al., 2012). As localism continues to evolve and other initiatives aimed at shifting the boundaries between the state and its citizens emerge over time and in different places, it is clear the local will become an increasingly significant and contested site. There is therefore a need to have the conceptual and methodological tools that can highlight the dynamics and contradictions in contemporary practices of the remaking of publics and places. In this way, it becomes possible to move beyond binaries and to open up the spaces for a more progressive form of localism, even in an age of austerity.

Note 1 The different nations within the United Kingdom now have largely separate planning regimes with powers having been devolved down to separate governance bodies. This discussion is based on the English example.

92  Sue Brownill

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Assembling localism 93 Malik, S. (2011) David Cameron’s favourite ‘big society’ youth centre faces closure. The Guardian, 24 June. McCann, E. (2011) Veritable invention; cities, policies and assemblage. Area, 42(2): 143–147. McCann, E. and K. Ward (2011) Mobile Urbanism. Cities and Policy Making in an Age of Globalisation. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. Mitchell, K. (2011a) Blogging, tweeting and social entrepreneurship:  the new councillor. Guardian Professional Networks, 15 July, www.guardian.co.uk/ local-government-network/2011/jul/15/blogging-tweeting-and-socialentrepreneurship-the-new-councillor. Mitchell, K. (2011b). People love libraries:  that’s why social care cuts are deeper. Guardian Professional, 5 October, www.guardian.co.uk/social-care-network/ 2011/oct/05/libraries-social-care-keith-mitchell-oxfordshire. Newman, J. (2007) Remapping the public; public libraries and the public sphere. Cultural Studies, 21(6): 887–909. Newman, J. (2012) Working the Spaces of Power:  Activism, Neo-Liberalism and Gendered Labour. London: Bloomsbury. Newman, J. and J. Clarke (2009) Publics, Politics and Power: Remaking the Public in Public Services. London: Sage. OCC (2010) Corporate Plan 2010/11–2014/15. Oxfordshire County Council, http:// mycouncil.oxfordshire.gov.uk/documents/s1684/CC_FEB0910R20.pdf. OCC (2011a) The Big Society Fund Vision. Oxfordshire County Council, www. oxfordshire.gov.uk/cms/public-site/big-society-fund-vision. OCC (2011b) OCC Big Society Proposals for the Future of Oxfordshire’s Libraries. Oxfordshire County Council, www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cms/?WCM_GLOBAL_ CONTEXT=http://apps.oxfordshire.gov.uk/wps/wcm/connect/occ/internet/ press+releases/press+releases+archive/2010/november/pr+-+big+society+propo sals+for+the+future+of+oxfordshires+libraries. OCC (2011c) Library Service Consultation; Have Your Say on the Future Library Service for Oxfordshire. Oxfordshire County Council, www.oxfordshire.gov. uk/cms/public-site/library-service-consultation. OCC (2011d) Leader of Oxfordshire County Council to Stand Down. Oxfordshire County Council, www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cms/content/leader-oxfordshirecounty-council-stand-down. Oxfordshire Data Observatory (2011) www.oxfordshireobservatory.info/wps/ portal/dataobservator. Painter, J. (2006) Prosaic geographies of stateness. Political Geography, 25: 752–774. Painter, J., A. Orton, G. Macleod, L. Dominelli and R. Pande (2011) Connecting Localism and Community Empowerment; Research Review and Critical Synthesis for the AHRC Connected Community Programme. Durham: Durham University, www.dur.ac.uk/resources/sass/research/ConnectingLocalismandCommunity EmpowermentFullReport.pdf. Pullman, P. (2010) This is the Big Society, You See it Must Be Big to Contain So Many Volunteers, www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/Philip-pullman/this-is-thebig-society-you-see-it-must-be-to-contain-so-many-vulunteers. Sassen, S. (2006) Territory, Authority, Rights: From Mediaeval to Global Assemblages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sloan, L. (2011a) Libraries’ latest – huge U-turn by council. Oxford Times, 3 June.

94  Sue Brownill Sloan, L. (2011b) Youth club’s rescue ‘vindicates Big Society idea’. Oxford Mail, 14 October. Stenson, K. (2008) Sovereignty, social governance and community safety. Social Work and Society, 6(1): 1–14. Stott, M. (ed.) (2011) The Big Society Challenge. Thetford: Keystone Development Trust. Swyngedouw, E. (2009) The antinomies of the postpolitical city:  in search of a democratic politics of environmental production. Urban Studies, 33(3): 601–620. Williams, A. (2010) Cuts:  libraries and youth centres under threat. Oxford Mail, 27 November, www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/headlines/8706302. CUTS__Libraries_and_youth_centres_under_threat. Williams, A. (2011) Big Society cash is up for grabs in Oxfordshire. Oxford Mail, 22 February, www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/8866937.print. Witney Gazette (2011) Base 33 Youth Centre Saved as funding campaign pays off. www.witneygazette.co.uk/news/wgheadlines/witney/9147852.Base_33_ youth_centre_saved_as_funding_campaign_pays_off.

6 Two exemplar green developments in Norway Tales of qualculation and non-qualculation Thomas Berker and Stig Larssæther Introduction We have little reason to believe that practitioners are more reflective in the field of planning than in other domains (Schön, 1983). However, judging from their extensive discussions since the 1990s, it appears that planning theorists seem more aware of the need to reflect on their contributions to practice than theorists from other domains. Usually, this is introduced by an acknowledgement of the demise of modern planning followed by the diagnosis of planning theory not being able to fill the void left by modernist approaches. Often-used arguments include an uneasy relation to complexity, ambiguity, participation and the reflection on practice in the face of its consequences. The question that is asked insistently by these contributions is whether there is non-, a- or postmodern planning and how it would look. Moreover, a persistent topic in discussions of a new nexus between planning theory and practice is the widespread fatigue with constructivist approaches. The academic concern with specific representations, what they do or fail to do, it is argued here, has evolved away from practitioners’ concerns that, at least at the end of the day, are connected to getting things done. ‘Getting things done’ is, without a doubt, a question of agency, the ability to act. Central to these discussions of modern or non-/a-/postmodern planning is the question of the planner’s agency. Actor Network Theory (ANT) is full of claims that it somehow bypasses traditional views of action, power and powerlessness. In our contribution, we focus on one of these claims, Callon and Law’s (2005) description of what they call spaces of qualculation and spaces of non-qualculation. In what follows, we first explicate our reading of qualculation and non-qualculation and how we believe it relates to planning theory’s struggle to overcome modernist and constructivist planning approaches. Then we will discuss two cases of the planning of buildings with high environmental ambitions in Norway, providing them with ample space to unfold. In the concluding section, we summarize how these two cases relate to qualculative and non-qualculative planning styles.

96  Thomas Berker and Stig Larssæther

Planning as a creation of spaces of qualculation and non-qualculation The neologism qualculation was used by Callon and Muniesa (2003) to describe calculations in a broad sense, which then also encompasses judgements, i.e., choices made during the calculation that usually disappear when the calculation is finished and the result is presented. The conversation between Michel Callon and John Law about qualculation and non-qualculation is introduced as a text about agency, more specifically, about how to bypass the question of rational versus irrational action. The text does not discuss actual planning episodes, but instead it summons Quakers, train accidents, agape and other exotic subjects as its cases. The link to planning, however, is not difficult to establish. Modernist planning is rational planning, and it is precisely its one-sided rationality that has come under scrutiny in the light of unintended consequences, leading to calls for the inclusion of alternative rationalities (Beck et al. 1994). If irrational planning is not an option, the promise to be able to sidestep this distinction is attractive. The first (side)step performed by Callon and Law is the reflexive move to study how rationality is produced: enter calculation. It is this study of calculation practices that has brought forward the close link of every calculation with judgements, hence qualculation. However, what then of irrationality? Is it simply the lack of calculation – or qualculation, for that matter – that creates irrationality, and by consequence an absence of rationality in planning? If this were the argument, then ANT would have little to offer but a reduction of planning to qualculation. The conversation between Callon and Law, however, offers a very different account of ‘the other’ of qualculation, an ‘other’ that is deeply connected to qualculation itself: So qualculative and nonqualculative spaces are opposites, Other to each other. This is the significant boundary we have sought to draw in our exploration of agency. But to talk of Otherness is to imply that it is a boundary of a particular kind. For if qualculative and nonqualculative spaces cannot be held together then neither do they exist in isolation from one another. (Callon and Law, 2005: 731) This quote makes clear that the two phenomena are put parallel to each other. In fact, when Callon and Law present examples of spaces of non-qualculation, the focus is on reinstating these spaces as more than just an absence (of rationality, of calculation), but rather as spaces that are created actively, sometimes requiring much effort. A  term that is used here is ‘active disentanglement’, which mirrors the description of calculation as the creation of relations between unrelated elements. If, for instance, Quakers lose themselves in their passion for God, John Law sees a great number of activities at work both involving material and social

Two green developments in Norway 97 relations  – in other words:  the space of non-qualculation is, in fact, a carefully planned one. An important role in this planning is played by the proliferation of acting entities. Like in the case of Gomart and Hennion’s (1998) drug users and music lovers (which Callon and Law refer to), who skilfully create constellations that allow them to enjoy drugs/music, in non-qualculation agency is always actively distributed to achieve an intended (but always uncertain) effect. In 1994, Lee and Brown have suggested that ANT is about the extension of agency to everyone, which they see as a continuation of the liberal political project. At the same time they describe ANT as based on a Nietzschean worldview in which everything is about the fight between ‘will and force’ (Lee and Brown, 1994: 778). In this sense, qualculation in rational planning is about how the power to make a difference (i.e., agency) is carefully organized by calculatively reducing the actors ‘that count’ and to subject the rest to the calculus. Non-qualculation is then about the other side of ANT, which can be used to describe how in the activity of planning, actors that count proliferate and power is distributed between human and also non-human entities – decentring the planners as rational actors when the creation of spaces of non-qualculation is introduced as a planning goal. In the following section, we present our empirical cases, the planning of two buildings/neighbourhoods with high environmental ambitions in Norway  – one with the explicit goal to become ‘zero emission’ and one that formulated its goals at least partly in opposition to this. In line with ANT’s theoretical programme read as empirical ontology, we aim at taking seriously the precariousness of the entity ‘building with high environmental ambitions’, which in a certain sense – despite all efforts – will never exist before it ceases to exist. It will always be incomplete, be it because we can compare the ambitions to a nearly unlimited set of other buildings that are or will be built in the future, be it because we will not know before its complete demolition whether it really was ‘highly environmentally friendly’, or be it because the characteristic ‘high environmental value’ is distributed among too many actors spread out into the finest grains of the supplier network feeding the buildings’ construction and operation. What our empirical cases show is that this precariousness is dealt with in contrasting ways that mirror a focus on qualculation and non-qualculation. Different constellations of elements enact different ways of living with uncertainty, which in turn has consequences in more traditional terms of planning as coordination of actors and resources.

Two cases of contemporary sustainable planning in Norway The following two case studies are based on a total of 11 expert interviews with planners working in publicly funded research institutions, in private companies and in municipal planning departments. Nine of the interviews have been conducted by Torill Meistad and Lillian Strand in 2013 and were

98  Thomas Berker and Stig Larssæther commissioned by the Norwegian Research Centre on Zero Emissions to document the early planning phase of one of the case buildings discussed here which is also a pilot building for the centre (see Meistad and Strand, 2013). For the present chapter, the interview transcripts were used. The other two interviews were conducted by one of the authors in 2014. The two cases were selected based on their explicit ambition to provide an alternative to existing modes of planning, designing and implementing buildings in order to achieve higher ambitions than usual. The interviews were based on semi-structured interview guides that left much room for the interviewees to focus on what they deemed important. The interview study was complemented with document studies drawing on two sources. First, we conducted an exhaustive search for newspaper reports on the progress of these development projects (using the database A-Text Retriever that covers nearly 100 per cent of the Norwegian printing press). This resulted in a corpus of the complete news coverage consisting of sources that were mostly published in regional newspapers covering the area where the two cases are located. Second, we consulted research reports that were produced in conjunction with two of the cases, Powerhouse Brattørkaia and the active houses at Hurdal ecovillage.

Powerhouse Brattørkaia The story of Powerhouse Brattørkaia, a planned zero-emission office building located in Trondheim, like the other story told here, is not complete yet. At the time of writing, however, the planning phase was concluded, and the actual construction was expected to commence in a few months. Originally planned to be opened in the summer of 2013, a planning and design controversy delayed its progress considerably. From its outset, the project was meant to be a highly visible, symbolically potent expression of the involved actors’ resolution to transform their business and politics in a more climate friendly direction. The early days of the project were, thus, characterized by its earlier name ‘Powerhouse One’, which due to the delays (another Powerhouse project was competed in the meanwhile), was later changed to Powerhouse Brattørkaia. Its main quality, presented prominently in a series of press releases, was that it was ‘the first’: the first energy-positive non-residential building in Norway, which was even more impressive because of the ‘cold winters and large variation in access to solar energy combined with hot summer days’ (NTB Info, 3 June 2011), which made it a pacesetter both nationally and internationally, according to Kyrre Olaf Johansen, then CEO of Entra (ibid.). The titles of newspaper articles from this time reflect a general sense of daring:  ‘Office building becomes power station’ (Teknisk Ukeblad, 10 June 2011), ‘Trailblazing display of strength’ (‘Banebrytenede krafttak’, Byggeindustrien, 6 May 2011)  and ‘Unique collaboration’ (Byggeindustrien, 6 July 2011). The last refers to an

Two green developments in Norway 99 unusual partnering initiative behind the project called the Powerhouse Alliance, which included major players in the Norwegian construction scene (Skanska, Snøhetta), from real estate (Entra), technology (Hydro) and a large environmental NGO (Zero). Both elements, the daring and the collaboration, were a dominant topic in interviews with the architects and consultants who were involved in a series of workshops in which the early design phase occurred. The sense of ‘being part of something significant’, according to these informants, made up for the increased time use that resulted from the deliberate decision to reduce the degree of labour division somewhat to achieve a better integration of the different disciplines from an early stage. Phrased negatively, without the ‘daring’ of being ‘the first’, the project’s time use would have appeared wasteful. Another tension mentioned by the involved experts was that between having more or less unlimited material, social and cultural resources to achieve an ambitious goal and the hope that the symbolic building will inspire a broader implementation of zero emission buildings in Norway and beyond (Meistad and Strand, 2013). Between the first press releases and March 2012, the experts used more time than usual to reach a compromise between the economic imperative to produce a building design with enough square metres to be profitable to rent out and the daring goal to become energy-positive over the building’s whole lifecycle. The result was a design that  – to maximize the angle and area usable to produce photovoltaic energy and have an acceptable amount of usable floor area – was 14m higher than the regulation plan for this part of the city, 27m. The particular part of the city where the building was planned to be erected was located between the city centre and the fjord, which raised concerns about the building blocking the view to one of the defining features of the city. Two weeks later, the alliance spoke to the national newspaper audience through a series of in-depth features that were based on interviews with selected project participants. In these interviews, the project leader architect Tine Hegli from the Powerhouse Alliance partner Snøhetta described the work of the design team in the already well-known spirit of daring: ‘People are shocked when we tell them that we are going as low as 20 [kWh/m2]’, she was quoted as saying (Aftenposten A-magasinet, 16 March 2012). Other prominent project participants added that the building was ‘one of a kind in the whole world’ (Tor Helge Dokka), and the NGO Zero’s representative was quoted as saying that both the form of the collaboration and the building itself were of historical significance for their ambitions. Further, in this interview, Tine Hegli explained that the particular form of the building was necessary to achieve the zero emissions and plus energy balance: The architects talk about a new interpretation of the modernist concept of ‘form follows function’ to become ‘form follows environment’. (Aftenposten A-Magasinet, 16 March 2012)

100  Thomas Berker and Stig Larssæther If it is really thought through, this ‘mantra’, as it was called in one of the newspaper articles quoting Hegli, means that it is not only that the building’s form ‘follows environment’, but the city form and with it the city’s regulation plans also have to be changed to allow the city and the building to follow environment. Additionally, the particular definition of environment that is used here deserves a closer look. Environment becomes the same as the calculation methods used by the design team in its workshops. As such, ‘environment’ and with it the building’s and city’s form and regulations are the result of a struggle to solve an equation that includes, among others, the embodied energy, energy used under construction, energy used during the building’s lifetime and CO2 factors ascribed to these units of energy that in the end have to reach a positive value. The calculation that was undertaken here is a perfect example of a qualculation. According to Callon and Muniesa (2003, 2005), a qualculation is a calculation that includes qualitative judgements such as, in our case, the decision to focus on energy, CO2 emissions and economic value, but not, for example, an unhindered view of the fjord from the city centre. In the actual calculation then, specific elements are decontextualized, combined in a new way in a coherent spatial and temporal setting, which results in a new entity. Again, in our example, first the richness of elements that contributed to the resource use of a building was reduced to a (still large) number of individual factors related to energy and CO2 that were, in a second step, quantified and combined in the spatiotemporal setting of the workshops (and the surrounding activities) and that, third, resulted in a certain building design. For Callon and Law (2005), qualculation is always and inextricably bound to the non-qualculation that describes a situation, which is the opposite of planning: the active work of disengaging and giving up control. In opposition to this, when the design of the Powerhouse was released to the public, it was done in a deliberate effort to control the interpretation of what it means, echoed in the newspaper articles that prominently featured the project members’ way of looking at it. However, already the first newspaper article that independently reported on the height of the building (Adresseavisen, 2 March 2012) created space for alternative interpretations. Here, the journalist Agnethe Weisser interviewed local politicians about what they thought about the plans. In this round, positive appraisals still prevailed, but there was already one deviating position summoned by the journalist, who followed the journalistic dialectical method of gathering opposing opinions to create a story: a researcher from the local university NTNU, Markus Schwai, was quoted in defence of the regulation plan against the building’s demands. In the following months, the number of issues connected to the plan proliferated. Noting the emerging conflict but also refuting the whole premise of the building as being a ‘daring’ exception and avant-garde effort, one of the investors, Ivar Koteng, left the project. He was quoted as arguing that his job is not to finance symbolism: ‘In economic terms, the project does not add up in

Two green developments in Norway 101 our world. I think it would be better to build it in Oslo where people are less down to earth than we are here in Trondheim’ (‘mer jålete’, Adresseavisen, 20 April 2012). In the context of an ANT interpretation, his explicit mention of the calculation being unsuccessful in terms of economics is telling. The initial design workshop calculations had involved economic factors (providing a certain amount of usable floor area  – one factor producing the need for the height). The investor’s exit shows that the calculatory combination of economic factors and energy/CO2 factors was not successful. That the project could proceed despite his exit was possible because alternative economic calculi exist. One of the Powerhouse Alliance’s partners, Entra, who will own and rent out the building, argued that the project was still economically feasible because the rental income will be higher if the building provides a ‘daring’ green image to its occupants. This way of making the extra investment pay, however, presupposed that the building remained at this very exposed location in the city centre, which contributed to the critique: The building wanted to be seen, and for this, it had to block the view of the fjord. Already before this economic trouble, other factors threatened to endanger the calculation’s choices. Above all, the view of the fjord became a topic with an already built new neighbouring hotel building (a little lower but still above the regulated height) and other large buildings in this part of the town taking part in the controversy. The argument of the blocked view was first presented in the local press one day after the features in which the project participants described their view: The New Congress Hotel, the Pir-centre and the Leiv Eiriksson Centre to the east are dominant buildings facing the city. If [at 42.8 m] the Powerhouse in addition to these will be allowed to soar in all its glory at the end of the row, then the buildings between the fjord and the city centre will become even more troubling than they are now. (Adresseavisen, 17 March 2012) This clearly had the potential to mobilize common citizens who were becoming increasingly concerned about the city’s overall planning strategies and specifically the connection to the fjord. This was taken up in another article in the local newspaper and finally also by politicians who introduced yet another aspect into the mix: the critique of the misuse of power by the governing Workers Party (Arbeiderpartiet) in one of the Powerhouse Alliance’s central partners, Entra, which was at this time still owned by the state. With all these factors demanding to be introduced into the qualculation that produced the final building, a second round of qualculations became necessary. This second round actually took more than a year to complete and resulted in a revised design in which the height was reduced by 2m to 39m. According to the Powerhouse Alliance partners, this was achieved by reducing the usable floor area (Adresseavisen, 22 August 2013). Thus, the economic aspect was further toned down to allow at least a nominal inclusion of the concerns of the critics interested in the fjord view.

102  Thomas Berker and Stig Larssæther With this new design submitted to the city council, a public citizen meeting (‘folkemøte’) was organized on 26 February 2014, in which the Powerhouse Alliance partners and individuals from involved research milieus made a powerful case for the importance of the building being built at exactly the original location in exactly the daring form envisioned. The meeting went smoothly (as seen from the Alliance’s perspective). The meeting structure left almost no time for discussion, and when a dissenter finally raised objections, the meeting went over time, which did not exactly strengthen his position. In the end (11 August 2014), the qualculation proved successful to convince the city council to approve the new plan, and the construction is expected to commence soon. Whether the calculation that ties together energy use, CO2 emissions and economic feasibility will hold together when the building is built and then used for 60+ years remains to be seen. For now, we can conclude that traditional ANT theory works very well to describe the struggle of the Alliance to bring into the world a new object that forces the surrounding city to succumb to the qualculations done in relation to its design. The other qualculation, in this case the proliferation of concerns (traditional economic, fjord view, party politics), only minimally influenced the final design. We have also seen that specific elements of the qualculation – being visible to produce higher rent, being higher to produce more renewable energy, as assumed by Callon and Law (2005) – produced resisting non-qualculations, above all the publicly expressed feeling that the city was losing a non-calculable part of its soul.

The active houses of Hurdal The history of the active houses located at what is currently known as the ‘Hurdal ecovillage’ dates back to the mid-1990s, when a smaller group of interested individuals created the ‘Kilden eco-community’. Inspired by similar initiatives in Sweden, Denmark and the UK, the aim of this organization was to establish the first Norwegian ecovillage, with a focus on holistic worldviews and sustainable living. One of the members was interviewed by NRK in 2001 and expressed his future vision: In the forest, his house is erected. It is octagonal and drawn by architects. Made by straw and with a turf roof, heated with solar energy. He can envisage it. He does not even have to close his eyes to imagine how life in the new eco-village will be. There, in the dense pine forest, he will live. There his house will be. There he is to live a different life. (www.nrk.no/programmer/tv_arkiv/v30/1345314.html) At its peak, more than 100 people were members, with Øivind Solum, founder of Alternativt Nettverk (Alternative Network) and editor of the spiritual magazine Vision, as a driving force. Since then, a series of iterations and

Two green developments in Norway 103 transformations took place, until the municipality of Hurdal, approximately an hour’s drive north-east of Oslo, in 2001, invited the group to establish an ecovillage project at Gjøding Farm, a communally owned property of 59 hectares, previously in the possession of the Norwegian Church. Two of the original members in Kilden decided to pursue this possibility, which was the only alternative that survived the first pioneering stage after several attempts closer to Oslo. The first concrete materialization of the ecovillage initiative in Hurdal occurred in 2002, which included the development of an area plan, financial support from Husbanken (Norwegian State Housing Bank) and a leasing contract between the municipality and the Hurdal project, which in 2003 became Hurdalssjøen Økologiske Landsby SA, a cooperative structure involving around ten people. Temporary houses of straw and massive wood were also established by the first members who moved to the farm at the shores of Lake Hurdal. The first houses that were erected by the members of the ecovillage represented a low-tech, self-build typology that has been associated with experimental building projects within and outside of the ecovillage movement. This experience of materializing their view of appropriate building materials and levels of technology proved critical to the further development of the project. Thus, it was soon realized that limited skills and knowledge in house construction took away most of the idealized and somewhat romantic picture of developing an ecovillage: Because very few people had experience in building their own house, those who start often get worn-out by these labour-intensive processes, at least that was our impression after study trips to Denmark. Especially when you want to use materials not found at the average shop. So we realized that we had to make some tough decisions; we had to leave the self-build concept and start to identify producers that made houses the way we wanted them to be. (interview, Simen Torp) As the newly formed group took on the task of planning the ecovillage, they started cooperating with Gaia, a group of ecologically oriented architects with a focus on sustainable materials, natural ventilation and extended user participation. After many years of working mainly with the rather marginal segment of ecologically oriented individual house-owners who could afford tailor-made solutions, the Hurdal project proved to be an interesting challenge for these architects. In the words of one of their central representatives, Rolf Jacobsen, ‘It opens up the concept for, let’s say, more ordinary people’ (interview). Through this reframing of the project, new actors entered the scene, which reconfigured not only the houses but also the relationships between people and the scope of the development. Thus, the established housing

104  Thomas Berker and Stig Larssæther market with its standardization and strict economic focus was no longer something that could be regarded as irrelevant. However, how would this influence the way sustainable buildings were realized in Hurdal? A preliminary sketch of ideas and concepts was developed and presented to external interests such as the municipality and the county. A major challenge that soon emerged was that archaeologists feared that the ecovillage development would destroy the green background for the local church, consisting of spruce wood. This stalemate was, however, resolved by a rather unexpected event: A hundred-year storm hurried down Lake Hurdal and hit the forest in the hills above the church. Most of the trees were torn down, and suddenly there was no green background behind the church. (Miller and Torp, 2013) After the intervention of this additional actor, the municipality approved the first area plan for the ecovillage in 2006. Building on experiences from other similar projects, the area was assigned the status of an ‘experimental ecological zone’, where an innovative solution based on broad areas of practice could be explored (Miller and Torp, 2013). A quote from the area plan, dated 29 March 2006, illustrates the scope of the project: All housing should have a documented environmental profile and have a character of innovation and experimentation within the overall environmental goals, which are specified in the environmental program for the eco-village. (cited in Miller and Torp, 2013: 23). The plan also encompassed more aspects relevant to daily life in the ecovillage, including farming, local business development and cultural/ social activity, elements that are not part of the menu of most conventional housing projects. Then, a process of enrolling other necessary actors and resources in the project began. The ethical bank Cultura was involved as a financial partner, but given its limited economic resources, the ecovillage needed to get involved with other actors within the more established housing market. After advice from Husbanken, the group in Hurdal tried to recruit a number of professional housing associations to structure the development and organization of the project. In parallel with this, it was decided to establish a new organization, Aktivhus (Active House), with members from the ecovillage cooperative at Hurdal and architects from the Gaia Group. The goal was to develop a new housing typology that could meet the specifications of the ecovillage but also export the concept to other developments beyond the pilot segment. The active house concept that was introduced in the development partly grew out of a sceptical attitude towards the passive house concept

Two green developments in Norway 105 with its strong focus on calculation, air-tight building envelopes and mechanical ventilation. In 2012, a government White Paper announced that all new construction from 2015 should conform to passive house standards, which produced one of the few controversies around the building code that actually reached the mainstream media in Norway (Müller and Berker, 2013). Gaia Architects became one of the main critics in this controversy, expressing strong reservations against the premise of passive houses. After a series of iterations with regional housing associations and entrepreneurs, the project still did not reach a binding agreement and was not seen to be sufficiently robust to receive bank guaranties, partly reflecting the aftermath of the financial crisis in 2008, with increasingly stringent criteria for financial feasibility. A  new alliance involving one of the largest housing developers in Scandinavia, SKANSKA, and the regional housing associations HOBBL and OBOS was put forward as a response to this challenge of satisfying financial bodies. Despite this seemingly robust network of actors, the banks were still not convinced of the economic sustainability of the project, refusing to grant the critical building loan in 2012. Then, a private property developer with significant experience in property development entered the project, which had a completely different approach that was much more fruitful for the project; they understood the concept, the importance of including work spaces and local service development. They understood the food and agriculture dimension; they understood the cultural aspect. And they knew property development. Taken together, these aspects made them a much more attractive partner than SKANSKA. (interview, Simen Torp) With this new ally on board, a substantial streamlining of the concept took place. First, the corporation Aktivhusgruppen AS was founded, and all responsibility and risk was transferred from Hurdalssjøen Økologiske Landsby SA to this new company, which took control over the whole value chain. The shareholders in the Hurdal ecovillage cooperative were bought out, and all aspects of organizing, developing and maintaining the process were professionalized. Local and national media picked up on the expansion with headlines such as ‘Invests 400 million in eco-village’ (Romerikes Blad, 2012) and ‘This village is about to explode in popularity’ (Romerikes Blad, 2013). The turn towards a commercial organization and expansion of scope, however, did not come without costs, and ‘[m]‌any left the project’ (Simen Torp interviewed in Dagens Næringsliv, 28 August 2014). The original shelter houses were also transformed from tailor-made solutions to a prefabricated concept with a more standardized interior and exterior. The latest development in the history of the ecovillage initiative at Hurdal is that an ecovillage consultancy, Filago AS, has emerged as an umbrella

106  Thomas Berker and Stig Larssæther organization for both the active house concept and the ecovillage at Hurdal, offering services to actors with the ambition to establish eco-communities elsewhere. The following quote describes how the current mayor  – a successor of the mayor that had invited the eco-enthusiasts many years ago  – assesses both the transformation of the concept and its ‘contagious’ effect on the surroundings: What in the world is this crowd? Sit around the campfire, exchanging sprouts instead of money? The first people moving here were a bit fanatical to start with. Now it has become more normal. It is a completely different approach today. Many thought that it was old hippies that were to inhabit the rectory. Now the whole municipality is infected by the eco-village in a positive sense. It has given us a unique network, not only locally, but also stretching far beyond the borders of Norway, says the mayor. (Nationen, 2014) Summing up, the current plans for the active houses of Hurdal appear more or less as random finds in a process that is characterized by unexpected turns of event and generative absences. Everything was shifting: the people, the plans, and even a storm played a decisive role. However, there were constants that make this story about more than one object but also about less than many objects (to paraphrase Law, 2002). There is first the place, Hurdal, which remains stable. In its relation to bucolic surroundings but also to the booming capital, Oslo, which is one hour’s drive away  – this place is a specific locale that from the beginning was seen as valuable asset that could and should be filled with something special. This specialness was played out by various actors in partially overlapping actor networks that gathered around the boundary object of an ecovillage development without necessarily agreeing on what an ecovillage is (Star and Griesemer, 1989). The weak, or on a more positive note, open-ended definition of what the specialness of the ecovillage should comprise can be seen as the second constant in the story that sets it apart from the very specific expectations that are enacted through the current building code and projects such as the Powerhouse.

Discussion and conclusion With these two stories about planning with high environmental ambitions in Norway, we wanted to tell two tales of ANT, as well as present two different accounts of planning and the planner. The story of the Powerhouse is one of an existing and, at its core, stable alliance that created and defended a qualculation as a blueprint for a building. The plan as an immutable mobile went through the hands of a large

Two green developments in Norway 107 number of actors who all added something and took something from it without touching its core: the zero-emission/plus-energy balance. The plan had to go through these hands to follow ‘due process’ (Latour, 2004) but the protagonists behind the alliance did as much as possible to keep these hands from changing the plans. It lost one investor and it had to give away 2m in height (and with that a number of square metres), which is actually an impressive amount of immutability in the face of the challenges. The success factors in this story are (1) the partnering of a heterogeneous group of powerful actors (including the influential environmental NGO and the university-based Research Centre on Zero Emission Buildings), (2) generous resource use in the early phase of design (front-loading of the process) and (3) a strong publicity strategy that was reflected in the number of newspaper articles that were published before the first report on the building written independently of the alliance’s members appeared. Despite this strategy, a second iteration that took more than a year was necessary to transport the plan through the city council. In the end, however, not only were the elements explicitly included in the qualculation subordinated to a logic focused on energy savings/CO2 emissions reduction but so were the planning bodies in the city and, as far as we can tell from the current lack of popular protest, the common citizen. In the end, the evolving incarnations of Hurdal’s sustainable buildings followed a path of mainstreaming (Berker 2010; Sørensen 2015). Where the Powerhouse ordered the world around it, the houses of Hurdal engaged in a process in which ‘external’ elements were absorbed into its narrative. This led to rather dramatic changes in its genealogy, but the surroundings were not left unaltered by these transformations. The current ‘green valley’ strategy of the Hurdal municipality and its ambition to become a climate-neutral municipality by 2025 has been described as a result of contamination from the ecovillage development (Nationen, 2014). When we take a closer look at the planner in both stories, the difference is equally striking: Those planning the Powerhouse expected others to follow them because they represented the environment (‘form follows environment’). Those planning the different generations of buildings at Hurdal were united by a desire to be welcoming and inclusive. They repeatedly expressed the goal of creating ‘holistic’ buildings, which is explicitly directed against the reductions of qualculations à la passive house and by association also the Powerhouse, which in this sense act as generative absences (Law and Singleton, 2003). Where the Powerhouse forced its daring specialness onto the city, the specialness of Hurdal is an expectation formulated by the mayor and the early regulation of the area, which was filled with varying content. However, as becomes clear in this particular case as well, planners who want to create without reduction are in a precarious situation, as they have to rely on unpredictable allies (such as a once-in-100-year storm). As indicated in Callon’s and Law’s conversation (2005) when they move from qualculation to its ‘other’, the planner of something ‘holistic’ – just as the

108  Thomas Berker and Stig Larssæther ‘hero’ of de Laet and Mol’s (2000) bush pump story – has to let go, to lose control instead of holding on to it. In De Laet and Mol’s case, the object – the Zimbabwean bush pump – was engineered in a way that it distributed agency to its users  – the local community installing and using the pump. High environmental ambitions for buildings may be inscribed in very specific terms into the building’s plan, where they then act behind the backs of the occupants, as was done by the designers of the Powerhouse. However, it obviously can also be left to the future users of the buildings that, in one way or another, would have to be empowered to achieve the type of sustainability that they want. In this sense, in fact, the current incarnation of Hurdal as active houses may fall short of its original ambitions because of its focus on mainstreamed implementation, which always can also mean watered-down ambition (Berker, 2010; Wågø and Berker, 2014). Returning finally to the general issue of ANT and planning that is the overall topic to be explored by this volume, it is our view that the family of ANT-inspired methods and concepts adds not only an increased sensitivity to the workings of strategic actors in planning practices or the workings of distributed agency also involving non-humans in accounting for planning theory and practice. It also enables us to understand how these two elements of planning –Machiavellian control through reduction and liberal proliferation of agency – are both present in contemporary planning, how they interact in different ways and how these interactions create different outcomes. Here, we have juxtaposed our two cases by focusing on the qualculative in the Powerhouse development and the non-qualculative early history of the Hurdal case. But we have also shown how due process (in Latour’s sense of consultation, 2004) has affected the Powerhouse planning process and how economic qualculation and standardization is now seen as Hurdal’s future. This interaction between liberal inclusion and Machiavellian action, we would claim, is necessary part of contemporary planning practice (at least in liberal societies) and ANT is uniquely equipped to analyse how both sides of planning interact. Both stories are not complete and will not be complete for many decades, not before the buildings that are planned here cease to exist. In this sense, the stories pose the question of what kind of future society is entailed in the way both developments have dealt with the need to exert qualculative control and the need to deal with proliferating concerns respectively. How will Powerhouse Brattørkaia perform during its lifetime, based on its expert-driven projections that are materialized in a process resembling an ‘arm-wrestling’ match between the actor network and the interests and elements that are excluded from its qualculations? In a few decades, for instance, when new families move in, will Hurdal be in any way distinguishable from a development where environmental ambitions are delegated to technical infrastructure, following general prescriptions in the building code?

Two green developments in Norway 109 No matter how these questions will be answered in the future, we hope to have made plausible Callon and Law’s claim that precarious, almost coincidental, community-based processes such as that behind the early Hurdal development deserve to be discussed on par with the heroic planning of signal buildings that aim at international visibility. Planning sustainable buildings in this sense is the art of creating experimental spaces in which elements of the alternative and mainstream can be mixed and where constellations are crafted that are able to carry a multitude of political interests and motives – an art that deserves to attract as much attention as its highly publicized counterpart of calculating a sustainable building into existence.

Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the Research Council of Norway and several partners through the Research Centre on Zero Emission Buildings (ZEB).

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110  Thomas Berker and Stig Larssæther Meistad, T. and L. Strand (2013) Powerhouse One – Erfaringer Med Å Utarbeide Konseptet for et Nullenergi-Bygg. Trondheim: Sintef Byggforsk. Miller, F. and S. Torp (2013) Ti økolandsbyer på ti år. Gaia Oslo AS og Hurdalssjøen Økologiske Landsby SA, http://okosamfunn.no/wp-content/ uploads/10-okolandsbyer-paa-10-aar-i-Norge.pdf. Müller, L. and T. Berker (2013) Passive house at the crossroads:  the past and the present of a voluntary standard that managed to bridge the energy efficiency gap. Energy Policy, 60: 586–593. Nationen (2014) Landets første økolandsby vokser. Nationen, www.nationen.no/ landbruk/landets-forste-%E2%80%A8okolandsby-vokser/?callback=true&co de=3TfmzC&state=1429259720-05bdf0. Romerikes Blad (2012) Satser 400 mill. på økolandsby. Romerikes Blad, www.rb.no/ naringsliv/article6164513.ece. Romerikes Blad (2013) Denne landsbyen er i ferd med å eksplodere i omfang. Romerikes Blad, www.rb.no/bolig/article6879416.ece. Schön, D. (1983) The Reflective Practitioner:  How Professionals Think in Action. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books. Sørensen, K.H. (2015) From ‘alternative’ to ‘advanced’: mainstreaming of sustainable technologies. Science & Technology Studies, 28(1): 10–27. Star, S.L. and J.R. Griesemer (1989) Institutional ecology, ‘translations’ and boundary objects:  amateurs and professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907–39. Social Studies of Science, 19: 387–420. Wågø, S. and S. Berker (2014) Architecture as a strategy for reduced energy consumption? An in-depth analysis of residential practices’ influence on the energy performance of passive houses. Smart and Sustainable Built Environment, 3(3): 192–206.

7 Unpacking the Swedish urban sustainable imaginary At the World Expo, Shanghai, China Anna Hult

The Swedish urban sustainable imaginary Swedish architecture and urban planning firms are driven by the advantage of being able to brand their projects as ‘Sustainable and Scandinavian’ (Krueger and Gibbs, 2007). Sweden has a long history of working with environmental issues, and in the past decade, its efforts towards greater environmental sustainability have been rewarded. An example of this occurred when the city of Stockholm was recognized as the first European Green Capital in 2010. A major aspect of Sweden’s contemporary image of green success has been the development and promotion of flagship eco-district projects. Projects as Hammarby Sjöstad and Bo01 have become known around the world as demonstrating good practices in urban sustainability. Building on Sweden’s strong reputation as an environmental leader in combination with government-supported branding efforts, ‘the sustainable city’ has become a Swedish service to export, especially well-suited for the Chinese eco-city market. From several points of view, China represents extreme conditions  – as an example, at the same time as super-modern buildings were being built at a tremendous speed for the Olympics in 2008, a large amount of the population was without easily accessible running water (Hald, 2009). China has also been experiencing an extremely rapid pace of urbanization in the past decade; and 2011 was the year when official statistics showed that more than half of the Chinese population lived in cities (Xin et.al, 2012). One way the country is confronting urban growth challenges is through an eco-city development approach. The eco-city concept has been proliferating around the world with famous examples in Abu Dhabi, South Korea and Europe (Blok, 2012; Hald, 2009; Joss 2010; Rapoport and Vernay 2011; Rapoport 2014). Currently, more than 100 cities under development are being labelled as eco-cities in China. International architectural firms have often been invited to contribute to these eco-city developments on the basis of ‘best-practice’ principles. This has shaped a market for Western architectural and engineering firms who are able to brand themselves in terms of best practice sustainability. At the time of the World Expo in Shanghai, with

112 Anna Hult the theme ‘better city, better life’, many governmental bodies saw an opportunity to brand their specific national selling points to a Chinese market. In this chapter, I examine how the Swedish Sustainable Urban Imaginary was presented at the Expo. Clearly, Sweden’s rationale and ability as a country to brand itself as sustainable has a complex cultural and political history. Evidently, however, Swedish political institutions (together with private companies and PR bureaus) have found an opportunity to combine goodwill with possible profitable trade. Simply put, exceedingly fast urbanization conditions in China and other developing countries gave rise to the business idea to link Swedish export of clean-tech products to sustainable urban development. Thus, the Swedish urban sustainability brand, packaged as SymbioCity, is to a large degree based on a strong political will to prioritize Swedish export-oriented businesses. In this chapter, I discuss how an Actor Network Theory (ANT) approach can contribute to further our understanding of what I  have chosen to call, and will define shortly, the Swedish Sustainable Urban Imaginary. The concept of the social imaginary has its roots in Lacanian psychoanalysis. In the 1960s Cornelius Castoriadis introduced the notion of the imaginary to French discourse beyond the narrow psychoanalytic meaning that Lacan had given the term. Castoriadis states that the imaginary of the society creates for each historical period its singular way of living, seeing and making its own existence (Castoriadis, 1975). Later on the social imaginary term has gained ground through the work of Charles Taylor (2004), in which the social imaginary is expressed a broad understanding of the way people imagine their collective social life. As Andreas Huyssen (2008) writes, in the wake of Taylor’s use of the term ‘social imaginary’ and Henri Lefebvre’s argument about the social production of space, the notion of urban imaginaries has become quite commonplace. However, there are many different usages of the term. Some focus on media images, cyberspace and global popular music that connect cities with each other. Others emphasize translocal social movements around land rights, squatting and housing or transnational web-based grassroots efforts concerned with human rights or ecological issues, as key for shaping urban imaginaries (Huyssen, 2008). The argument for urban imaginaries is sometimes used as well for the recognition of non-material, symbolic and psychological dimensions to the constitution of cities (Weiss-Sussex and Bianchini, 2006). In this chapter, ‘imaginaries’ or ‘urban imaginary’ is used as a term suitable for the specific Swedish branding of its expertise within sustainable urban planning. Critical to this analysis is the notion that imaginaries also have material manifestations and effects; for example, imagined futures help justify new investments in science and technology and, in turn, innovation in science and technology confirm the state’s capacity to act as responsible stewards of the public good. In this sense, imaginaries can serve both as the goals of policy and as instruments with which to legitimize it. The Swedish pavilion at the World Expo in Shanghai 2010

The Swedish urban sustainable imaginary 113 is here seen as node in a wider network that attempts to script or format imaginaries of a desirable future through specific articulations of desired elements and objects. By making some associations visible (present) and concealing or omitting others (absent present) (Callon and Law, 2004), a certain Swedish Sustainable Urban Imaginary is scripted. Imaginaries are regarded as produced through a number of actants (such as objects, humans, money, etc.), and it is through tracing associations between the actants of SymbioCity at play in the pavilion that this chapter explores the Swedish Urban Sustainability Imaginary being produced. I will use ANT as a material-semiotic toolkit to elaborate further on my meaning with this approach. In the section that follows, I examine the following questions: how are imaginaries of Swedish urban sustainability being constructed? How do the ANT-terms of black-boxing and absent present help to further our understanding of this specific imaginary? Which ‘facts’ are being black-boxed – that, is, stabilized and protected by a network of sorts – and how? What is absent present in this? What happens when we highlight what is absent present? Which new counter narratives start to emerge? In unpacking one specific narrative and opening up a new counter narrative, I myself as a researcher will start to build other associations (for someone else to critique, open up or associate themselves with). I argue that John Law’s writing (2007) regarding ANT here serves as important; as he notes that since our own stories as researchers weave further webs, it is never the case that they simply describe. They too enact realities and versions of the better and the worse, the right and the wrong, the appealing and the unappealing. Thus, as we write we have a simultaneous responsibility both to the real and to the good. Moreover, in general I discuss in which sense I regard ANT as having both its merits and limitations as an approach to analyse and bring forth progressive ideas in planning research – especially with regard to transnational sustainable urban planning.

ANT as a material-semiotic toolkit in planning research ANT is often said to be a methodological toolkit rather than a theory. Following standard ANT approaches I make no distinct definition between theory and method in this chapter, since these are understood as inherently interlinked. Actor Network Theory is used mainly to provide a vocabulary for elaborating on how this specific travelling Swedish Sustainable Urban Imaginary has emerged and evolved and the socio-technical associations entangled to construct this imaginary. In doing so, I primarily make use of the line of ANT often associated with the work of sociologist John Law, which builds on the work of Bruno Latour and Michel Callon. Below I first touch upon the contribution of ANT in the field of geography and spatial relations, especially in relation to the central terms of this chapter: the network and absent presence. Second, I discuss how the construction of facts are to be understood, particularly in relation to the notion of black-boxing.

114 Anna Hult Finally, I shortly elaborate on the ways in which ANT is considered to be a material-semiotic toolkit in the research approach of this chapter.

ANT and space What has become known as ANT emerged from work being done within science and technology studies (STS) during the 1980s by a group of scholars, notably Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and John Law. Since then, ANT has evolved, transformed and been applied in a number of manners. Gregory et al. (2009) point out that with its combination of a transferable applications and far-reaching conceptual implications, perhaps there is no surprise that ANT as begun to travel widely, beyond the laboratories where it started in fields such as art, law and economics. More recently, geographers have begun to take note of developments around issues of spatial relations, particularly through the approach that became known as ANT (see Callon, 1986; Latour, 1987, 1993, 2005; Law, 1999; on the reception of ANT within geography see Bingham, 1996; Thrift, 1996; Murdoch, 1997, 1998; Whatmore, 1997). Interestingly, in terms of what ANT can do for planning research, Johnston et al. (2000) point out three important points of connection as to why geographers have become interested in Actor Network Theory. First, it can be used as a means of producing a better understanding of the twists and turns of both what is coded as ‘technology’ and ‘nature’ (Bingham, 1996; Whatmore, 1997). Second, it problematizes the act of representation; representation becomes a kaleidoscope of different representational modes that can only be briefly stabilized and constantly interfere with each other (see also non-representational theory1). Third, ANT provides a means of understanding space as an order of partial connection and in doing so suggests new means of understanding space and place (Thrift, 1996; Hetherington and Law, 2000) as folds in constantly evolving topologies since ‘time and space are the consequences of the way in which bodies relate to one another’ (Latour, 1997: 174).2 Some of the critique directed towards ANT holds that it leaves no room for alterity and allows for nothing to stand outside the relations that it orders through its description of space (network) (Hetherington and Law, 2000). Lee and Brown (1994) suggest that ANT is colonial in its pretensions to inclusion, creating a new grand narrative around the issues of relation and difference, and the cost of this is the exclusion of Otherness and its less-certain but equally important spatiality. These points of criticisms need to be taken into account when making use of ANT. Further, Hetherington and Law (2000) write that a network works well as a spatial imaginary when it is the relations between the different actors that are being sought, nevertheless to recognize Otherness as ‘inside’ rather than leaving it out requires other ways of thinking about space. We need a spatial imaginary more topologically complex and less certain in order to do justice to the uncertainty that Otherness brings with it (see Lee and Brown, 1994; Mol

The Swedish urban sustainable imaginary 115 and Law, 1994; Law and Hassard, 1999). In order to address this issue I find the notion of absent presence (Callon and Law, 2004) helpful to discuss what is absent present in the network, and at the same time also constitutes the network without being present. In this chapter, I address how the notion of absent present can help to highlight a counternarrative in order to open up for generative controversies. I ask, how are things made absent or present?

ANT unpacking the construction of facts An ANT approach is useful in that it follows how issues emerge, evolve and spread (Latour, 2005). Latour (2005) suggests that the construction of fact is a collective process:  nothing inherent in a statement makes it a fact; rather, it is the future processes of others who accept, support, ignore and challenge it that determines the destiny of a statement, i.e., whether it becomes a fact or an artefact. When a claim is believed by one more person, when an argument is incorporated into one more article or textbook, then the incipient fact is black-boxed and encapsulated, spreading in time and space. The most pervasive, reliable, productive and stable form of power is the absence of arguments; where you can’t see or imagine an alternative to it, or because you see it as natural and unchangeable (Dovey, 2008). This view conforms with Foucault’s argument that the success of power is proportional to its ability to hide its own mechanisms (Foucault, 1980: 86, in Dovey, 2008: 13); and Latour’s term of ‘black-boxing’. Latour (2005) argues that the main mechanism stabilizing and immunizing translations against criticism is ‘black-boxing’. There is no way to objectively rationalize a translation; they can always be challenged. Only if turned into taken-for-granted facts, black boxes, does critique fall silent. Every translation is an act of re-creation. These translations are, to Latour, essential for the creation of new scientific knowledge  – ‘I will call translation the interpretation given by fact-builders of their interests and that of the people they enrol’ (Latour, 2005: 108, emphasis added). To fully understand, Latour says, we should look upon how the topic arose – how it evolved. In line with that, science and technology must be studied ‘in action’ or ‘in the making’ (Latour, 1987). In this sense ANT fits well in researching ongoing processes, such as the ongoing export of Swedish sustainable planning to China that I have been following from 2010 to 2015.

ANT as a material-semiotic toolkit ANT could be said to be more of a material-semiotic toolkit than a traditional theory. It is a disparate family of material-semiotic tools and methods of analysis that treat everything in the social and natural worlds as a continuously generated effects of the webs of relations within which they are located. It assumes that nothing has reality or form outside the

116 Anna Hult enactment of those relations. Its studies explore and characterize the webs and the practices that carry them. Like other material-semiotic approaches, the ANT approach thus describes the enactment of materially and discursively heterogeneous relations that produce and reshuffle all kinds of actors including objects, subjects, human beings, machines, animals, ‘nature’, ideas, organizations, inequalities, scale and sizes, and geographical arrangements (Law, 2007). Despite the many differences among those who use ANT, Law suggests that what is common to the material semiotic approach is that social reality is performatively enacted, and that with great difficulty what is real may be remade (through poiesis) and, it should be added, redone (through praxis) (Law 2007). Realities are not brought into being solely through the intentional (inter-)actions of self-conscious human agents; and human agency does not lie at the foundation of network stability or direction of change, although human intention and agency can have a very significant effect within webs of relations. Every heterogeneous element plays its part relationally, in enacting performances that are formative, that bring into being socio-technical practical realities and shape material-semiotic realities (Parsons, 2008; Law 2007). Law and Urry (2003) write that if methods also produce reality, then whatever we do, and whatever we say, social science is in some measure involved in the creation of the real. The shift is from epistemology (where what is known depends on perspective) to ontology (what is known is also being made differently). It is a shift that moves us from a single world to the idea that the world is multiply produced in diverse and contested social and material relations. Law and Urry (2003) have suggested that the issue is one of ‘ontological politics’ (see also Mol, 1999; Law, 1998). If methods are not innocent then they are also political. They help to make realities. Through its empirical studies, ANT highlights the possibility and the difficulty of making the real and doing the good, while recognizing that deliberation and intention operate through the performativity of the web of relations into which they enter and intervene (Law, 2007). As Hillier also writes: By investigating specific stories about specific situations (the micro-political) and tracing relationalities (the connections, conjunctions and disjunctions between elements), by making visible the various discursivities and materialities, power-plays and subjectivizations/subjectifications, we can develop an understanding of the roles of actants (both human and non-human) in what took place and the processes performed. Thus, that is one of the strengths with a material semiotic approach. (Hillier, 2011: 522)

The Swedish urban sustainable imaginary 117 As mentioned, ANT is descriptive rather than foundational in explanatory terms. It tells stories about ‘how’ relations assemble or do not. At the same time, as Law writes: Since our own stories weave further webs, it is never the case that they simply describe. They too enact realities and versions of the better and the worse, the right and the wrong, the appealing and the unappealing. As we write we have a simultaneous responsibility both to the real and to the good. Such is the challenge faced by this diasporic material semiotics. To create and recreate ways of working in and on the real while simultaneously working well in and on the good. (Law 2007) Thus, the descriptive empirically grounded stories should never been seen as objective or neutral, they are carrying their own intentions and effects. So as well, does the narrative I unpack of the Swedish Sustainable Urban Imaginary as well as the narrative I open up with the help of ANT in this chapter. The later works on ANT, through a focus on material semiotics and performativity, explore how heterogeneous systems of relations hold together or fall apart. It recognizes the importance of intentional or deliberate strategies to create durable networks, including strategies transferred from other networks, for example policies, laws, regulations or designed artefacts (Law, 2007). SymbioCity could be seen as such an intentional strategy to link clean tech products to urban planning, stabilizing a network of Swedish sustainable urban development services, and thereby also increasing Swedish exports. Inspired by ANT, my analysis in this chapter is issue-driven; and it follows the process of how certain ideas and objects are associated to shape a specific travelling Swedish Sustainable Urban Imaginary. I  unpack how some specific associations make this imaginary hold together (by emphasizing the construction of facts and black-boxing) and how other associations detract from it (by highlighting what is absent present). While ANT might have its limitations coming to proposing progressive normative approaches, I suggest that such an approach of unpacking imaginaries opens up opportunities for other possible generative stories and discussions to take place.

The Swedish pavilion at the World Expo as a node in a wider network The empirical exploration set out within this chapter uses the Swedish pavilion during one week in September in 2010 as a key node within the network of the Swedish export of sustainable urban development. In narrating this story I intend to provide a critical basis for discussion both on the use of ANT and also on contemporary sustainable urban planning.

118 Anna Hult The network is explored by paying attention to both physical and discursive knowledge exchange and its distribution. The performance of the Swedish pavilion is analysed through narratives by human and non-human actants in the exhibition space of the Swedish pavilion: during a one-hour guided tour of the pavilion (listening to a guide talking and observing objects, spatial layout and spatial practice); through literature studies of descriptions of the pavilion at its website;3 and reading the four brochures handed out as communication guidelines for the Swedish and Chinese guides employed at the pavilion. In this analysis I seek to explore notions of progress and better city-life presented to Chinese audiences through spokespersons of the SymbioCity4 concept in the Swedish pavilion. (For a further elaboration of the latter, and a brief tracing of the SymbioCity concept, see below.) The observational study at the World Expo is complemented with interviews, readings and seminar observations in Sweden, before and after the World Expo, in order to trace translations of knowledge and the interests of the fact-builders. The notion of absent presence is introduced; and the research traces those associations that make that node enact a specific view of reality that is fundamentally dependent on making certain connections visible and others not. (See also Hult, 2013 and, for an analysis of the Swedish sustainable imaginary translated to planning practice, Hult 2015). The exhibition includes three fictional figures to help guide us through the space:  Eric Fung who represents the vice-president of Ericsson. He is an early link between Sweden and China, conveying messages to businessmen. Then we have Victoria from Volvo. She is a student who did her Master’s thesis here in Shanghai and now works at Volvo, for the ‘young urbans’ to connect to. For the kids there is Pippi Longstocking and she is a figure to illustrate the idea of an open-minded child. Those three are the important persons who will guide us through the exhibition in addition to the human guides. Eric Fung first appears in the area labelled ‘Hall of Environmental Challenges’. He stands by the entrance at human scale, albeit as a two-dimensional blue paper figure who speaks through speech bubbles. Our human guide describes to us what Eric Fung is saying: He is saying that Sweden has reduced its CO2 emissions by 80 per cent while the GDP has grown 40 per cent, so that is actually possible to have economic development and still be environmental friendly. So this is partly a core message we want to show: that you can have economic growth and sustainable development. (Swedish guide, Swedish pavilion, Shanghai, 2010) In Eric Fung’s speech bubble there is also a graph showing that Sweden has increased its GDP and at the same time decreased its CO2 emissions – a graph that keeps on coming back in Swedish marketing material, that

The Swedish urban sustainable imaginary 119

Figure 7.1  The paper Eric Fung speaking to businessmen in the Swedish Pavilion

appears on the webpage of SymbioCity and that underlies much of the message of the guided tour in the pavilion. The walls of the room showcase a number of before-and-after pictures of Swedish urban areas – formerly environmentally damaged, now flourishing and liveable. The most frequently mentioned urban areas in Swedish marketing brochures describing sustainable urban development are Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm and Bo01 in Malmö. Discussions of the value of demonstration projects can be traced to the international interest in the housing exhibition Bo01 and the eco-profiled city district of Hammarby Sjöstad, both built during the late 1990s. These have, in the past decade, become pillars in the successful Swedish sustainable development model. Swedish demonstration areas have been a priority for illustrating and strengthening Swedish competence; and institutional efforts have consequently supported these high-profile projects. Observing the Chinese visitors in the pavilion, many pose for photographs in front of the sink, open recycling drawers and investigate the teapot in stainless steel. The kitchen is also surrounded by other objects to touch and photograph, such as a silent drill from AtlasCopco, energy-efficient ball bearings from SKF and a model of a Volvo truck that runs on renewable energy. A  mishmash of objects produced by Swedish companies are thus presented as able to help cities – on the macro- and micro-level – to save energy and lower carbon emissions if consumed.

120 Anna Hult These actants are strongly associated with Sweden as a nation, with designs that save energy output as compared to conventional designs in the same market (such as IKEA kitchens, Ericsson antennas and Hammarby Sjöstad), and are thus apparently suitable. These are also all agents strengthening the conviction that the consumption of technological innovation goes hand-in-hand with environmental concern. So, on what basis does this hold?

Unpacking the black-boxing of SymbioCity In order to recognize the intentional performance of the Swedish export of sustainable urban services, a brief tracing is needed of the SymbioCity’s origins as a concept, and of the interest of fact-builders in shaping the Swedish Sustainable Urban Imaginary. Clearly the reason that Sweden as a country can brand itself as sustainable has a complex cultural and political history. In this chapter, the tracing goes back only ten years, to the initial establishment and strengthening of the brand. The Swedish concept of SymbioCity can be traced back to 2002 and its predecessor, Sustainable City. The Sustainable City concept was developed by a large Swedish architectural and engineering firm on behalf of the Swedish government. It was launched by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Environment and the Swedish environmental technology industry by way of the Swedish Trade Council for the 2002 World Summit of Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. At this time, Swedish environmental and technology trade was in a stationary state; and the concept of the Sustainable City became an attempt both to link the public and private sector in Sweden and find a new way to relate technology and urban development, and thereby hopefully increase Swedish exports. In 2007, the Swedish Trade Council saw the need for a more unique concept – one that was more specific and more sales-oriented. This became the start of SymbioCity. Then SymbioCity developed a website, presentation packages were sent out to all Swedish embassies and folders were prepared in Swedish, English and Chinese. The concept has developed in two directions, one more clearly focused on exporting Swedish clean-tech and another with further detail elaborated on jointly with Swedish public authorities and municipalities on better integrating different technological systems in the planning process. The Swedish ‘best-practice examples’ of Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm and Bo01 in Malmö are central components within the SymbioCity concept, both as technological and planning process showcases. These specific projects are also pointed out as inspirational in agreements between the Swedish and Chinese governments. The Memorandum of Cooperation, signed during a SymbioCity forum at the Swedish pavilion on 1 July 2010, states the aim of ‘sharing a determination to promote and encourage the application of environmental technology cooperation in a win-win situation to achieve sustainable urban development and to address climate change’. There is a clear focus on the Swedish export of technology,

The Swedish urban sustainable imaginary 121 both to enhance Chinese economic growth, and concurrently decrease environmental impact. I argue that in the network of Swedish urban sustainability and in the Swedish pavilion, the SymbioCity graph, branded as the Swedish experience, serves as a key agent. This agent is specifically directed towards business opportunities for Swedish exports of sustainable urban services. Interestingly, the SymbioCity package contains much more than the graph, and it is an offer that is continuously developing. However, as noted, the idea of decoupling is not only presented in the Swedish pavilion, but also in general marketing material and in governmental agreements. The graph illustrates the way in which Sweden has managed to increase GDP and, at the same time, decrease CO2 emissions. The image of the SymbioCity graph is used because Sweden maintains a great ‘statistical’ position in comparison with other countries in the world, looking at income levels and CO2 emissions per capita.5 The measures of GDP growth and CO2 emissions, therefore, provide a great comparative selling point for Sweden. This becomes more apparent when one takes a further look at other countries, showing similar statistical positions, such as France. One explanation for this could simply relate to nuclear power:  40 per cent of the electricity production in Sweden today comes from nuclear power plants.6 However, obviously, nuclear power does not provide the suitable associations of environmental concern that objects and stories in the pavilion are supposed to do. It is not part of the Swedish Sustainable Urban Imaginary. Nevertheless, the absent presence of nuclear power is crucial for the specific reality of the pavilion to hang together. If we would make nuclear power present in the reality of the pavilion, other associations being made would perhaps begin to look non-relevant or redundant. However, clearly the aim of the pavilion is not to explain how associations hang together, but rather to shape suitable associations for the export of products and services within the brand of ‘Swedish and Sustainable’. The specific graph also rests on associations of the achievements of a decoupling economy. An economy that is able to sustain GDP growth without simultaneously worsening environmental conditions is said to be decoupled. Theoretically, the argument is that we can increase our efficiency and production using the same amount of resources, while generating the same or lower amount of pollution. I  argue that the power of the SymbioCity graph lies in the ‘fact’ that Sweden is experiencing a decoupled economy; thus very much in the black-boxing power of an image. This graph is presented as a fact, as a proof of Swedish knowledge and experience in sustainable urban development. I argue that this image is a typical example of ‘black-boxing’, which has implications for the imaginaries of urban sustainability. Exactly how, if or to what extent, this has or can be achieved is the subject of much debate. Calculating carbon emissions from a production perspective, including emissions within the territorial boarders of Sweden, the emissions have

122 Anna Hult decreased since the 1990s. Thus, this way of calculating provides a great selling point, and a convenient image to buy into. However, while we claim emission cuts in Sweden, the decrease in emissions is also connected to the fact that industrial production has moved to other countries, and that the environmental impacts of imported goods are not included in the statistics. In the SymbioCity concept and in the graph, the spatial patterns of production and consumption are absent presence in the Swedish pavilion. According to a number of research reports published in recent years (Naturvårdsverket, 2008; SEI, 2012; Berglund, 2011; Bolin et  al., 2013), the CO2 emissions calculated from a consumption perspective have, in fact, risen rather than decreased. Calculating from a consumption perspective means including what is produced with the territorial boarders of Sweden, but also including import and excluding export. These figures show much higher absolute numbers as well as an increase instead of decrease of Swedish emissions. Much of the supposed decoupling in countries can be accounted for by displacement to other countries. China, for example, is one of those countries that produces many of the consumer goods included when calculating from a consumption perspective. Thus, incorporating consumption patterns turns decoupling as a Swedish experience into a myth. Including other datasets beyond those that are considered from only the territorial or production perspectives when calculating emissions shapes instead another kind of graph. In this chapter, by highlighting what is absent present, I have sought to unpack how these associations held together and how they did not hold together, in order to make another story visible. I  have suggested that incorporating consumption and production patterns turns decoupling as a Swedish experience into a myth. I  argued that the ‘fact’ that Sweden has a decoupled economy is enabled by the view of the possibilities of the nation-state as system boundaries and space as static. A relational spatial understanding has helped question the relevance of the geographical borders of Sweden as system boundaries of CO2 emissions; and has sheds light on the neglect of power-geographies. The perspective of consumption has also provided a better picture of how our lifestyles affect the climate. In viewing space as relational, the SymbioCity graph unravels as a universal global sustainable solution, impossible to export or translate from nation to nation. As to why decoupling seems to travel so well through images, SymbioCity and governmental agreements could to a large extent be impacted by different reasons. First of all, Sweden has an interest in ‘marketing’ the sustainable city as an export with emphasis on the decoupling effect in order to increase export-oriented business. Second, China is receptive to this particular perspective, given its current development stage and interest in building ‘eco-cities’. Finally, it feeds on and into an emerging transnational urban sustainability language, where GDP growth is, to a large extent, the

The Swedish urban sustainable imaginary 123 basic measurement underpinning political decisions and therefore cannot be bypassed. Thus, showing that economic growth is compatible with environmental concern is a very appealing and convenient solution.

Concluding remarks Within the worldwide mobilities of best practices, not only language, but also devices may open up new ways of imagining socio-material change. They also both enclose and open up different imaginative options. ANT helps us to see the politics in the materialities and technology in those relationships. ANT here helps to unpack current practices and more specific in this chapter how this certain Swedish Sustainable Urban Imaginary has evolved and in its presentation makes some associations visible and others not. In this chapter, examples of black-boxing and the making of absent presences are highlighted in order to open up for new ways for imaginaries to be constructed, established, circulated and reformed. I argue that the ‘fact’ that Sweden has decoupled is enabled by both the view of the possibilities of the territorial boarders (of a nation state or an urban district) as system boundaries; and the neglect of consumption and production patterns, and power-geographies. In contrast to this reductive perspective, the adoption of a relational view of space, which incorporates global production and consumption patterns, turns decoupling into a myth. Further, such an understanding of space also forces us to take into consideration how ethical and political commitments get built into techno-scientific development. I argue that the concept of absent present creates the potential for counter narratives. However, in order to find those other narratives we need to seek elsewhere – in theoretical positions (such as for example political ecology in relation to ecological modernization) or in empirical counter facts (such as the graphs and numbers of carbon emissions from a consumption perspective rather than from a production perspectives). What the concept of absent present does, however, is to make us seek those other theoretical positions and other empirical ‘facts’. I argue that we need to turn to other theoretical positions and empirical associations in order to further point towards progressive change of sustainable urban planning. An ANT approach can be useful in the process of describing and unpacking; but more perspectives are needed in order to make normative statements of how matters should be. As a researcher working with an ANT-approach, in line with the thoughts of notable Law (2007), regarding social reality as performatively enacted, there are some questions that are necessary to take into consideration: which realities do we want to help make? Specifically, which ones do we want to help to make more real, and which ones less real? How do we want to interfere (because interfere we will, one way or another)?

124 Anna Hult

Notes 1 Thrift (2007) questions what is meant by perception, representation and practice, with the aim of valuing the fugitive practices that exist on the margins of the known. It provides the basis for an experimental rather than a representational approach to the social sciences and humanities. 2 In this depiction, it also shares many similarities with the work of Deleuze and Guattari (see for example Deleuze 1993). Indeed, Latour has often suggested that Actor Network Theory should be known as ‘actant-rhizome ontology’ (Latour, 1999: 19). 3 www.expopavilion.se. 4 See www.symbiocity.org. 5 www.gapminder.org, see diagram of income per person (GDP/capita, PPS inflation-adjusted) and CO2 emissions (tonnes per person). 6 The Swedish Energy Agency, official website, www.energimyndigheten.se/Statistik/ Tillforsel/Karnbransle.

References Berglund, M. (2011) Green Growth? A  Consumption Perspective on Swedish Environmental Impact Trends Using Input-Output Analysis. Uppsala: Uppsala University. Bingham, N. (1996) Object-ions: from technological determinisms towards geographies of relations. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 14: 635–658. Blok, A. (2012) Greening cosmopolitan urbanism? On the transnational mobility of low-carbon formats in Northern European and East Asian cities. Environment and Planning A, 44(10): 2327–2343. Bolin, L., J. Larsson, R. Sinclair, P. Hellström, K. Palmestål, I. Svensson and B. Mattson (2013) Low-Carbon Gothenburg:  Technological Potentials and Lifestyle Changes. Mistra Urban Futures Brief 2013:01. Callon, M. (1986) Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (ed.), Power, Action and Belief:  A  New Sociology of Knowledge? London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 234–265. Callon, M. and J. Law (2004) Introduction:  absence  – presence, circulation, and encountering in complex space. Environment and Planning D:  Society and Space, 22(1): 3–11. Castoriadis, C. (1975) The Imaginary Institution of Society, trans. K. Blamey, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Deleuze, G. (1993) Critique et clinique. Paris: Éditions de Minuit. Dovey, K., (2008) Framing Places:  Mediating Power in Built Form. London and New York: Routledge. Gregory, D., R. Johnston, G. Pratt, M. Watts and S. Whatmore (eds.) (2009) The Dictionary of Human Geography, 5th edn, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Hald, M (2009) Sustainable Urban Development and the Chinese Eco-City  – Concepts, Strategies, Policies and Assessments, Report 5/2009, Lysaker: Fritjof Nansen Institute. Hetherington, K. and J. Law (eds.) (2000) After networks. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 18: 127–132, www.envplan.com/epd/editorials/d216t.pdf.

The Swedish urban sustainable imaginary 125 Hillier, J. (2011) Strategic navigation across multiple planes:  towards a Deleuzean-inspired methodology for strategic spatial planning. Town Planning Review, 82(5): 503–527. Hult, A. (2013) Swedish production of sustainable urban imaginaries in China. Journal Urban Technology, 20(1): 77–94. Hult, A. (2015) The circulation of Swedish urban sustainability practices: to China and back. Environment and Planning A, 47: 537–553. Huyssen, A. (ed.) (2008) Other Cities, Other Worlds:  Urban Imaginaries in a Globalizing Age. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Johnston, R.J., D. Gregory, G. Pratt and M. Watts (2000) Dictionary of Human Geography, 4th edn. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Joss, S. (2010) Eco-cities: a global survey 2009. WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment, 129: 239–250. Krueger, R. and D. Gibbs (eds.) (2007) The Sustainable Development Paradox  – Urban Political Economy in the United States and Europe. New  York:  The Guilford Press. Latour, B. (1993) We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (1997) Trains of thought:  Piaget, formalism, and the fifth dimension. Common Knowledge, 6: 170–191. Latour, B. (1999) On recalling ANT. The Sociological Review, 46(S1): 15–25. Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social:  An Introduction to Actor-NetworkTheory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Law, J. (1999) After ANT: complexity, naming and topology, in J. Law and J. Hassard (eds.) Actor Network Theory and After. Oxford:  Blackwell /The Sociological Review, pp. 1–14. Law, J. (2007) Actor Network Theory and Material Semiotics, www.heterogeneities. net/publications/Law2007ANTandMaterialSemiotics.pdf. Law, J. and J. Hassard (1999) Actor Network Theory and After. Oxford: Wiley. Law, J. and J. Urry (2003) Enacting the Social, www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/ sociologyipapers/law-urry-enacting-the-social.pdf. Lee, N. and Brown, S. (1994) Otherness and the Actor Network: the undiscovered continent. American Behavioral Scientist, 37(6): 772–790. Mol, A. (1999) Ontological politics: a word and some questions. The Sociological Review, 47(S1): 74–89. Mol, A. and J. Law (1994) Regions, networks and fluids. anaemia and social topology. Social Studies of Science, 24: 641–671. Murdoch, J. (1997) Towards a geography of heterogeneous associations. Progress in Human Geography, 21(3): 321–337. Murdoch, J. (1998) The spaces of Actor-Network Theory. Geoforum, 29(4): 357–374. Naturvårdsverket (2008) Konsumtionens Klimatpåverkan. Stockholm:  Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. Parsons, A. (2008) Environmental Performativity:  Conditioning and Environing, https://sites.google.com/site/praxisandtechne/Home/architecture/ performativity/actor-network-theory--material-semiotics-and-performativity. Rapoport, E. (2014) Utopian visions and real estate dreams:  the eco-city, past, present and future. Geography Compass, 8(2): 137–149.

126 Anna Hult Rapoport, E. and A.M. Vernay (2011) Defining the Eco City:  A  Discursive Approach. Conference paper, Management and Innovation for a Sustainable Built Environment, 20–23 June, Amsterdam. SEI (2012) Global miljöpåverkan och lokala fotavtryck  – analys av fura svenska kommuners totala konsumtion. Stockholm:  Cogito and Stockholm Environmental Institute. Taylor, C. (2004) Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham and London:  Duke University Press. Thrift, N. (1996) Spatial Formations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Thrift, N. (2007) Non-Representational Theory Space, Politics, Affect. London: Routledge. Weiss-Sussex, G. and F. Bianchini (2006) Urban Mindscapes of Europe, European Studies: An Interdisciplinary Series in European Culture, History and Politics. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi. Whatmore, S. (1997) Dissecting the autonomous self:  hybrid cartographies for a relational ethics. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 15(1): 37–53. Xin, R., Xueyi, L. and Li, P. (2012) Blue Book of China’s Society: Society of China Analysis and Forecast. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press.

8 The king and the square Relationships of the material, cultural and political in the redesign of Stortorget, Malmö, Sweden Mattias Kärrholm Introduction In this text I will investigate the planning and outline of a suggested redesign of the urban square Stortorget (Main Square) in Malmö, Sweden. Stortorget, was built during the years 1536–1546 on top of a large churchyard, and was at the time the largest square of Northern Europe (Andersson and Göransson, 2009: 7 ff.). With its form of 140m × 140m, the square stood in sharp contrast to the irregular grid of the old and dense medieval town. The square was built for markets and commercial exchange, but was also meant to be an important and emblematic place of the city. The mayor of Malmö, Jörgen Kock, moved into a house on the north-east part of the square even before the square was finished, and the new Town Hall of Malmö was completed on the east side of the square in 1546. The square has since then had a long and interesting history of fairs, weekly markets, political gatherings, royal celebrations and even rebellions and executions (Korosec-Serfaty, 1982: 26 ff.). It has been refurnished at different times, and it has been the object of different plans over the years (cf. Åstrand, 1982), but it has also had a remarkably obduracy, keeping the same general form and extension for almost 500 years. My interest in the square Stortorget started some years ago as I was studying the central pedestrian precinct of Malmö, its evolution and its role in the territorialization of the city centre of Malmö as a territory of shopping (Kärrholm, 2012). The first pedestrian streets in Malmö were planned in the form of a cross and inaugurated in June 1978. The main axis of the ‘cross’ started from Stortorget, and the square was repaved at that time. The number of shops increased at the pedestrian precinct during the decades to follow, whereas Stortorget rather showed a decrease in shops and an increase in the number of cafés and restaurants. With the closing of the industries and the wharf north of the city centre during the 1980s, Malmö transformed into a post-industrial city, and the city centre evolved into point of attraction for consumers both within and outside of Malmö. I started to go through the newspaper archives and the contemporary history of the square trying to trace its transformation into a square of the consumer society.

128  Mattias Kärrholm The urban design of the square had remained remarkably similar, almost identical for the past four decades, but the context had changed a lot, and so had the use of the square. I soon also found out that there had been an architectural competition for the square in 2009, and I contacted a couple of planners involved in the programme for the architectural competition at Malmö municipality to learn more. The aim of this chapter is to investigate some ways in which non-human actors are, and can be, accounted for in the process of planning and urban design, and also to more generally give some ideas on how and why the perspective of Actor Network Theory (ANT) can be of good use here. This is done through an investigation into the planning of the Main Square of Malmö during a crucial moment in time (2009), when the square was meant to be the object of the perhaps most thorough transformation in its long history. The architectural competition for the square’s redesign was won by the architect firm Marjamaa, but the winning entry has not (yet) been built, due to a lack of funds. In this chapter, I will discuss Stortorget as it is projected and produced by the planning documents and the winning proposition of the competition. This production involves the mobilization of different actors and spokespersons (Callon, 1986; Latour, 2004a) in the competition programme, and in the subsequent negotiations between the jury, the municipality and the architect firm of the winning suggestion. I will then discuss this image of the future Stortorget as compared with the square as a place of day-to-day activities, contextualizing it in research about everyday life on the square (Korosec-Serfaty, 1982; Kärrholm, 2015). Finally, I will discuss some implications for planning, and how the perspective of Actor Network Theory can be of use in the planning of public places. What then does it mean to investigate the planning of a square from the perspective of ANT? I will delimit myself to say something about how I have used it in this article. First, ANT is here used as a method to trace events and processes and the actors that produce them. This means that any object of investigation, in this case the square, can be seen as a moving target, produced by a mutable network of different associated human and non-human actors (Latour, 2005). This means that important actors are not predefined, but (at least to some extent) traced by the empirical investigation. This way of using ANT as a method to trace the actors involved in the stabilization and transformation of certain spaces or buildings can, for example, be found in Yaneva’s ethnographical work on the making of buildings (Latour and Yaneva, 2008; Yaneva, 2011, 2012), and to some extent in Guggenheim’s and Söderström’s studies of global building types (Guggenheim and Söderström, 2010; Guggenheim, 2010, 2014). Another point, which I  take from ANT, is to see my object of investigation (the square) as a multiple object. There are multiple enactments of the square produced in different networks, and there is a reciprocal relation between the different enactments of the square (cf. Law and Mol, 2001; Law, 2002). This also means that there is not a stable essence of the square, it does not

The king and the square 129 exist as an object in itself, but is produced through a multiplicity of more or less entangled events and practices (Mol, 2002), practices of planning and design, of shopping, tourism, maintenance, nightlife, etc. Finally, in line with ANT, and in connection with the two former points, I here see agency as something distributed among several actors. This means that no one acts alone, in ‘splendid isolation’, but that all actions are produced as relations between several actors. Thus, one needs to trace all kinds of actors that make a difference to the situation, and not just (as is often done) actors with intention or motivation. In this chapter, I will thus use all these three points: I will see the square as being a moveable and transforming object (a processual perspective), I will see it as a multiple object enacted by different relational systems (a relational perspective) and as an effect of a distributed agency dependent on both human and non-human actors (a perspective of material agency). All of these points also help us to see why ANT sometimes has been described in terms of material semiotics (Law, 2009). As in all research, there need to be limitations, at least for practical reasons. ANT studies can be quite slow and tiresome as they easily expand into quite large ethnographical undertakings (cf. Yaneva, 2013). An investigation into the transformations of a single square could easily turn into a book (see Weszkalnys, 2010 for an excellent example of this), so I will in this chapter allow myself to focus on just one piece of the puzzle. I have thus settled for some limitations to this study. First, my aim is not to give a comprehensive view of the competition, but rather to trace, follow and discuss the role of some important actors in the process of planning for the material design of the square. Second, I  have also chosen some specific actors to start with. The choice of these is based on my own earlier empirical investigations of the square as well as on an analysis of the planning documents around the time for the architectural competition in 2009. The primary planning material that this study is based on are the 11 documents and memorandums produced in connection to the competition. The texts of particular importance for this study have been The Competition Programme (Andersson and Göransson, 2009); The Dialogue Memo, an investigation of the view of the users made by the municipality (Göransson, 2008); The Statement of the Jury (Malmö Stad, 2009a); the Winning Proposition (Marjamaa, 2009); and a Memo Concerning the Equestrian Statue (Göransson and Andersson, 2009). Other materials used include my own empirical studies of the square in 2013, primarily observation studies (see Kärrholm 2015) as compared with the empirical studies made during the end of the 1970s by Perla Korosec-Serfaty and others (Korosec-Serfaty, 1982).

Proposing a new image for Stortorget What kind of object do the planners and architects have in mind when they want to change Stortorget? How do they envision the square? The

130  Mattias Kärrholm main aim of the renewal of the square is clearly stated in the competition programme, that is to ‘through new design and content create a more usable, flexible and public place’ (Andersson and Göransson, 2009: 5, my translation). Furthermore, it is stated that the square is the most important square of Malmö, that it should keep and even strengthen its historical role as an official and representative square, and also that it should become a more attractive meeting place, readily usable both for ordinary as well as extraordinary events. Finally, it should be a safe space with potential activities for all ages, but especially for children (Andersson and Göransson, 2009: 17). In the programme, a series of rules relating to the urban design of the square were set up for the architectural offices to follow in the competition. These rules can be summarized as follows: 1. No changes are allowed underground (since the square is part of an ‘area of ancient remains’, fornlämningsområde), except minor adjustments around the equestrian statue where the level of the square has been raised. 2. The fountain and other artworks on the square shall remain on the square. 3. The equestrian statue of the Swedish seventeenth-century King Karl X Gustav (made by John Börjesson), added to the square in 1896, should be kept, but the municipality is open to the possibility of moving the statue to some other location on the square. 4. The number of parking spaces for cars should be decreased (a decrease from 130 to 30 is suggested), whereas the number of spaces available for cycle parking should be more than doubled (from185 to 400). 5. Existing outdoor restaurants (of 672m2) should be kept and possibly be increased. 6. Seating opportunities should be increased 7. Water and ice should be introduced on the square. 8. The existing small building on the square should be removed. Some other objectives were also stated in the programme: a more prominent place on the square was recommended for a chime of bells donated to the city in 1969, now at Kompanigatan; an infrastructure for large events (electricity, water, sewer) should be added; and there should continue to be public toilets accessible from the square. Judging from the competition programme, there seem to be a will to erase earlier associations to modernistic planning. Parking facilities and modernistic traffic planning should be taken away, space should now be multi-usable. The importance of the square as a place of events is strengthened by an exemplification of already existing and important events going on at the square, such as the city festival, a large public crayfish party, a beach volleyball tournament and an ice-skating rink. It is implicitly suggested that the

The king and the square 131

Figure 8.1  The statue of King Karl X Gustav

highest number of possible spectators on the square (25,000) should be kept and possibly even be increased (Andersson and Göransson, 2009: 17). The competition was restricted to five contestants chosen from a list of the 29 architectural offices who all had expressed an interest in participating. The winning proposal was Marjamaa architects ‘Passepartout’ (Malmö Stad, 2009a). What the jury especially liked about this proposal was the intimate and slightly lowered central space paved with granite, and the slanted areas surrounding this space that, through steps and changes of height, affords a lot of new informal seating opportunities. The proposition presented the new square as a place for events, and artwork depicted people in masquerade costumes. The Swedish artist Timbuktu, a well-known cultural and local celebrity and musician, is also pasted in on one of the illustrations. The jury was pleased, but also gave several suggestions for further work with the proposition, many of them focusing even more on the role of Stortorget as a formal square for large events. For example, the jury noted that the slightly lowered central space needs to be raised to the level of the rest of the square (and the surrounding streets) in order to afford large events, that the trees were too many and blocked the view, that the choice of magnolia might give an unwanted garden-like atmosphere, and that the paving of small sett stones need to be replaced

132  Mattias Kärrholm with a smoother surface. Some of the things suggested as negotiable in the planning programme, such as a new pavilion on the square, were also discussed, and the exhibition pavilion suggested by Marjamaa architects was turned down by the jury. Although several issues were discussed in the aftermath of the competition, in the following section I will focus on two non-humans at the centre of the negotiations: the equestrian statue of King Karl X Gustav and the notion of Stortorget itself as a ‘square for cultural events’

The king The Dialogue Memo, titled Så tycker Malmöborna (‘This is what the inhabitants of Malmö think’) was produced during 2007 and 2008 in order to accompany the competition programme (Göransson, 2008). The Dialogue Memo presents an enquiry asking the inhabitants of Malmö about how they want the square to be designed. The enquiry was made as a multiple-choice questionnaire with 46 statements to consider. The enquiry included a questionnaire on the web, 200 interviews and a dialogue meeting with 150 persons arranged together with the Malmö City Association. The most common suggestion from these enquiries was that the parking place at Stortorget should be removed, whereas the second most common suggestion was that the statue of the king should be removed. Of the respondents, 21 per cent wanted the king to be removed and 13 per cent wanted it to stay (see Table  8.1). These opinions did not, however, seem to have affect the competition programme, where it was firmly stated that the statue should remain on the square (although a relocation within the square was allowed). The statue of Karl X Gustav has been controversial ever since it was erected in 1896. Karl X Gustav was the king who conquered this southern part of Sweden from Denmark during the seventeenth century, and the choice to display a statue of him can perhaps be seen as an expression of Swedish nationalism at that time. Already in 1873, when the first plans of the statue were initiated, the choice of Karl X Gustav was deemed as an insult to the Danes in one of the local Swedish papers (for a longer discussion, see Table 8.1  What the inhabitants of Malmö think about Stortorget Statements about Stortorget 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

The parking must go away! The King must go! The square should be a place of events! More greenery! The kiosk has to go! The King must stay! More out-door restaurants!

Source: Göransson (2008: 3).

24% 21% 16% 16% 14% 13% 13%

The king and the square 133 Åstrand, 1982: 90 ff.). The debates around the statue have continued, and opinions about it have appeared in the local press from time to time, such as during the mid-1990s, during the 100-year anniversary of the statue. Often the argument is that the king is not a good symbol for the city or the region, but that the statue can rather be seen as a symbol for a centralized Swedish power focused on Stockholm. Even during my own weeks of observation on the square in 2013, I overheard this critique from passers-by a couple of times. Four out of five proposals in the competition suggested a relocation of the statue. The winning suggestion did keep the statue, as was demanded by the programme, but removed the fundament and its steps and moved it in a south-east direction (see Figure 8.2). This was commented upon by the jury in their decision. Here it is stated that in Sweden there are only nine equestrian statues, seven with kings, and that several of these have already been relocated (Malmö Stad, 2009a). A relocation of the statue on the square is deemed to be a complex issue, and the jury suggests that more work is needed before a final decision can be made. However, they do suggest moving the statue in a south-west direction, rather than a south-east as was suggested by Marjamaa, in order to keep the statue visible from a distance for pedestrians coming to the square and entering the city centre via Hamngatan, from the railway station. The reasons for this seem to be the possibility of creating a larger open space in front of the statue in order to give it a worthy position on the square (Malmö Stad, 2009a), and possibly also to maintain a better visual connection between the statue and the Town Hall. In retrospect, it almost seems as if the relocation of the statue was an absolute requirement in the competition. Although stated as possibility rather than a must, the only proposal keeping the statue in its original position is severely criticized by the jury, which uses ‘historical intention’ as an argument of why it cannot stay in place (the design of this competition proposition meant, according to the jury, that a relocation to a less central position was necessary for the statue to keep its monumental impact!). Interestingly, the suggestions from the jury concerning the relocation of the statue were not considered to be enough, but a specific memo about the equestrian statue was also produced, not by the jury but by the planners at the municipality (Göransson and Andersson, 2009). Here it was stated that the central location of the statue, while important historically, limits the possibilities of using the square as a meeting place and a place of events. There is also a map showing the suggested new location where the statue overlooks the Town Hall and the residences (located at the north-east corner of the square), and is placed just off the diagonal of the square. Furthermore, it is suggested that the platform and its steps (but not the plinth with its medallions) should be removed, thus lowering the statue. The steps around the statue, some of them added in 1961 (Åstrand, 1982: 93), are not considered to be of any historical importance and can thus be removed.

134  Mattias Kärrholm

Figure 8.2  Map of the square, showing the different locations of the statue. Number I. marks the present position, II. marks the position suggested by Marjamaa architects, and III. marks the location as decided by Malmö municipality

As we all know, non-humans seldom speak for themselves, so spokespersons or ‘speech prostheses’ (Latour, 2004a) need to be produced in planning. The Dialogue Memo was first used to point to the fact that the statue of the king was, at least to a certain extent, a controversial issue. The professional planners at the municipality made themselves spokespersons for the statue and its value: it is moveable, it is reducible (in height), but still they also announced it as an obligatory object on the square. If we look to the whole process, several spokespersons were mobilized: the users (through the enquiry to the inhabitants of Malmö as well as to certain concerned parties), arguments from antiquarians and art historians (translated and articulated by the planners), expertise from the planners themselves (as urban designers) and from the jury. The art historical investigation produced the argument that this is one of only seven equestrian statues with kings on Swedish squares, and as such it must be deemed as worthy of preservation. One can compare this mobilization of spokespersons to that of the fountain, which must have been deemed as quite uncontroversial, since it was announced to be obligatory in the competition without much argument, no additional spokespersons were mobilized and all propositions seem to have kept it in its present place. The story could end there, but (for me) it does not. As I did a thorough observation study on the square in 2013, comparing it with Korosec-Serfaty’s

The king and the square 135 studies on the square during 1978 (Korosec-Serfaty, 1982), I  came across some seemingly mute actors related to the equestrian statue, and thus I can make the research made by Korosec-Serfaty and myself into a spokesperson for these. Although the statue was discussed in several different fora, before, during and after the competition process, it seems as if it was always the usual spokespersons called to the stand:  the enquiry (of inhabitants, Malmö City association, etc.), the antiquarian interests and the planners who argued for a square to accommodate large-scale events. In 1978, Stortorget was a different square than it is today. Occupational activities have decreased as the local life of retired people and industrial workers have made room for younger shoppers and tourists. This decrease means that all areas of occupation: around the fountain, around the statue and around the benches in front of the Town Hall has decreased in relation to the diagonal flow of people passing the square in a north–south direction. Among the places for sitting, the fountain is the one that has decreased in popularity the most. The statue, on the other hand, is the spot most popular for sitting today. People eat and drink more on the square today, they take pictures and make phone calls, and the statue seems to be an attractive spot for these new kinds of activities. Even for children, the popularity of the statute seems to have increased somewhat vis-à-vis other spots on the square: in 2013 most playing children were observed around the statue, in 1978 the fountain was more popular. Korosec-Serfaty observed in 1982 that: The statue shares with the fountain the consequences of a slow and apparently conflict-free desacralization of art works in a public place, which are no longer confined to their original purpose, namely, to allow appropriation through contemplation only. (Korosec-Serfaty, 1982: 59, emphasis in original) People drinking coffee, eating lunch, using mobile phones, pausing, sitting and even playing, watching daily life on the square – that is, using the podium and the steps as a temporary haven and a convenient place to pause while having plenty of room to spread objects (cups, sandwiches, laptops, etc.) around them – are not accounted for in the planning process. The decision to relocate the statue was primarily legitimized on a negative ground: the statue is a possible obstacle during large-scale events. The reason to keep it on the square at all was based on a historical argument. The obduracy of the statue as an active spot on the square seems, however, to be based on to its embeddedness in everyday life (cf. Hommels, 2005:  174 ff.), rather than to its historical meaning and value, which as we saw is contested. This embeddedness in everyday life was, however, primarily not dependent on the king on his plinth, but on the steps and the podium that were suggested to be removed. Even if we go on to discuss the statue’s role as a symbol, it seems to get its symbolical meaning through the ways in which it is mobilized in ongoing urban practices rather than from its historical associations

136  Mattias Kärrholm alone. In 2013, the statue was, for example, decorated with butterflies by the municipality to promote the Eurovision Song Contest taking place in Malmö. Later on that same year, it was dressed up in pink by feminist activists. Here I would again suggest that its popularity for manifestations has more to do with visuality, and thus with its relative height (on a podium) and its location (central) on this monumental square, than with the fact that it depicts a certain king on a horse. The role of the statue with its steps and podium, and its active part in the heterogeneous temporary networks of the square (ordinary as well as extra-ordinary) did, however, remain mute in the planning process. This is not only a coincidence, as questionnaires and interviews seem to be the methods par preference when it comes to the writing of programmes for planning and design, favouring values of taste rather than use value as produced through practice. The production of ethnographic knowledge about places that are planned to be remade, is often quite limited in planning processes (as compared to production of historical knowledge, which seems quite obligatory).

The square for cultural events One could argue that the aim of the contest was part of a hidden theme, or a larger and perhaps even unintended planning strategy, never brought up or formulated in the documents:  the transformation of the city centre into a non-local place of consumption. The development of Malmö pedestrian precinct into a kind of territory of shopping from 1980s and onwards, has come with a decline in local culture and shops of everyday merchandise, and an increase in cafés, tourists and visitors from other parts of the region. Malmö has faced an ongoing struggle in recent decades to keep the city centre ‘alive’ with people and consumers, facing hard competition from growing retail areas and shopping malls on the outskirts of the city, as well as in adjacent municipalities (Kärrholm, 2012). Some parts of the pedestrian precinct have been specialized and branded to attract more visitors. The pedestrian mall itself has turned into a place of retail for fashion and design, Lilla Torg has developed into a kind of food court and Stortorget has become a place for large-scale events, a position that the new plans for the square want to strengthen. If we see the architectural competition in the context of the ongoing transformation of the past few decades, it seems as if the remaking of Stortorget is part of an urban development of specialized public spaces, leading towards a kind of city à la carte urbanism (Fishman, 1990). In fact, most of the suggested transformations on the square were about enhancing the capacity for large events. Here, the enquiry presented in the Dialogue Memo was quite in line with the aim of the competition and the views of the planners and the jury. In terms of people’s opinions, the riddance of the parking places and the statue was followed by the third most popular opinion: ‘the square should be a place for grandiose events!’ (Göransson, 2008: 2). In the

The king and the square 137 competition programme, it is explicitly stated that the square should not be a ‘park square’ (like the large square Gustav Adolfs torg close by) but that it should be a ‘square of events’ (‘ett arrangemangstorg’, Andersson and Göransson, 2009: 16), and the jury also had critical comments about the species of plant – a too garden-like magnolia – used in the winning proposition, which was in line with this. However, it is when we see the more general take on the non-humans on the square, expressed in the competition programme (Andersson and Göransson, 2009) and in the negotiations around the winning proposition (Malmö Stad, 2009a; Andersson, 2009; Göransson and Andersson 2009) that one realizes the full scope of how Stortorget is redesigned into an object themed for large-scale events. The proposed exhibition pavilion had to go, the paving that was not smooth enough had to be replaced, the trees were too many, differences in height on the ground were problematic and had to be fixed, the move of the statue did not leave enough space in front of the Town Hall, etc. This emptying out of the square, the smoothing of the surface, etc., are all part of a general strategy: to stabilize the square as an arena for large crowds and cultural events. Stortorget has a long tradition of being a square for events. It was an important marketplace for hundreds of years (the large open-air markets ended in 1957), it has seen kings and bishops, revolts, protests, executions, political gatherings and so on. Despite all talk about events in the planning programme, one soon realizes that it is not about all kinds of events. The square has a long history as a place of political and social events, but these are barely mentioned at all. Instead, it seems as if the notion of ‘square of events’ is (silently) specialized further to a square of cultural and often commercial events (see, for example, the list of events mentioned in the competition programme; Andersson and Göransson, 2009: 17). Of course, it might make sense to let a space of this size also be a space that affords crowds and cultural events. However, one might wonder if this specialization is not done at the cost of spontaneous small-scale events when the suggested material differentiations of the square made by Marjamaa architects were so eagerly undone. At first it might seem as if Stortorget is being planned as a loose space (Franck and Stevens, 2007), but what is produced in terms of spatial contingency seems to be themed and, furthermore, is countered by a temporal and rhythmical stabilization. A certain rhythm gets priority, the rhythm between the square as a transit place of through movement and as an important destination place during certain pre-planned events. What we see is thus the production of a discontinuity of public life, where the increasing flows of people over the square gets interrupted by temporary commercial campaigns, large-scale events, skating rinks, etc. The planned for square seems to be a place of constant reconstruction. It is either in the middle of a large event or waiting for the next one to come. When there are no events on the square, it is a transit space for visitors, tourists, shoppers and the people working in the offices nearby. The square in this sense looks more like a

138  Mattias Kärrholm false loose space. At first, it looks like a tabula rasa, open for all sorts of things, but in fact it has two strong regularities of use pre-programming it:  the schedule of pre-planned events and the stream of passers-by. The possibility for longer stays or for larger groups to temporarily and spontaneously appropriate a part of the square seems problematic and would probably require quite a lot of resources (in terms of people, time, connections or money), regardless of whether it was during an ordinary day or during one of the planned large events.

Planning with mutable mobiles? The obligatory status of the non-humans mentioned in the competition programme is confirmed by the discussion and revision following the winning proposal. It was suggested that the statue should be moved (and it was), the pavilion and the parking lot should go (and they did) and the fountain should stay (and it did). In short, it represents a perspective on non-humans as ready-mades, either present on the square or not, and that is subsequently also what got reproduced in the end result. OK, one might say, so what? Could this not be a sign of success of the whole competition process? Malmö city placed an order on a new square, and what they got was (after some negotiation) pretty much a reproduction of the brief. I would say no, because what got produced was artefacts and not so much actors or effects, it was not as much a translation of the programme into a material design (although admittedly it was this as well) as it was the reproduction of ready-made objects. The non-humans of the square were treated as immutable mobiles, their meaning was treated as fixed rather than relational, as moveable from one situation to another without a transformation in meaning or effect. Since the statue was reduced to its historical value or, more precisely, to an example of an equestrian statue on a square, this value was not particularly threatened by a relocation within the square or by the removal of its fundament. Furthermore, the decision on what objects to keep and what objects to lose was also based on a standardized process, where the ‘usual suspects’ were gathered and heard. Certain stabilized protocols were used; the questionnaire, the heritage (and archaeological) study, the traffic study and the geological study (unfortunately there has not been enough space in this chapter to deal with the last two). These kinds of studies are often used as obligatory points of passage in Swedish planning processes. Such protocols and obligatory points of passage might, of course, be needed, but if we look at the planning process from an ANT perspective, there seems to have been at least two problems. Problem one: treating non-humans as immutable mobiles. The meaning and value of non-humans are not fixed but produced through relations. The statue is not, and never was, a stable holder of value, its value depends on its associations. What we are looking for are thus ecologies, collectives and networks of associations, rather than a single stable bilateral relation, tying an object to a certain fixed inherent

The king and the square 139 value. The role of the statue on the square is changing today because its use is increasingly mediated through a lot of new artefacts, such as coffee cups, laptops, mobile phones and cameras, but also through new kinds of users, such as tourists and people shopping for leisure. To put it a bit bluntly: in the 1970s, retired people sat down to read on the benches, wait or even feed the pigeons as workers passed by to the workplaces in the harbour. Today the square is more dominated by younger people, who are carrying more and more artefacts around. Breaks are shorter and seating places need to be easily accessible, as well as affording a place to put bags, laptops, etc. The steps of the statue here seem to be ideal, they are strategically located just off the stream of people passing over the square, giving a good overview of the square while providing large flat surfaces to put things and belongings. The benches are situated a bit more off-centre, in front of the Town Hall, and although they are good for humans to sit, they do not provide a good flat surface for coffee cups or other objects. Problem two:  how do we produce spokespersons for non-humans (cf. Boelens, 2010:  39)? Who can speak for the statue? If everything is mediated and distributed, then the isolated actor cut out from any associations is a dead thing. This problem arises if the enrolled spokespersons are made obligatory and too few. If everything is mediated, and all mediators transform the message in different ways, too few spokespersons might imply a risk of focusing on the peculiarities of a specific translator rather than on the object of the translation. The means of gathering information must vary more according to the assignment. Some spokespersons might be made obligatory for a while, but we must always be open to mobilizing new spokespersons: especially when it comes to mute actors such as non-humans. The process of analysing public space in planning processes is often formalized and black-boxed, using the same types of studies and procedures regardless of context. Keeping the black boxes open, not closed, can be seen as an important challenge to any planning or design process (cf. Rydin, 2013: 42). In the case of the statue, it seems quite clear that more spokespersons were needed. A study of the changing everyday life of the square showed that the social and perhaps even political value of the statue has little to do with its role as a symbol or as a cultural heritage. Instead it became clear that its role as an actor in urban life, and in situations ranging from coffee breaks to political manifestations, depends on its entanglement in everyday life activities. Here the roles of the steps and the podium as well as the height and the position of the statue seem to be of far more importance than the fact that it is an equestrian statue of Karl X Gustav. Luuk Boelens has pointed out that ANT has an analytical power, but that it is less apt for normative decisions (Boelens, 2010: 38). This is to a certain extent true, as the power of ANT is in its descriptive side, but you need good description in order to guide your actions. The mobilization of more spokespersons can here be of the essence. What are the objects – or perhaps better put, things – that we are encountering? The answer to this question

140  Mattias Kärrholm does not lay in ignoring the context at hand, but rather in an inquiry in order ‘to detect how many participants are gathered in a thing to make it exist and to maintain its existence’ (Latour, 2004b:  246). I  would argue, contrary to Boelens, that ANT is good for normative decisions, because it does not come up with ready-made answers. It is important to add more spokespersons, and to give a whole set of speech prostheses to mute actors. It is important to make actors more well-articulated, and these efforts add more candidates of action and thus relevance to the list (Latour, 2004a: 75). Planning and design has to deal with a whole field of mutable mobiles. To stabilize actor roles – and to see objects as immutable mobiles – might seem like a convenient short-cut; it might also seem like an easy way to stipulate design decisions. To see objects as ready-mades and as associated to a certain given outcome is a simplification that might have high costs. The case of the equestrian statue showed that not only did such a short-cut cause a simplified discussion, but also a design proposal that to some extent even counteracted the original intentions of recreating Stortorget as ‘a more usable, flexible and public place’. In fact, several aspects of the design proposal seems to work in the opposite direction, stabilizing the square as an specialized urban type aimed at a quite particular use, rather than opening it up for a multiplicity of new users.

References Andersson, C. (2009) Projekttävling Stortorget, PM för bearbetning av Passepartout, synpunkter och frågor från tävlingsjuryn. Malmö: Malmö stad. Andersson, C. and S. Göransson (2009) Stortorget, Program för projekttävling. Malmö: Malmö stad. Åstrand, F. (1982) The art works in Stortorget (Malmoe): summary of an historical investigation. In P. Korosec-Serfaty (ed.), The Main Square, Functions and Daily Uses of Stortorget, Malmö. Aris: Lund. Boelens, L. (2010) Theorizing practice and practising theory:  outlines for an actor-relational-approach in planning. Planning Theory, 9(1): 28–62. Callon, M. (1986). Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (ed.), Power Action and Belief. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp.196–233. Fishman, R. (1990) America’s new city, the megalopolis unbound. The Wilson Quarterly, 14(1): 24–55. Franck, K. and Q. Stevens (eds.) (2007) Loose Space:  Possibility and Diversity in Urban Life. London: Routledge. Göransson, S. (2008) Så tyckte Malmöborna, Dialogprocess om Stortorget. Malmö: Malmö Stad. Göransson, S. and C. Andersson (2009) PM om ryttarstatyns placering på Stortorget. Malmö: Malmö Stad. Guggenheim, M. (2010) Mutable immobiles:  building conversion as a problem of quasi-technologies. In I. Farías and T. Bender (eds.), Urban Assemblages. London: Routledge, pp. 161–178.

The king and the square 141 Guggenheim, M. (2014) From prototyping to allotyping: the invention of change of use and the crisis of building types. Journal of Cultural Economy, 7(4): 411–433. Guggenheim, M. and O. Söderström (2010) Introduction:  mobility and the transformation of built form. In M. Guggenheim and O. Söderström (eds.), ReShaping Cities. London: Routledge, pp. 3–20. Hommels, A.M. (2005) Unbuilding Cities:  Obduracy in Urban Sociotechnical Change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kärrholm, M. (2012) Retailising Space, Architecture, Retail and the Territorialisation of Public Space. Farnham: Ashgate. Kärrholm, M. (2015) The main square revisited:  a comparison of daily usage of Stortorget, Malmö, between 1978 and 2013, in M. Kärrholm (ed.), Urban Squares, Spatio-Temporal Studies of Design and Everyday Life in the Öresund Region. Lund: Nordic Academic Press. Korosec-Serfaty, P. (ed.) (1982) The Main Square, Functions and Daily Uses of Stortorget, Malmö. Lund: Aris. Latour, B. (2004a) Politics of Nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (2004b) Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern. Critical Inquiry, 30(2): 225–248. Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Latour, B. and A. Yaneva (2008) Give me a gun and I will make all buildings move. In R. Geiser (ed.), Explorations in Architecture:  Teaching, Design, Research. Basel: Birkhäuser, pp. 80–89. Law, J. (2002) Objects and spaces. Theory, Culture and Society, 19: 91–105. Law, J. (2009) Actor-Network Theory and material semiotics. In B. Turner (ed.), The New Blackwell Companion to Social Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 141–158. Law, J. and A. Mol (2001) Situating technoscience:  an inquiry into spatialities. Environment and Planning D, Society and Space, 19: 609–621. Malmö Stad (2009a) Projekttävling Stortorget, Juryns utlåtande. Malmö: Malmö Stad. Malmö Stad (2009b) Trafik PM Stortorget. Gatukontoret Malmö: Malmö Stad. Marjamaa (2009) Passepartout, Stortorget, Projekttävling. Malmö: Malmö stad. Mol, A. (2002) The Body Multiple:  Ontology in Medical Practice. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Rydin, Y. (2013). Using Actor–Network Theory to understand planning practice:  exploring relationships between actants in regulating low-carbon commercial development. Planning Theory, 12(1): 23–45. Weszkalnys, G. (2010) Berlin, Alexanderplatz, Transforming Place in a Unified Germany. New York: Berghahn Books. Yaneva, A. (2011) From reflecting-in-action towards mapping of the real. In I. Doucet and N. Janssens (eds.), Transdisciplinary Knowledge Production in Architecture and Urbanism. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 117–128. Yaneva, A. (2012) Mapping Controversies in Architecture. Farnham: Ashgate. Yaneva, A. (2013) Actor-Network-Theory approaches to the archaeology of contemporary architecture. In P. Graves-Brown, R. Harrison and A. Piccini (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Contemporary World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 121–134.

9 Assembling energy futures Seawater district heating in The Hague, the Netherlands Simon Guy, Graeme Sherriff, Chris Goodier and Ksenia Chmutina The electrical power grid is a good example of an assemblage. It is a material cluster of charged parts that have indeed affiliated, remaining in sufficient proximity and coordination to function as a (flowing) system. The coherence of this system endures alongside energies and factions that fly out from it and disturb it from within. And, most important for my purposes here, the elements of this assemblage, while they include humans and their constructions, also include some very active and powerful nonhumans:  electrons, trees, wind, electromagnetic fields. (Bennett, 2005: 446)

Introduction For Jane Bennett, there is a ‘vital materiality’ that runs, like an electric current, through both human and non-human entities, with energy systems providing an exemplary case. So, rather than focusing on individual or social explanations of system-building and effects, rather we should recognize a complex web of agentic forces implicit in the assembly of energy networks. As this book clearly evidences, such ‘ANT thinking’ has been receiving growing attention in fields of design, geography and planning as part of an ongoing intellectual project to develop a more relational and contextual understanding of technological innovation. As the editors illustrate in Chapter 1, this relational thinking has much to offer planning studies, in particular by providing a different way of looking at the world and a sense that the materiality of cities and the infrastructure systems that underpin them are not as obdurate as they might first appear. This emphasis on interpretive flexibility and plasticity opens up new perspectives and positions for researchers, policymakers and professional practitioners who recognize the productive challenge of reconceptualizing technological change. However, this conceptual challenge is not new, as Jane Summerton’s seminal attempt to follow the emergence of a district heating project demonstrates: At first glance, heat plants and pipelines per se may seem of little interest from a social science perspective. What makes them truly intriguing

Assembling energy futures 143 is what they embody: the tensions and tactics behind their emergence, the complexity of the social organization that supports them, and their long-term implications for the actors they link and the communities they serve. (Summerton, 1992: 62) Summerton drew heavily on the work of Thomas Hughes in his magisterial Networks of Power, to understand what Hughes termed the ‘seamless web’ of social, economic and technical issues that coalesced to produce large scale technical systems (Guy and Karvonen, 2015). Inspired by Hughes, Summerton’s work pointed towards a more networked understanding of large technical systems in which the social and technical co-evolved in ways that resisted easy demarcation between them. Seen this way, the materiality of large technical systems emerges from this analysis not as passive background context, but as an active agent in the weaving of the web. Taking this cue, researchers analytically resourced by ANT have been busily exploring the situated system-building through which networks form, transform, grow, fail and mutate. As the debate has grown more ambitious, researchers have moved forward to explore cities as urban systems and in doing so have begun to draw additional inspiration from assemblage theory, to help capture the notion of cities as situationally specific hybrids of human and non-human actors, constantly in flux, co-producing new forms of urban order (Farías, 2010). Looking back to the work of Thomas Hughes, assemblage thinking can arguably be understood as a progressive response to the totality of the ‘seamless web’ (Anderson et al., 2012: 178), by acknowledging the interconnectivity of urban systems while also recognizing that cities are composed of ‘sites of continuous organisation and disorganisation’ (Hillier, 2009) that gathers disparate elements into a functioning system. This way, a city or technical network is ‘not a whole’ but a ‘composite entity’ (Farías, 2010:  14), an ‘active assemblage of assemblages’ (Bender, 2010), with the notion of assemblage providing a conceptualization of the networked nature of the city while providing a sense of operational units within which different elements of the system can be understood. Farías argues that assemblage thinking is a ‘conceptual tool to grasp the city as a multiple object, to convey a sense of its multiple enactments’ (Farías, 2010: 15) and to address the challenge of ‘identifying, describing and analysing these multiple enactments of the city and understanding how they are articulated, concealed, exposed, and made present or absent’ (Farías, 2010: 14). The empirical tools provided by ANT are essential to the development of this conceptual tool, providing methods to trace the alignments, controversies and ordering work that underpin the building of an urban assemblage. We explore the application of this conceptual tool in relation to the development of a technical system that might otherwise be seen as a largely technological project, an innovative seawater district heating system near

144  Simon Guy et al. The Hague. The case is distinctive in that it highlights the interrelationships between the development of an energy technology system utilizing the sea as a natural element and critical social dimensions in terms of people’s relationships both to the technology and the sea, invoking cultural understandings of domestic comfort, local history and cultural heritage. Through the chapter, we ask what insights an assemblage approach can bring to the emergence and operation of this hybrid ensemble and what this understanding might mean for policy implementation, and for the process of network-building and network maintenance that proceeds from the identification of a technological or environmental problem to the implementation of an appropriate solution (Goodchild and Walshaw, 2011). In doing so, we hope to illustrate the productive power of an assemblage tool and to show how it opens up new analytical framings of the processes and practices of urban system-building. The empirical research that informs this paper was conducted as part of the Challenging Lock-in through Urban Energy Systems (CLUES) project, funded by the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council in the United Kingdom (EP/1002170/1). CLUES aimed to critically assess the development of urban energy initiatives, including decentralized systems such as this case study, within the context of national decarbonization targets and urban sustainability goals. The project combined UK and international case study research with the development of energy scenarios to 2050. The case studies and scenarios from the project are presented in Energy: Looking to the Future (Sherriff and Turcu, 2012). One element of CLUES research strategy was a study of four cases outside of the UK, carried out through desk research, site visit and interviews (Goodier and Chmutina, 2014). For the case study reported in this chapter, stakeholders in the Netherlands were interviewed as well as actors from a case study in Portsmouth, UK, who have also developed a seawater district heating system. Users of the seawater district heating system, i.e. the residents of the houses, were not interviewed due to cost and time constraints and also language issues:  stakeholders from the key stakeholder organizations were comfortable conducting interviews in English, whereas this proved more challenging when engaging with residents. Where appropriate, the researchers therefore inferred the perspectives and experiences of the residents from the stakeholder interviews, which is an approach that the researchers recognize may have limitations. The chapter is in three sections; in the first we outline the context and methodological approach for the research and describe the technical aspects of the system and its claims to be innovative; in the second we adopt assemblage thinking as a framing tool, revealing the fluid and contextual nature of the system by introducing novel lines of enquiry, namely elements, territories, ecologies and rhythms; and finally, in the concluding section, we explore the efficacy of adopting an assemblage frame.

Assembling energy futures 145

The case study: seawater district heating in the Netherlands Our case study is an innovative district heating system in Duindorp, a coastal village in The Hague, Netherlands. Part of The Hague, Duindorp is an area along the North Sea coast, consisting mainly of small former fishermen family houses built between 1915 and 1931. The project utilized the temperature of seawater as a source of heating and cooling using a heat exchanger and heat pump connected to a district heating network. The system was installed as part of the reconstruction of 800 houses (to replace 1,200 original houses), with the aim of creating homes that perform highly in terms of energy efficiency. In terms of environmental performance, it is claimed that the system is more than 50 per cent more efficient in comparison to conventional high-efficiency boilers and that it can be associated with a 50 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions (Goodier and Chmutina, 2014). The idea was first discussed in 2001, but delays, discussed below, meant that implementation did not commence until 2007. Later, in 2009, The Hague signed the Covenant of Mayors, and approved their Climate Plan, aiming to become carbon neutral by 2040 based on a range of energy-related measures, including the expansion of district heating. The technologies involved are not new: the innovation lies in their combination. It is claimed that this enables the construction of a system for making seawater or surface water the source of energy for heating homes as well as heating water all year round (Figure 9.1) (Stoelinga, 2011). The seawater heating system extracts seawater and then processes it either via a heat exchanger or a heat pump to supply the residential area with space heating and hot water. A central industrial unit located by the harbour contains both the central heat exchanger and heat pump. Smaller individual heat pumps are installed in each home for additional heating when required. In summer, when the temperature of seawater is more than 11°C, only the heat exchanger is used. The heat exchanger feeds heated water to the local district heating, drawing enough heat from the seawater to cover residents’ needs and sending it around a five-mile network of insulated pipes to serve the 800 homes (Foster, 2014). In the winter, when the water temperature is less than 4°C (but above 0°C), the heat pump is used. Using electricity, the heat pump works to move thermal energy from the cold source to a warmer heat sink. The ammonia heat pump has an output of 2.7 MW and warms the water to approximately 11°C, which is then fed into the local grid. Upon reaching each household, the water is further heated by each home’s own heat pump to either 65°C for hot water or 45°C for space heating. Pipes take in between 25,000 and 50,000 litres in the summer and more, about 190,000, in the winter of seawater each hour, with filters ensuring no sealife is sucked into the plant (Foster, 2014). A central industrial unit located by the harbour contains both the central heat exchanger and heat pump. Smaller individual heat pumps are installed in each home for additional heating when required. Similar systems can be

146  Simon Guy et al.

Distribution

winter

Seawater

summer ummer

summer

Cold water

Cold water

Hot water

Hot water

winter

Central water pump

Heat Exchanger

Figure 9.1  Schematic representation of the seawater heating system in The Hague (adapted from Stoelinga, 2011)

installed anywhere close to a large body of water. It would also be cheaper if fresh water was employed, as there would be no need to protect the heat pump, heat exchanger and water pumps against salt corrosion (interview), a significant task considering that a substantial part of the engineering work was directly concerned with ‘battling the problem of corrosive seawater’ (Foster, 2014). There are a few examples of similar approaches internationally. At Purdy’s Wharf in Halifax, Canada, a commercial development uses seawater as a heat sink in a variable air volume system to provide its cooling requirements (Zimmerman and Andersson, 1998). In Dalian, a port city in China, a seawater heat pump system provided heating and cooling for the city (Li et al., 2007). In Portsmouth, UK, at the Continental Ferry Terminal, the sea is used as a heat resource for heating and cooling (Halcrow, 2011).

The project as an assemblage Energy projects such as Duindorp would typically be viewed through a narrow techno-economic lens, which focused on aspects of technological innovation or efficiency, or as exemplars of progressive policy, both perspectives designed to replicate what is often termed ‘best practice’, often

Assembling energy futures 147 irrespective of the particular context of implementation (Guy, 2006). Here we adopt assemblage thinking as a framing tool, to open up new perspectives on the development of the system as a heterogeneous assembly of different elements, drawing upon our interview data. We have also developed a number of visualizations to help map these relations and how they shift over time through the project, revealing the fluid and contextual nature of the system.

Mapping the elements of the system When viewing this project through the lens of assemblage theory, it is possible to identify an array of interacting elements, and to explore the ways in which their relationships change over time. Our first task is to map out the assemblage. A starting point for mapping out the assemblage is to identify the stakeholders, understood in a conventional sense as a person or organization that affects or can be affected by the project. At the core were three organizations: Deerns, Vestia and the City of The Hague. Deerns, a

Individual heat Sustainability

Energy

Sustainable

Seawater History of Ships

The sea

Figure 9.2  Human and non-human actors involved in The Hague case study project

148  Simon Guy et al. large engineering consultancy, was the main delivery body. Vestia, a social housing provider in the area who owned the renovated housing, became increasingly important further into the project. Vestia had been owned by the local authority but were sold and made independent. The City of The Hague supported the plans and played a crucial role in getting permission for the old harbour site to be used for the heat pump, as well as making a modest financial contribution. In doing so, the City of The Hague was influenced by national debates on energy and the role of cities, and in interviews referred to a national-level and city-level awareness of needing to do something about heating systems, particularly in relation to their dependence on oil and gas. The interviews suggest that each of the key partners had different drivers for their involvement. Vestia, the housing corporation who owns the social housing, were seen as bringing a strong sustainability concern to the table, beyond what the regulations demanded of them. Another stakeholder commented: ‘It has always amazed me actually that Vestia themselves had the initiative to be energy efficient. They were miles ahead of regulations, miles ahead of what the municipality asked then and actually wanted.’ The seawater district heating system is owned by Vestia, but associated projects, including geothermal energy, are owned in partnership with other utility companies operating locally. Deerns, on the other hand, while interested in sustainability, was seen to be primarily motivated by the prospect of demonstrating that this particular technological approach could be successful. Energy company Cofely GDF-Seuz led on plant and heat pump installation and continues to manage the technical maintenance of the plant. Energy company Eneco was a major player in the early part of the project, and was prepared to contribute a significant proportion of the finances. As discussed further below, it withdrew support and finances having reportedly expressed a lack of confidence that the system would be able to achieve a sufficient cost–benefit ratio. SenterNovem, now Agentschap, was also approached for funding but declined, despite later granting the project a Climate Star 2009 award in recognition of its innovative nature.1 Research organization TNO were brought in, and it was explained in interviews that this was to make the case that the project would be able to achieve the required amount of energy at the available cost. In addition to this stakeholder network, it is possible to identify a range of non-human actors. They include the houses, their heating, cooling and cooking systems, the sea, the boats and ships using the harbour, the harbour itself and the plant, which included the heat pump, exchanger and piping. We can also invite ideas into the assemblage, as there are many that shaped the initiative. These would include energy efficiency, local energy security, sustainability and the notion of low-carbon, but also technological innovation and notions of comfort in the home.

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Tracing territories of the system Having identified the elements, can we draw the boundaries of the assemblage? In our example, the boundaries of the assemblage could be drawn in multiple, overlapping ways. Perhaps the simplest is the technical apparatus of the district heating system in the context of its operation. This assemblage would include not only the heat exchanger and pumps, but also the units in the individual homes, its social elements would be the operators of the equipment and the residents of the houses as they make use of the heating provided by the system. While this assemblage could be locally bounded at this community scale, it could also be ‘projected’ outwards along different trajectories. The simplest would be spatially:  from the local housing area, to the village of Duindorp, to the City of The Hague, to the province of South Holland, to the Netherlands, to the region of Western Europe, and so on. The literature on assemblages does not suggest a specific limit in physical size of an assemblage, although it could be argued that conceptualizing an assemblage at such a large scale could limit its utility. However, certain endeavours may benefit from such an understanding; for example, understanding the spread of policy ideas between neighbouring countries. The assemblage would clearly interface with the housing of the village, which could be considered another assemblage, or an extension of it, with its buildings, residents, staff and grounds, and would connect to other utility networks, such as electricity and water. Households would no longer be connected to the wider gas networks and have their own boiler, yet they would be connected to the district heating system. Their scale of reference, then, was at once contracting – from the national gas supply to the local network – and growing – from the individual boiler to the centralized heat exchanger:  ‘No, you’re not going to have your own gas boiler anymore. You’re going to be part of a district heating system’ (workshop participant). Another possible arrangement is to consider the role of the port of Duindorp. It is connected physically by the sea and through the passage of ships to other ports, but also in terms of dialogue and knowledge exchange: for example, if other ports decided to adopt a similar approach, this could be considered evidence of ideas circulating around a larger assemblage. In understanding assemblage as not only the product but also the process, and therefore as a temporal as well as spatial phenomenon, a boundary around the temporal assemblage could also be drawn. An important question then is, when could the initiative be considered to have begun? While in one sense it began when the work started, there was a period of negotiation and claim-making in the lead up, including the task of demonstrating the feasibility of the project. Before this there were more general discussions about the future of the port and the area. During the project implementation,

150  Simon Guy et al. the city of The Hague put in place its plan for climate neutrality, arguably ‘stretching’ the assemblage still further by connecting it with another assemblage of activity into which it could be adopted and taken further forward.

Exploring the ecologies of the system This particular case study, then, can be seen as a number of overlapping assemblages that can be demarcated in a range of ways, both spatially and temporally. Each of these approaches can be seen to have value and to contribute to different scales and foci of analysis. In seeking to understand these, we must look not only at the spatial scales and connections between elements, but also at the timespans and rhythms of the interlocking stages of the evolving assemblage. Below we draw out some of these ecological elements in terms of four key analytical frames; elements, territories, ecologies and rhythms.

The sea The sea brings a range of meanings and potentialities to the assemblage. In an immediate technical sense, the sea is an enabler of the district heating system. It presented an opportunity: ‘We have the sea here and there’s a lot of energy in it and we can try to get this energy out of the sea and bring it into the houses so that we can reduce CO2 in energy waste’ (interview). Although in principle any source of water could be used, whether seawater or fresh water, not all settlements have a nearby source. An interviewee observed that fresh water in the Netherlands can freeze during colder winters, thereby reducing its utility for district heating. The harbour area had also recently been subject to a change of use, resulting in lower marine traffic. The location of the sea relative to the project, the year-round suitability of the water for the task and the availability of the harbour, therefore, were enablers of the approach. This is not to claim that without the sea there could be no district heating system, as other sources of heat could clearly be found, but it is clear that the sea was one of the combination of elements that enabled this assemblage to transition from an idea to a working heating system. In fact, other technical approaches were explored but one in particular, ground source heat pumps for the houses, were made difficult by other natural conditions: They wanted to work with a heat pump in the houses, but the ground is all sand and they have to make a very deep well to use this and it’s also salt for the heat pumps in the houses and it’s not possible in this location, so they have to use a conventional gas boiler. This was one of the reasons they developed this whole system with a heat exchange from seawater… into the houses. (interview)

Assembling energy futures 151 Despite its essential role, for many of the residents, it appears that the crucial enabling status of the seawater was an unknown: ‘they are hardly aware that they’re utilizing heat from seawater’ (interview). While there were a few instances of confusion – ‘[Residents were asking] doesn’t it harm my house if there’s seawater going through my house?’ (interview)  – the provision of heating and cooling, rather than its source, were seen to be the concern:  ‘they feel that they have very comfortable houses… they’re very happy about that’ (interview). The sea also provides a socio-historical context for the project. The area consists primarily of small family houses built between 1915 and 1931, which were originally occupied by fishermen. Fishing had long been the main industry of the area, and the nearby harbour of Scheveningen is busy with fishing and freight vessels. This was something that the developers were aware of, particularly in terms of communicating the work: ‘the social background of the people who live in Duindorp was with roots in fishermen families and there was an old [combination] with the sea, and in some marketing we used that old combination in the new combination with the sea’ (workshop participant). In addition to communicating with residents, the connection of the area with the sea also has potential resonance outside of the area: ‘that you deal more with the sea than only for touristic or recreational reasons is an extra argument’ (interview). Clearly, as a low-lying country, coastal defences are an important issue to the Netherlands and therefore the sea also creates a governance and planning challenge. In this context, the sea is, as Hillier (2009: 645) argues, a ‘dynamic multiple actant’, and the harbour and its operations can be seen as a component assemblage. At the time of project design, this assemblage was changing; large container transport was being moved to another harbour, freeing up capacity in the Scheveningen harbour area. An interviewee recounted the response of the planning authority, which was to say ‘Wait. We have to think again about totally restructuring the harbour site. So no seawater power station in the middle of it because we don’t know if it hurts our totally new plans’ (interview). This delayed implementation for a number of years, but by presenting the argument that the seawater district heating apparatus would be temporary, up 20 years in this case, the planning authority were able to see that this relatively localized project could potentially fit into a larger project, encompassing a larger territory, in coming decades: ‘Well, when we are finished with the definitive plans, then we start with a completely new energy power station, but then for the whole plan, not only for Duindorp’ (interview). Another assemblage that has the sea and the coastline as elements is the coastal defence system, linking to ‘ebbing, flowing and flooding’ of the ocean (Hillier, 2009: 645). This had implications for the construction of the plant: ‘It’s part of the coastal defence system against flooding – so that you can’t do anything… So for instance, you cannot build… You can’t move any sand around between October and April’ (interview). Furthermore, the area

152  Simon Guy et al. is an important tourism location, which made it difficult to do significant work during the summer. Hillier (2009:  645)  argues that a ship itself is an assemblage, and one that ‘performed along networked trajectories during their working lives and beyond’, in ports, oceans and ship-breakers, for example. They exemplify, she continues, Latour’s concept of ‘immutable mobiles’ that move around while holding their form. Larger ships have a particular influence on the assemblage of the plant and heating network at an operational level: When one of the big ships is going out, he starts his engines and he’s swirling the water in the harbour. At that moment we have to shut up the process because it’s better for the filters. You can wait for an hour and when the sand goes down then you start it up again, no problem. (interview) Finally, the sea also accommodates non-human actants that influence operations. An example is seashells. This was dealt with by adding a small amount of chemicals into the saltwater to reduce the biological film to avoid the shells growing in the tubes and in the strainers. Initially pollution in the form of bacteria and other organic material from the water entered the circulation system and ‘every valve in the housing was immediately blocked by stuff’ (interview). This was solved by utilizing resources outside the immediate assemblage: ‘We called in an expert on water treatment and he did a trick with replacing the water and doing some additions to the water… but happily that was a long time ago’ (interview).

The rhythms of the system The seasons and fluctuations of the sea and harbour therefore influenced the construction of the plant and continue to influence the operation of the heating system. Through these, one can observe a range of rhythms and temporalities that shape the assemblage over time. The history of fishing in the village and area illustrates that the ‘root’ of the assemblage can be traced back centuries, in the sense that elements that continue to be important were (arguably even more) prominent centuries ago. In comparison, the changes in operation of the harbour occurred more recently and within a decade. Within the period of each year, there are seasonal fluctuations associated with the coastal defence function of the area, and its tourism role. Day by day and week by week, there are operational challenges and technical issues. Stakeholders also hinted at the need to consider developments and changing contexts in subsequent decades, indicating the continually evolving nature of the assemblage: ‘developments with that kind of technology are going very fast and with climate change going on there might be more questions of how to cool these houses than how to heat them’ (interview).

Assembling energy futures 153 The new heating technology altered the timescales of the way residents negotiate thermal comfort since the houses are ‘slow houses’, in the sense that they could not be heated up or cooled down quickly: [I]‌f you are used to a house where you can switch up the temperature within a quarter of an hour or so, it’s not good in these houses, it doesn’t work… So you have to learn to live in a slow temperature house… Some like it, others have to adjust to it. (interview) There were other aspects to which individuals needed to become accustomed, which were communicated by Vestia in brochures. It is believed not to be appropriate, for example, to use certain types of highly resistant carpets, since these render the low temperature heating ineffective (interview). Another difference was that, with the houses no longer connected to the main gas network, the kitchens were equipped with ovens powered by electric instead of gas. Vestia made available an introductory set of pots and pans better suited to electric hobs. A ‘simple gift [that] if you buy them in their thousands, costs nothing’ but certainly helped to ensure a smoother transition to the new system and foster more positive publicity:  ‘If they have a bad story then you go out. If the first stories are successful, even with giving gifts, the story continues’ (workshop participant). The housing corporation ‘made a point of special information for newcomers in the area for buyers and owners’ (workshop participant) and such information and free gifts arguably became stabilizing factors.

Conclusions: the seamed web? There was never a time when human agency was anything other than an interfolding network of humanity and nonhumanity. What is perhaps different today is that the higher degree of infrastructural and technological complexity has rendered this harder to deny. (Bennett, 2005: 463) As this case of a seawater district heating system illustrates, the image of a stable technological system, moulded and shaped into a final obdurate form by social and political interests is a narrative that conceals as much as it reveals. In particular we can see the fluidity of the development process that twists and turns as the system emerges and changes shape. For example, the experience of Eneco leaving the consortium relatively early in the process because they believed it would not be effective and that their financial return would be insufficient:  ‘Eneco didn’t believe it, and they caused us quite some trouble. They retreated, so then we had this gap’ (interview). Vestia were able to fill the gap, and additional funds, of around €0.5 million were

154  Simon Guy et al. provided by the City of The Hague. At this stage, the number of houses on the project was reduced, with the implication that the payback period for Vestia would be longer. Similarly, the team also tried to engage with a national organization that assessed energy projects but, according to the interviews, they appeared to share Eneco’s lack of faith in the ability of the project to meet its goals. According to the interviews, Eneco’s dominance and respected position in the energy market had implications for the way others perceived it: ‘at the time [Eneco] gave a very bad image to the project and that caused a lot of trouble in convincing people that it would work and could work and that it was worth financing’ (interview), indicating the relative weight of Eneco within the assemblage. Deerns brought in research organization TNC to make the case for the project’s potential. Later, Star Alliance, with the recommendation the project was given an award to recognize its innovative nature, arguably had a stabilizing effect on the assemblage by recognizing Vestia’s role within it. In these ways, the Duindorp case, then, provides a useful account of the situationally specific dynamics through which urban systems emerge, mutate and stabilize (at least for a time). The case also evidences the value of assemblage thinking in describing and understanding the contextual practices and processes of system-building, and here the link to ANT and its value to urban studies is made clear. However, we would argue that as a conceptual tool the notion of an urban system as an assemblage encourages us to look beyond the twists and turns, connections, mediations and displacements that characterize many ANT accounts, in order to explore novel themes and associations that help constitute the assembly. In this case, we took an ecological turn to explore the multiple roles of the sea and ships as actors and how they act as multiple objects; cultural, historical, economic, risk, logistical, biological and so on. This in turn nudged us to consider the idea of flows of time in terms of rhythm, of the tides, of the heating profile of houses, of historical domestic practices and so on. All of these elements were framed by competing ideas of territory; domestic, community and national. Figure 9.2 shows these interconnecting elements that highlight the relational complexity and situational specificity of the system, which leads us to perhaps invert Thomas Hughes’ notion of a ‘seamless web’ into a ‘seamed web’ through which an ever-present process of weaving and re-weaving is central to the assembly of the system. However, we do need to be wary of over-romanticizing the interpretive framework provided by the conceptual tool of assemblage and to avoid over-privileging the fluidity or contextual basis of system-building. Wachsmuth et al. (2011: 742) warn of a tendency of assemblage theory to try to be all-encompassing, which they attribute to a ‘failure to define the concept of assemblage with appropriate precision’. They also suggest that there has been a ‘fetishization of micro-level interactions and sites with cities’ (Wachsmuth et al., 2011: 742), an under-theorization of structural and

Assembling energy futures 155 institutional power relationships, and an ‘unreflexive embrace of descriptive modes of analysis’. They argue that ‘unless assemblage-based approaches are carefully defined and precisely articulated… they risk being mobilised in less productive, less illuminating and, ultimately, less critical ways than might otherwise be possible’. To return to the themes of this collection, we have shown how our case study highlights the potential contribution of the assemblage perspective and its ability to reveal complexity and context specificity and what the editors have described as the ‘nuanced ways in which plan and policy creation and implementation relationships are developed and nurtured (or not)’. We can also see the enduring relevance of Jane Summerton’s description of the implementation of Swedish district heating system in the 1990s and the ‘tensions and tactics behind their emergence’ and ‘the complexity of the social organization that supports them’ (Summerton, 1992: 62). If this book is help to create a ‘launching pad’ for progressive agendas, then the alternative, relational frame of how systems are assembled, maintained and disassembled, illustrated by this case, surely encourages us to look beyond the naïve certainties of best practice policy toward a richer engagement with the practices, politics and places of system-building.

Note 1 www.klimabuendnis.org/667.html.

References Anderson, B., M. Kearnes, C. McFarlane and D. Swanton (2012) On assemblages and geography. Dialogues in Human Geography, 2(2): 171–189. Bender, T. (2010) Postscript: reassembling the city: networks and urban imaginaries. In I. Farías and T. Bender (eds.), Urban Assemblages:  How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Studies. Oxford: Routledge, pp. 303–320. Bennett, J. (2005) The agency of assemblages and the North American blackout. Public Culture, 17(3): 445–466. Farías, I. (2010) Introduction:  decentring the object of urban studies. In I. Farías and T. Bender (eds.), Urban Assemblages: How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Studies. Oxford: Routledge, pp. 1–24. Foster, J. (2014) This Town is Using the Ocean to Provide Heat to Low-Income Residents, http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/07/24/3462774/town-heat-fromocean. Goodchild, B. and A. Walshaw (2011) Towards zero carbon homes in England? From inception to partial implementation. Housing Studies, 26(6): 933–949. Goodier, C. and K. Chmutina (2014) Non-technical barriers for the implementation of decentralised energy: learning from international case studies. International Journal of Energy Sector Management, 8(4): 544–561.

156  Simon Guy et al. Goodier, C., K. Chmutina, E. Poulter and P. Stoelinga (2013) The potential of seawater heating systems in the UK: examples of the Hague seawater district heating and Portsmouth Ferry Port. ICE Energy, 166(3): 102–106. Guy, S. (2006) Technological convergence, cultural diversity:  socio-technical perspectives on energy and building. Environment and Planning C, 24: 645–659. Guy, S. and A. Karvonen (2015) District heating comes to eco-town: zero-carbon housing and the rescaling of UK energy provision. In O. Coutard and J. Rutherford (eds.), Beyond the Networked City: Infrastructure Reconfigurations and Urban Change in the North and South. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 72–93. Halcrow (2011) Portsmouth Passenger Terminal, www.halcrow.com/Our-projects/ Project-details/Portsmouth-passenger-terminal-England. Hillier, J. (2009) Assemblages of justice: the ‘ghost ships’ of Graythorp. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 33(3): 640–661. Li, Z., D.M. Lin, H. Shu, S. Jiang and Y. Zhu (2007) District cooling and heating with seawater as heat source and sink in Dalian, China. Renewable Energy, 32(15): 2603–2616. Sherriff, G. and C. Turcu (2012) Energy: Looking to the Future – a Tool for Strategic Planning. University College London, www.ucl.ac.uk/clues/CLUES_Tool. Stoelinga, P. (2011) Seawater Heating Power. Presentation at CLUES Project Workshop, 23rd November 2011, UCL, London, www-staff.lboro.ac.uk/~cvkc2/ CLUES_SWH%20workshop_PStoelinga.pdf. Summerton, J. (1992) District Heating Comes to Town: The Social Shaping of an Energy System. Linköping, Sweden: Linköping University. Wachsmuth, D., D.J. Madden and N. Brenner (2011) Between abstraction and complexity. City, 15(6): 740–750. Zimmermann, M. and J. Andersson (eds.) (1998) Case Studies of Low Energy Cooling Technologies. Paris: International Energy Agency.

Part II

The way forward Innovative practices and theoretical controversies

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10 Does Actor Network Theory help planners to think about change? Robert A. Beauregard and Laura Lieto

Introduction Planning scholars (Beauregard, 2015; Harrison, 2014; Rydin, 2012; Tate, 2013) have recently turned to Actor Network Theory (ANT) as a way of better understanding what planners do. The attraction, we suspect, is the apparent correspondence between the two: ANT situates action in a material world, mirrors planning’s concern with the built and natural environments, and its engagement with pragmatism fits nicely with the dominant mode of planning theory – communicative action (Healey, 2009).1 Despite such shared concerns, however, we can hardly expect that interpreting planning within this framework will be devoid of silences and contradictions. As Rydin (2010: 265) has warned, ‘there are plenty of questions about planning practice where [ANT] would not be relevant’. In this chapter, we pose a question that tests Rydin’s caution:  to what extent is ANT compatible with how planners think about social change? Planning’s reformist tradition makes change central to its mission, with planners incessantly pursuing a better world. ANT, on the other hand, is mostly concerned with stability; i.e., the extent to which ideas become widely adopted, organizations ascend to positions of power and behaviours become norms. ANT and planning thus seem to clash on the importance of and meaning of change. But is this really the case? The answer to this question rests on identifying the way that planners conceive of change. Towards this end, we offer an institutional account of New York City’s climate change initiative. This is a typical example of planning in practice and provides a comparison with how change is portrayed in ANT.

Climate change planning in New York City Of the activities in which planners engage, plan-making best displays their understandings of change (Ford, 2010; Neuman, 1998; Webber, 1963). Planners in the United States do many things:  they gather data on neighbourhood services, map the location of parks, meet with community groups

160  Robert A. Beauregard and Laura Lieto and testify at city council hearings. Only when they make plans, however, do they do what they have historically done. Whether crafting comprehensive land-use plans or sectoral plans for subdivisions, affordable housing or waterfronts; planners set out to depict a future different from the present. Most often, this future has been imagined by citizen advisory bodies, visioning exercises and elected officials and mediated by planners’ technical knowledge of population flows and economic activity and their ideas about the physical organization of the city. Motivating plan-making are two core beliefs. The first is that imagining the future is the basis for controlling how people want to live. The second is that unless the city’s development is guided by an encompassing vision, more harm than good will be done. A growing city such as New York must be prepared to absorb additional households and businesses, new technologies and novel lifestyles. And, these accommodations must abide by concerns regarding the natural environment, urban design, social mixing and community identity. Without a plan, change will be uncoordinated and erupt in numerous land-use conflicts. The role of the planner is to resolve these conflicts before they occur and thereby produce a desirable and peaceful future. Much of planning, then, involves the aggregation and representation of interests ‘premised on the assumption of a “tacit consensus” on the political validity of technocratic choice’ (Gualini, 2015: 5). No plans are as concerned about the future as climate change plans. Increasingly common internationally and across US cities (Bulkeley, 2010; Rosenzweig et al., 2010; Wheeler, 2008), they are designed to address two goals:  the mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adaptation of the city’s physical structure to such consequences of climate change as sea-level rise and increasingly severe storms. In the United States, their proliferation has been supported by Cities for Climate Change Protection, established in 1993, as well as three efforts launched in 2005: the US Conference of Mayors’ Climate Protection Agreement, the Sierra Club’s Cool Cities campaign and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. Underlying these initiatives is the observation that ‘cities may be responsible for up to 75% of global emissions of carbon dioxide from anthropogenic sources’ (Bulkeley, 2010: 230). New York City’s initiative in the early 2000s was noteworthy, unsurprisingly so given the city’s affluence and the government’s resources and capacity to hire experts and support innovative responses to development (Bulkeley, 2010:  242–243).2 In addition, New  York City has reasons to respond to climate change. The city is susceptible to heat-island effects, sea-level rise and ocean-based storms (such as hurricanes). Bordering the Atlantic Ocean and bounded by a major river (the Hudson River), a significant portion of its land area (including two major airports) is low-lying, with the commercial core (Manhattan) and highest property values surrounded by water. The density of its development, specifically in its central business districts, creates a heat-island effect that will be exacerbated by rising temperatures

Does ANT help to think about change? 161 and have significant health consequences. New  York City’s vulnerability, moreover, has the potential to cause major property losses, stifle commerce and compromise mobility (specifically regarding its subways). The city’s Climate Change Adaptation Task Force projected that by 2050 the local sea level would be between 11 and 24 inches higher, annual precipitation would increase by 5–10 per cent and temperatures would rise by 4.0° to 5.5°F. Coastal flooding is predicted to be more frequent, heavy downpours more intense and heatwaves more serious.3 The planning story begins in 2006 when then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed the creation of an Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability (OLTPS) to be located administratively in the Mayor’s Office (Rosan, 2012:  966–968). The OLTPS would report to the mayor and be advised by a Sustainability Advisory Committee made up of community activists, representatives of the business community and climate experts. Its purpose was to ‘develop and coordinate the implementation of policies, programs and actions to meet the long-term needs of the city’.4 Substantively, OLTPS would focus on infrastructure, the environment and sustainability, and its major initiative would be the development, coordination, and implementation of a ‘comprehensive, long-term sustainability plan’ (ibid.). As part of this mandate, it was to develop sustainability indicators to assess the city’s performance. The first task of the OLTPS utilized the City Planning Department’s population projections to create a long-range plan. The plan was to be updated every four years in response to the city’s performance on the sustainability indicators. Changing conditions would be monitored and, if deemed undesirable, addressed, thereby enabling the plan to be modified. The OLTPS was also assigned the task of integrating the sustainability goals across city agencies and establishing an advisory board comprising members from business, academia, labour and the planning community that would bring diverse perspectives to the planning process and facilitate coordination. The first product to emerge from OLTPS was PlaNYC: A Greener, Greater New  York, a strategic plan referred to as ‘Plan-NYC’ (OLTPS, 2007). Released in 2007, it utilized a planning horizon of 2030 and proposed 127 initiatives. The document’s climate change section began by acknowledging the scientific evidence for increasing concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions in the earth’s atmosphere and the consequences likely to ensue: higher average temperatures, rising sea levels and more frequent and more violent storms leading to a warmer, wetter New York City. Included in the text was a map of the city’s flood evacuation zones colour-coordinated by the ‘force’ (i.e., severity) categories of hurricanes and depicting the city’s geographic vulnerability. The planners crafted four goals:  (1)  avoid sprawl by expanding and improving mass transit and creating affordable housing; (2) improve the efficiency and cleanliness of the power supply and promote renewable energy; (3) make buildings more efficient through fuel regulations and energy codes;

162  Robert A. Beauregard and Laura Lieto and (4) enhance the sustainability of the city’s transportation system. The primary objective was to reduce greenhouse gas (global warming) emissions by 30 per cent by 2030 (a 33.6 million metric ton annual reduction) while absorbing an additional 900,000 residents. (PlaNYC counted these new residents as a 15.6 million metric ton saving because housing them would mitigate the sprawl that would occur if they located outside the city.) PlaNYC proposed three, specific tasks. The first was to create an intergovernmental task force to replace the Climate Change Task Force established in 2004 by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection. The reorganized task force would study the potential impacts of climate change and coordinate among city agencies, the state government, public utilities, the Port Authority (which is responsible for the waterfronts, airports, and other regional infrastructure) and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority which oversees the subways and buses. The second task was to create a community planning process to engage neighbourhood stakeholders in crafting site-specific strategies.5 The third task was to ‘launch a citywide strategic planning process for climate change adaptation’ (ibid.: p. 138). This would include the formation of the New  York City Climate Change Advisory Board composed of scientists, insurance representatives, policy experts and representatives from non-city agencies. The board would update the city’s 100-year floodplain maps, amend the building code and document the city’s floodplain management strategies. The plan concluded with a warning regarding the costs of inaction. Noting that climate change adaptation would be expensive, it claimed that being unprepared would be even more costly. Doing nothing would produce an estimated 20 per cent reduction in the city’s gross domestic product. The document also pointed to specific consequences for business and government: ‘Cities that don’t have strong climate change strategies in place may face lower credit ratings, increased insurance costs, and reduced bonding capacity’ (ibid.: p. 139). In April of 2011, the OLTPS released an update of the plan. The one major difference from the initial document was greater emphasis on green infrastructure. A Progress Report followed in 2014 and announced a 19 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions since 2005, ‘almost two-thirds of the way towards achieving the 30 by 30 goal’; that is, a 30 per cent reduction by 2030 (OLTPS, 2014: 29). Most of the reduction was a consequence of shifting to cleaner energy and making buildings more energy-efficient. As regards performance indicators, the Progress Report noted a 52 per cent increase in waste diverted from landfills, the construction of more than 26,000 linear feet of shoreline protection and reinforced dunes, the planting of 834,000 trees and the preservation or addition of 156,000 affordable housing units. The OLTPS was not alone in engaging in climate change planning (Feuer, 2014). The Department of City Planning (DCP) was involved in parallel measures. Its climate resilience planning focused on New York City as a ‘coastal city’ and proposed that the only way to protect the city from

Does ANT help to think about change? 163 increasing risks caused by climate change was to improve its resilience; that is, ‘the ability of neighborhoods, buildings and infrastructure to withstand and recover quickly from weather-related events’.6 As part of its efforts, the DCP undertook studies focused on retrofitting buildings for flood risk, identifying changes to land use and zoning to make neighbourhoods more resilient, and assessing coastal flood hazards. In addition, it launched two planning initiatives: a hazard mitigation plan and a comprehensive waterfront plan; developed text amendments to the city’s zoning ordinance to address flood-resistant construction; and proposed a series of greening efforts (for example, tree planting, landscaping of parking lots) to make the city more liveable and sustainable. A few years after planning began, the city experienced a devastating storm. On 29 October 2012, Hurricane Sandy, a post-tropical nor’easter, struck the coastline. Hitting the city at high tide and during a full moon that exacerbated the accompanying storm surge, the water level in New  York harbour rose 14 feet. Despite precautions implemented by the mayor, including mandatory evacuations of areas subject to flooding, the opening of evacuation shelters and the suspension of bus and subway services, the flooding brought the city to a halt. Subway tunnels in Lower Manhattan were inundated and because many subway lines from the outer boroughs converge there, much of the system was shut down for days. Electrical substations were also compromised and lower Manhattan was without power and thus without traffic signals or street lights for an extended period. Just after the storm, approximately 2.2 million customers of the electrical utility lacked power. Automobile tunnels leading into Manhattan were also flooded and impassable. Consequently, commuting to the city’s two major office districts became a logistical nightmare. Not until weeks had passed was power restored to most households and subway lines and stations back to fully functioning. Residents in certain of the city’s low-lying residential areas were forced to evacuate. In the Breezy Point neighbourhood of Queens, rising water levels triggered a transformer explosion and the resultant fire destroyed 111 homes and damaged a further 20. The area was so deeply inundated that firefights were unable to approach the fire with their equipment. Fire personnel instead concentrated on rescue operations. On Staten Island, 21 people died as a direct result of the flooding. Overall, 44 deaths and $19 billion in losses were attributed to Hurricane Sandy. The losses included property damage as well as temporary and permanent business closures. Infrastructure in low-lying areas was severely compromised, thousands of homes had to be demolished or extensively renovated, and more than 250,000 vehicles were ruined. Hurricane Sandy put the city’s vulnerability in sharp relief. Subsequent calculations suggested that 51 square miles of land, or 17 per cent of the city, was at risk of a one-in-100-year flood, not 33 square miles as previously thought (Steinberg, 2014). With weather experts predicting an increase in

164  Robert A. Beauregard and Laura Lieto violent storms, the city would have to think seriously about how to minimize the threats of such events. Since storms and damage are inevitable, how to respond and recover as quickly as possible became the main topic of discussion. Hurricane Sandy raised the question of whether the city was doing enough and whether it should limit construction in low-lying areas, erect barriers to storm surges in the harbour and along the shorelines and rebuild subway entrances and tunnels along with utility infrastructure in the most vulnerable areas. Bill de Blasio replaced Michael Bloomberg as mayor in early 2014 and continued the climate change initiative (Office of the Mayor, 2014a, 2014b). Within four months of taking office, he announced the creation of the Mayor’s Office of Recovery and Resilience to lead the city’s efforts. Soon thereafter, he proposed a $20 billion comprehensive resiliency plan. In the report that accompanied the announcement, 257 initiatives were described and 132 updates were provided on the city’s ongoing sustainability efforts. The initiatives included the development of a comprehensive coastal protection plan, lobbying for reforms to the national flood insurance programme and upgrading the building code.

Planned change The climate change initiative undertaken in New  York City allows us to think critically about how planners conceive of change. If we accept this case as representative, then planned change has to occur in a particular way: it has to be intentional and coordinated and, as it unfolds, be judged as desirable or not. These three qualities – intentionality, coordination and prescription – guided climate change planning in New York City. They are also aspirations for most, if not all, planners. In New  York City, the climate change initiative was administratively located in a specific entity (the OLTPS), which was given a budget, provided with staff and occupied governmental office space. The intention to mitigate the damaging impacts of climate change took on a material presence that signalled and strengthened the government’s political commitment. After months of analysis and reflection, the OLTPS elaborated that intention with clear goals and objectives. The primary goal was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent in 30 years. Four objectives supported this: avoiding sprawl, improving power provision, making buildings more efficient and enhancing the sustainability of transportation. PlaNYC was thus organized, as are all plans, around an overarching intention attended by targets specifying the consequences that the planners envisioned.7 To make the intended consequences even more precise and to bring them under greater control, the planners translated goals and objectives into tasks represented by performance indicators. The indicators (e.g., miles of reinforced shoreline) measured the consequences meant to contribute to the four objectives and the overall goal of greenhouse gas

Does ANT help to think about change? 165 reduction. Together, the goal, the objectives and the multiple performance indicators expressed the plan’s purposive nature. Moreover, they set forth the intentions and consequences against which the city’s climate change policy could be judged. Progress on the performance indicators measured the efficacy of the plan and situated it politically. By publicizing progress, moreover, the planners attested to the importance of being held accountable.8 The release of updates is another part of the commitment to intentionality; updates point to the effectiveness of the planners in acting purposively. The basic idea is that planners have to be willing to stipulate the consequences they hope to achieve and allow them to be measured. Not to reflect on their progress is unacceptable. A  plan without indicators and updates is opportunistic, hoping to claim whatever good happens as having been intended. Second, Mayor Bloomberg and his advisors were unwilling to allow ‘the market’ to respond to climate change or to let each government agency act independently. The city’s response had to be coordinated and the first step was to establish an entity within the Mayor’s Office to oversee the government’s initiatives. The OLTPS would be responsible in two ways: first, by establishing the guidelines for the city’s efforts and, second, by ensuring that initiatives emanating from different agencies supported the goals and objectives rather than working at cross-purposes. The latter would be achieved by setting up coordinating bodies such as the Sustainability Advisory Committee. These entities would bring together representatives of each agency and selected advocacy groups to discuss how they were contributing to the plan. The city also joined the C40 group in order to learn from and coordinate with other cities. Coordination was also provided by performance indicators that advanced specific objectives and precluded actions that impeded them. For example, under the objective of incorporating climate change into the planning process are four tasks (each of which is linked to an indicator). The message is that other tasks related to this objective will have to be judged appropriate by the OLTPS before they can be undertaken. By legitimizing certain tasks, tasks that might not fit with the goal of the climate change plan are averted. Essential to coordination is control and in planning the desire for control is motivated by the value of efficiency; i.e., ensuring that actions do not detract from each other and thereby waste resources and hinder progress. One tool for controlling implementation and guiding change is the use of performance indicators to monitor tasks. Indicators promise to reveal not just when actions are insufficient but also when one action is impeding another. The public release of updates is another tool to be used for control. By revealing the extent to which different agencies and committees are doing what they were supposed to have done, outside pressure from interested groups can be mobilized to improve implementation. As well, the

166  Robert A. Beauregard and Laura Lieto updates provide elected officials with evidence to assess the performance of PlaNYC and the OLTPS, thereby assuring accountability. Third, the planners in New York City were not satisfied with any change; they would have been quite troubled, for example, if the level of greenhouse gas emissions increased. Greater reliance on mass transit is good; greater automobile usage is bad. An increase in the tree canopy over the city is desirable; an expansion of non-permeable and heat-absorbing surfaces is not. Preservation and expansion of wetlands is appropriate; high-density development on flood-prone land is inappropriate. When it comes to change, planners discriminate. Goals and objectives represent desirable consequences and undesirable consequences appear in the plan only as warnings, as when PlaNYC pointed out what might happen if the city adopted the no-action alternative. Here is where Hurricane Sandy is important. It reinforced publicly and evocatively the undesirable conditions and events that might occur if the city did not act. After Hurricane Sandy, the city government looked prescient and climate change planning became even more justifiable. What is not displayed in PlaNYC are the goals, objectives, tasks and performance indicators that were rejected because they were infeasible given political and financial constraints or because they were unlikely to produce desirable outcomes. For example, the OLTPS did not propose building more limited-access highways into Manhattan. Doing so would only contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. The publication of updates to the performance indicators further suppresses any sense that different goals and different tasks could have been selected. Alternatives absent from the plan are thus coded as ineffectual or infeasible (Marcuse, 2010). In short, planners are unwilling to allow change to occur naturally, particularly when it involves ostensibly ‘natural’ processes that have damaging human consequences. They are neither contented nor fatalistic. Rather, they embody a sense of efficacy and want change to be both anticipated and guided.9 Only in this way, planners believe, can they be effective. To plan is to imagine how the world should be and then to proceed collectively to realize it. The function of planning is to produce desirable consequences intentionally. It is not in the repertoire of planners to act spontaneously, absent prior thought, or without considering the likely consequences of their actions. How might actor network theorists respond to this way of thinking about change? Is Actor Network Theory compatible with planning’s commitment to intentionality, coordination and prescription?

Actor network change The way in which change is conceived within ANT differs from the understanding widely embraced by planners. Intentions are considered separate from the consequences of actions and unimportant, while coordination

Does ANT help to think about change? 167 is less a valued practice than a rhetorical device for holding assemblages together. The greatest discrepancy, however, involves prescription, a posture almost wholly absent among actor network theorists. More broadly, and unlike planners, actor network theorists are primarily interested in stability rather than change. For them, the important question is not how to make the world better but how things in the world – ideas, practices, organizations, philosophies – become settled. Actor network theorists operate on the premise that change is ubiquitous and relentless. Things that are assembled (whether plans, business firms, intellectual traditions, ecological systems or electrical utilities) can never escape the forces of decomposition. They are always changing. What is stable is not an explanation for other actions and conditions. Rather, what is stable is what needs to be explained (Latour, 2005a: 10; Law, 2009). Actor network theorists, then, are intrigued by how assemblages of humans and non-human things endure for greater or lesser periods of time.10 The mystery is stability. Importantly, stabilization is what enables assemblages to withstand trials of strength, whether the debunking of ideas, the entry of competitors into the firm’s market, or attacks on governments by dissident groups. Strength is conferred when actors gather and become increasingly committed to a network that serves their interests. Such associations include the delegation of actions and responsibilities to non-human things as when written ‘minutes’ are used to store the decisions made at meetings (Vanhellemont and Vicari, 2016). The resultant stabilization makes it impossible for things to ‘return to their original state’ (Latour, 1988: 160; Law and Bijker, 1992). Things thus become incontrovertible and real. Because ‘permanence costs too much [to maintain] and requires too many allies’ (Latour, 1988: 165), however, stabilization is always local and temporary. The incessant search by human and non-human actors for more rewarding relationships erodes the ties that hold networks together. New opportunities arise and actors change their allegiances. Reassociation and reassembling are constants (Latour, 2005a: 7) with change weakening some assemblages and strengthening others. The world is a never-ending ‘chain of transformations’ (Latour, 1999: 7). In making this argument, actor network theorists reintroduce change as essential for understanding the world. Stability and change are locked in controversies, ‘the task of defining and ordering the social’ (Latour, 2005a: 23; see also Venturini, 2010). Nevertheless, the theory’s focus is on stability. In contrast, planners are unabashed reformers and committed to change. Yet, planners want the consequences that they have produced to endure. Planners want a world stabilized around energy-efficient buildings, wetland preservation, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions and urban resilience. Nevertheless, in their public pronouncements, they accentuate change just as actor network theorists privilege stability. Stability, however, is never far from planners’ core concerns, just as change infuses all

168  Robert A. Beauregard and Laura Lieto discussions of assemblages. What, though, about intention, coordination and prescription? Do we find differences in emphases or irreconcilable differences? As regards intentions, actor network theorists embrace a simple methodological rule – follow the actors (Latour, 2005a: 237). Their primary concern is the interactions among actors, with an actor defined as anything that elicits a response within a network (Latour 2005a: 63–78; 1992).11 What matters are actions, their consequences, and the extent to which those consequences reverberate through the assemblage and produce stability. Effects are important because that is how actions are acknowledged. Consequently, motivations and intentions, the psychological states of actors, are of little theoretical interest (Latour, 1992: 353; Law, 2009: 148). Actor network theorists have other reasons for discounting intentions. To begin, the theory distributes agency across multiple actors; action is ‘always dislocated, articulated, delegated, translated’ (Latour, 2005a: 166). Action exists only through interaction and association and its origins are uncertain (Latour, 2005a: 46). An intention, however, is based on a self-validating mind intending to act, whether that mind is individual or collective (Bratman, 1984). But such a ‘distinctive state of mind’ (ibid.:  379)  dissolves when actions and intentions are dislocated. To talk about the intentions of distinct actors precludes the very notion of a network. Consequently, ‘planners are not so much intervening as drawn into associations which are then the cause of change’ (Rydin, 2014: 591). Additionally, intentions and consequences are problematically related. Given the distributed nature of action and the unpredictable responses of other actors, it is wishful thinking to assume that the two are or can be tightly linked. Moreover, within Actor Network Theory, action is ‘not about mastery’ (Latour, 1999: 281) but that is precisely what intention attempts to achieve. Rather, consequences overtake both action and its intentions. We are constantly surprised by how actors respond to what we did or said and are thus forced to rethink what we have done. Last, to the extent that intention is considered mainly a quality of humans or, at least, a difficult quality to attribute to non-human actors, it challenges a fundamental tenet of ANT: the erasure of the divide between culture and nature that Latour and others, from their post-humanist stance, embrace (Lieto and Beauregard, 2013). To focus on intentions is to suggest that what matters is what humans want, thus ignoring non-human actors. Privileging humans directs our attention away from the material world and the missing masses (Latour, 1992) without which (human) action would be impossible. Intention creates two worlds, one of humans and the other of non-humans. For actor network theorists, however, there is only one world. Their concern is the effects that emanate from action, regardless of whether it was intentional or instituted by humans. If you want to understand stability and change, follow what actors do and the responses they engender, do not ask about their intentions.

Does ANT help to think about change? 169 Actor network theorists are also disinterested in coordination, the second dimension of planned change. Coordination requires that all actions be made mutually supportive and that actors subjugate themselves to a goal that transcends them. Actor network theorists, however, look upon a world that is dynamically complex, even chaotic, with none of the qualities that would make it susceptible to coherence and consensus. They view stability as transitory whereas coordination, by attempting to suppress conflicts, aims to make stability permanent. It is precisely the incommensurability between the interests of different actors that makes stability so important. That said, coordination can be an ideological resource and its imposition an expression of power that has effects. Seen in this way, it becomes important for understanding assemblages and how they ‘hang together’ (Mol, 2010: 265). When actors push for coordination, hoping to convince others that their interests will be served, this is a tool for building and stabilizing an assemblage. The emphasis within ANT, however, remains on the contingency of action, not contingency’s erasure as occurs with coordination. Its focus is the ‘detours, translations, the enfolding of all courses of action into more and more complicated… technological arrangements’ (Latour, 2013: 294). Because coordination almost always requires a concentration of power and control, it also sits uncomfortably within the flat ontology of ANT (Latour, 2005a:  171). Actor network theorists are opposed to privileging any one actor. For example, they do not search for concentrations of power that will determine in advance which actor is going to successfully control the assemblage. Rather, power is assumed to be relational, diffused and a consequence rather than a cause. It does not precede actions or engender responses by itself. Indubitably, some actors are more influential (i.e., generate more responses from more actors) than others, but this is a function of what they do. With power and control absent as key concepts, coordination itself disappears. Further hindering the incorporation of coordination into ANT is the defining of all action as distributed. Action and its effects (including power) are the consequences of successive interactions or translations in which things, knowledge and action are passed ‘from hand to hand’ (Law, 2003, 1986). Coordination requires that actors and actions be distinct entities prior to entering performative relationships. Once action is distributed, however, coordination loses its relevance (Law, 2003). No singular actors (or actions) exist, but rather fluid formations lacking clear boundaries. The ‘what’ that is being coordinated becomes less and less recognizable. To quote Law (2009: 155): ‘As an act of political will [coordination] can never, by itself, overturn the endless and partially connected webs that enact the real.’ Where ANT and planning are most at odds is around the issue of prescription (Mäntysalo et al., 2016). The injunction to ‘follow the actors’ is meant to guard against preconceptions and preclude judgements of the value of what actors do. As Latour (2005a:  23)  has written:  ‘The task of defining

170  Robert A. Beauregard and Laura Lieto and ordering the social should be left to the actors themselves.’ The intent of ANT is to understand how assemblages become stable and endure, not to scan the world for undesirable conditions or actions to advance human progress. An assemblage might enable a disease to be eradicated, a demagogue to remain in power or a species to be eliminated, but judging them as moral or ethical is not part of ANT. Neither should the theorist take a position on whether it is good or bad that an assemblage remains stable. ANT is not a normative methodology. In contrast, planning is nothing if not a norm-based practice. Yet, Latour and others have acknowledged the need for theorists to recognize the politics of assemblages and thus the importance of choices regarding what is and what is not desirable and appropriate. The most explicit statement along these lines comes from Latour’s (2004) well-known article on matters of fact and matters of concern. In this piece, Latour laments that critical theorists have furnished conservative groups with a way of thinking that empowers them to claim that scientific evidence is socially constructed and thus deniable. These groups can then discount the effects of smoking on the incidence of cancer, dismiss climate change or deny evolution. In response, Latour distinguishes between matters of fact and matters of concern, with the latter melding facts and values. Implicit is that we cannot avoid prescription when it comes to political engagement. More generally, the political writings of actor network theorists often incorporate a pragmatist philosophy that favours inclusiveness and consensus, thereby suggesting the operation of values (Latour, 2007, 2005b). Fixated on relationships, these theorists have a worldview that encourages actors to engage widely and to arrive at decisions through discussing their experiences together. In addition, ANT’s flat ontology, as Fuller (2000: 23) has noted, points to another political and thus normative dimension; to wit: the elimination of the ‘Other’. Fuller claims that ANT has no strong antagonisms, no irreconcilable clash between capital and labour, for example. Rather, politics is a field of distributed power. Without political frontiers (Laclau and Mouffe, 2014), it is consensual rather than agonistic. Law (2009: 154) notes that actor network stories are not innocent but rather ‘enact realities and versions of the better and the worst, the right and the wrong, the appealing and the unappealing’. Prescription lurks beneath the surface. In many ways, the understanding of change embedded in ANT, then, is incompatible with that embraced by planners. Actor network theorists are mainly concerned with stability; with how networks or assemblages are constituted and reality (albeit temporarily) established. Planners are reformist and change is what motivates them. Yet, actor network theorists acknowledge that assemblages are inherently unstable and, unsurprisingly, planners want the changes that they have brought about to endure. What they do not want is stability constituted as a status quo: stagnant and opposed to beneficial social and environmental alterations (Secchi, 1984). In addition,

Does ANT help to think about change? 171 neither intention nor coordination is given much attention in ANT whereas, for planners, they are the whole point of what they do. Intention and coordination matter only to the extent that they are rhetorical devices for associating with others. For planners, labelling them rhetorical is an affront. Lastly, actor network theorists are intent on being descriptive and non-judgemental; i.e., on following the actors but not judging their actions (Latour, 2005a: 68; Law, 2009: 141), whereas the whole point of an ameliorative and reformist planning is to discriminate between change that is beneficial and change that is not. Yet, when actor network theorists reflect on politics, they do not avoid prescription. These perspectives on change – that from planning and that from ANT – are dissimilar but not wholly irreconcilable. On one particular point, however, that having to do with prescription, their differences seem at war. Although ANT enables planners to understand change, it offers little guidance for initiating and evaluating it.

Conclusion Intrinsic to planning is the belief that the world can be made better (Friedmann, 1987: 87–136). The core task for planners is to evaluate current conditions and propose actions that eliminate or ameliorate those that are deemed undesirable. Visions have to be formed and goals collectively set, thereby making planning both deeply intentional and prescriptive. Consequently, change cannot simply be allowed to happen. It has to occur through purposive interventions and be guided (i.e., coordinated) by an informed sense of action’s consequences. Planners want to make a difference, but not any difference. ANT is not a theory of action; it cannot advise planners on how to produce the consequences they desire. Yet, this is precisely what planners need. Consequently, ANT is not much use to planners in this regard. It cannot answer one of their key questions: how can we act to bring about the changes that we deem appropriate? This is not a reason to dismiss ANT from the world of planning, however. No theory is brought into planning fully compatible with prevailing ideas or fully suited for immediate application (Lieto, 2015). Ideas and practices have to be adapted and this means discarding some of what is being offered and transforming that which seems promising. Rydin’s warning that ANT might be irrelevant for many planning questions implicitly acknowledges that it might be relevant for others. This volume and that by Lieto and Beauregard (2016) attest to this possibility. ANT offers insights into the formation of assemblages (Beauregard, 2012), notes how humans delegate tasks and responsibilities to non-human things, rejects a divide between formality and informality (Lieto and Beauregard, 2013) and recognizes the profound materiality of the world. Although ANT is incompatible with the dominant way in which planners conceive of change, it is nonetheless a

172  Robert A. Beauregard and Laura Lieto powerful tool for tracing the effects of action – a concern central to what it means to plan.

Notes 1 ANT, however, embraces the relational role of things and human action while communicative action focuses solely on discursive relations among humans. Harrison (2014) claims that ANT is realist and communicative action is anti-realist. 2 Rosan (2012:  963)  claims that New  York City produced one of the ‘leading urban sustainability plans in the United States’. 3 www.nyc.gov/html/sustainability/climate-change/shtml. 4 NY NYC Law §20:  NY Code, Section 20:  Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. The office’s website is www.nyc.gov/html/oltp. 5 This has not been a priority. Shepard et al. (2008: 71) comment: ‘PlaNYC was never envisioned as a broad-based planning process that engaged area residents.’ In fact, many critics (Angotti, 2010; Marcuse, 2010) view PlaNYC as another example of top-down planning. 6 www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/climate_resilience/index.shtml. 7 Note that having intentions is not the same as giving reasons for (i.e., justifying) one’s action (Bratman, 2009: 416–417). 8 What was not politically debated were the goals and objectives (Angotti, 2010). 9 Planners, of course, also experience unintended and unanticipated change. 10 This particular orientation to change and stability reflects the theory’s origins in the study of laboratory science (Latour and Woolgar, 1986). 11 Actor network theorists use the term ‘actant’ (instead of ‘actor’) in order to sever the discursive association between actors and humans. Appardurai (2015) replaces ‘actants’ with ‘mediants’.

References Angotti, T. (2010) Commentary: PlaNYC at three: time to include the neighborhoods. Gotham Gazette, 12 April. Appardurai, A. (2015) Mediants, materiality, normativity. Public Culture, 27(2): 221–237. Beauregard, R.A. (2012) In search of assemblages. Crios, 4: 9–16. Beauregard, R.A. (2015) Planning Matter: Acting with Things. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Bratman, M. (1984) Two faces of intention. The Philosophical Review, 63(3): 375–405. Bratman, M. (2009) Intention, practical rationality, and self-governance. Ethics, 119(3): 411–433. Bulkeley, H. (2010) Cities and the governing of climate change. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 35: 229–253. Feuer, A. (2014) Building for the next big storm. The New York Times, 26 October. Ford, K. (2010) The Trouble with City Planning. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Friedmann, J. (1987) Planning in the Public Domain. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Fuller, S. (2000) Why science studies has never been critical of science. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 30(1): 5–32.

Does ANT help to think about change? 173 Gualini, E. (2015) Conflict in the city: democratic, emancipatory – and transfor­ mative? In E. Gualini (ed.), Planning and Conflict. New York: Routledge, pp. 3–36. Harrison, P. (2014) Making planning theory real. Planning Theory, 13(1): 165–181. Healey, P. (2009) The pragmatic turn in planning thought. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 28: 277–292. Laclau, E. and C. Mouffe (2014) Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. London: Verso. Latour, B. (1988) The Pasteurization of France. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (1992) Where are the missing masses? The sociology of a few mundane artifacts. In W.E. Bijker and J. Law (eds.), Shaping Technology/Building Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 225–258. Latour, B. (1999) Pandora’s Hope. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (2004) Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern. Critical Inquiry, 30: 225–248. Latour, B. (2005a) Reassembling the Social. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Latour, B. (2005b) From realpolitik to dingpolitik or how to make things public. In B. Latour and P. Weibel (eds.), Making Things Public/Atmospheres of Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 14–41. Latour, B. (2007) Turning around politics: a note on Gerard de Vries’s paper. Social Studies of Science, 37(5): 811–820. Latour, B. (2013) Biography of an inquiry: on a book about modes of existence. Social Studies of Science, 43(2): 287–301. Latour, B. and Woolgar, S. (1986) Laboratory Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Law, J. (1986) Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestification of the scallops and the fishermen of St. Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (ed.), Power, Action and Belief. London: Routledge, pp. 196–223. Law, J. (2003) Traduction/Trahison: Notes on ANT, www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/ sociology/papers/Law-Traduction-Trahison.pdf. Law, J. (2009) Actor Network Theory and material semiotics. In B.S. Turner (ed.), The New Blackwell Companion to Social Theory. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 141–158. Law, J. and W.E. Bijker (1992) Postscript: technology, stability, and social theory. In W.E. Bijker and J. Law (eds.), Shaping Technology/Building Society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 290–308. Lieto, L. (2015) Cross-border mythologies: the problem with traveling planning ideas. Planning Theory, 14(2): 115–129. Lieto, L. and R. Beauregard (2013) Planning for a material world. Crios, 6: 11–20. Lieto, L. and R. Beauregard (eds.) (2016) Planning for a Material World. London: Routledge. Mäntysalo, R., I. Akkila and A. Balducci (2016) Normative planning research in a material world? Trading zones and assemblages. In L. Lieto and R.A. Beauregard (eds.), Planning for a Material World. London: Routledge, pp. 132–146. Marcuse, P. (2010) Commentary: PlaNYC is not a ‘plan’ and it is not for ‘NYC’. Gotham Gazette, 12 April. Mol, A. (2010) Actor network theory: sensitive terms and enduring tensions. Kolner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 50(1): 253–269.

174  Robert A. Beauregard and Laura Lieto Neuman, M. (1998) Does planning need the plan? Journal of the American Planning Association, 64(2): 208–220. OLTPS (2007) PlaNYC: A Greener, Greater New York. New York: City of New York, Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. OLTPS (2014) Progress Report 2014. New York: City of New York, Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability. Office of the Mayor (2014a) De Blasio administration releases PlaNYC progress report, highlighting major accomplishments on sustainability and resiliency efforts. Press Release, 22 April. Office of the Mayor (2014b) Mayor de Blasio marks second anniversary of Sandy, announces major progress on city’s recovery and resiliency work. Press release, 29 October. Rosan, C.D. (2012) Can PlaNYC make New York City ‘greener and greater’ for everyone? Sustainability planning and the promise of environmental justice. Local Environment, 17(9): 959–976. Rosenzweig, C., W. Solecki, S.A. Hammer and S. Mehrotra (2010) Cities lead the way in climate-change action. Nature, 467: 909–911. Rydin, Y. (2010) Actor-Network Theory and planning theory: a response to Boelens. Planning Theory, 9(3): 265–268. Rydin, Y. (2012) Using Actor-Network Theory to understand planning practice: exploring relationships between actants in regulating low-carbon commercial development. Planning Theory, 12(1): 23–45. Rydin, Y. (2014) The challenges of the ‘material turn’ for planning studies. Planning Theory & Practice, 15(4): 590–595. Secchi, B. (1984) Il Racconto Urbanistico. Milan: Einaudi. Shepard, P., S. Tyree and C. Corbin-Mark (2008) PlaNYC: EJ group takes the inside track to sustainability. Race, Poverty & Environment, 15(1): 70–72. Steinberg, T. (2014) Hurricane Sandy was New York’s ‘self-inflicted calamity’, Discover Magazine, May. Tate, L. (2013) Growth-management implementation in Metropolitan Vancouver: lessons from Actor-Network Theory. Environment and Planning B, 40(5): 783–800. Vanhellemont, L. and S. Vicari (2016) Minutiae: meeting minutes as actors in participatory planning processes. In L. Lieto and R. Beauregard (eds.), Planning for a Material World. London: Routledge, pp. 102–120. Venturini, T. (2010) Diving in magma: how to explore controversies with actor-network theory. Public Understanding of Science, 19(3): 258–273. Webber, M.M. (1963) Comprehensive planning and social responsibility. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 29(4): 232–241. Wheeler, S.M. (2008) State and municipal climate change plans. Journal of the American Planning Association, 74(4): 481–496.

11 ‘Emergent places’ Innovative practices in Zurich, Switzerland Joris Van Wezemael and Jan Silberberger

Introduction In Switzerland  – as in many other places in Europe  – the excessive use of land in the course of urban sprawling has been addressed sharply in recent years. Reforms driven by the government as well as bottom-up initiatives have both produced a clear tightening of planning regulation. In fact, in cantons such as Zurich, building on cultivated land has been prohibited  – therefore the densification of settlements becomes the focus of urban development. We thus address one of the main resulting challenges:  developing contemporary urban areas towards more living quality, spatial justice and environmental sustainability. We believe that successfully doing so largely depends on the coupling of heterogeneous planes such as economy, town planning, policies, politics, architecture or infrastructure. In this context, we will explore the fuzzy zone between real estate and neighbourhood development. We will do so by examining a current redevelopment project of a large Swiss real estate investment foundation, which invests in valuable real estate. We will mobilize key Actor Network Theory (ANT) concepts as well as some ideas from complexity thinking in order to trace processes and to map out emergent practices in contemporary planning and inner urban development. Besides a number of rather conceptual insights, we will focus on important processes in the course of urban development, in which the planner or the local municipality  – and thus the ‘usual suspects’ in most planning stories – only play a minor role. We will argue that this should be understood as one aspect of contemporary urban development. Planning studies therefore might have to broaden their focus. In the first section we will refer to Michel Callon’s already ‘classical’ concept of translation. This shared background in (planning) theory will allow us to highlight some interesting points of departure. In order to be able to elaborate on these points on the basis of some ideas from complexity thinking, the latter will be sketched out briefly. Our second section presents the case study, followed by the analysis and some concluding thoughts.

176  Joris Van Wezemael and Jan Silberberger

ANT and complexity in/for planning In our analysis we will mobilize the now ‘classical’ concept of translation as developed by Callon. Callon (1986) defined four moments of translation: problematization, interessement, enrolment and mobilization. Within these moments a primum movens (a main actor) stipulates and defines relevant actors’ identities, potential interactions and the sphere of influence/ scope of manoeuvre. In the following, we will give a brief explanation of these moments. Problematization, the first moment of translation, concerns the question of ‘how to become indispensable’ (Callon 1986: 204). In simple terms this means that an actor – the primum movens – defines a problem in a way that shows that they offer the solution for the problem to all other entities that are concerned. They ‘establish themselves as an obligatory passage point’ (ibid.:  204)  for all others. One could say that they try to force the other actors into a relationship and into accepting the primum movens’ prominent role within this network of relations. Interessement, the second moment of translation, refers to the question of how the other actors concerned are ‘locked into place’ (ibid.:  207). Hence, interessement can be described as the phase where the stability of the established relations is tested. Attempts to win other entities over by detaching them from rivalling actors (outside entities that try to involve the target entities into their enterprises) appertain to this phase. Enrolment, the third moment of translation, concerns the definition, coordination and acceptance of roles, the establishment of alliances. Enrolment describes successful interessement: The primum movens has been able to convince the envisaged actors to accept the roles that had been designated to them; they become allies. Finally, mobilization, the fourth moment of translation, describes the various actions or displacements that have been necessary for the main actor (the primum movens) to become accepted as a representative, a spokesperson for the other entities. Here Callon’s two different understandings of translation (ibid.: 222) become clear: displacement (a change of location, a passing by the primum movens) and expressing in one’s own words what others say (establishing oneself as spokesperson). In our analysis, we will link this theoretical approach to Deleuzian-inspired complexity theory concepts as introduced by DeLanda (2002, 2006), Law and Urry (2004) or Healey (2006). Studies on the basis of complexity theory focus on processes, the dynamics of non-equilibrium, on multiple futures, historical path dependency and intrinsic uncertainty. Complex adaptive systems are described by interaction, non-linearity, instability, self-organization and unpredictability. Here, a given cause or event generates a potential, which still has to be transformed into possibilities by means of generative processes (DeLanda, 2002). In other words, complexity thinking asks less what a thing is, but how it has come into being and what it can do. It identifies complex and dynamic phenomena (such as urban areas) as intertwined systems with human, material and expressive components. Key concepts of

‘Emergent places’ 177 complexity thinking are emergence, that is, effects generated by the intertwining of physical, mental and relational networks – each with their own temporality, scale and reach (Amin, 2002; Healey, 2006) as well as emergence as a form of self-organization that refers to the spontaneous generation of structures on the basis of changing relations and the co-evolution of component parts (DeLanda, 2006); uncertainty that can be coped with by highlighting the active and interactive role of planners; phase transitions, which mark qualitative changes and may occur abruptly when passing sort of a threshold (Durlauf, 2005); and non-linearity, meaning that cause and effect are not proportionally related (Law and Urry, 2004).

The quest for urban quality: a residential area in the airport region of Zurich The case we are discussing in this chapter concerns a residential neighbourhood adjacent to the airport in the heart of the Zurich metropolitan area in Switzerland. The quarter we are focusing on depicts a kind of an island. It is bounded by a highly frequented distributor road in the west; a no-building strip of land in the north (reserved for a traffic infrastructure project that, however, was never realized); a protected agricultural area in the east; and an approach corridor for the airport in the south. Most of the building stock of 714 apartments originates from the ‘boom’ years of economic development throughout the late 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. There are about 1,500 residents in the area, who suffer from noise pollution as caused by landing planes; however, the above-mentioned distributor road seems to be an even greater source of noise, and it is also a notorious place of heavy littering. The municipality implemented planning regulations (zoning) only after the residential area had been built, turning nearly every unit into an illegal building. This situation was made worse by noise regulation (in regard to aircraft noise). The result was that more than 30 homeowners lost legal sound protection, which severely hinders the renewal, development or redevelopment of the area. In combination with rather low rents (resulting from tenancy law), a growing demolition of the existing stock and occasional visitation of groups of drug addicts looking for a quiet place to indulge in their habit, a vicious downward cycle had been on the verge of occurring. This was the situation in which an investment foundation – with about 200 apartments by far the largest real estate investor in the area – found itself a couple of years ago. The foundation became an owner in the area in the aftermath of an ‘investment in kind’ in 2002. At the time, most of the apartments were rented out room-by-room to airport and airline staff. With a decline in the demand for single rooms, and because the administration was too excessive for the new owner, the room-by-room renting model was given up and the whole apartments were rented on the regular housing market. Four years later, in 2006, the management of the investment foundation

178  Joris Van Wezemael and Jan Silberberger decided to follow up on a novel trend in order to stabilize the area as they internally refurbished three houses with about 50 apartments and promoted them as housing for the elderly. Besides some rather minor measures in the flats, they offered a recreation room, a small gym as well as one special bathtub (shared infrastructure) for people with impaired mobility. The strategy, however, did not work out, because no services were offered and there was no specific integration of the real estate product into the ‘social’ structure of the neighbourhood whatsoever. This resulted in the opposite of the targeted goal: a substantial part of the apartments stood empty and the impact on the neighbourhood as a whole was rather negative. In 2012, however, new staff in the management of the investment foundation decided to tackle the various problems not by means of physically refurbishing, but rather by generating novel alliances across various social, political and economic fields in order to set up novel relationships that may generate emergent properties. As a first move the manager of the investment foundation invited to a meeting the local representative of the Spitex1 and the director of the main care home in the municipality, along with the municipal commissioner on aging, the responsible person from the property management firm, as well as a student (to document and analyse the process that should be set up) and an expert for housing for the elderly. He did so without defining an agenda, which led to quite some confusion among the invited. After repeated efforts, people finally gathered in the recreation room that was built on top of the housing units for elderly people. The manager then defined a set of questions for all participants to answer. These questions revolved around two main topics: first, what relates us to each other and what relates us to this place? Second, which relations could we have among each other and how could we relate to this place? What followed was an inspired discussion that was fuelled by the quest for role definitions, but also various forms of problem-seeking. It turned out that the municipal commissioner on aging is often approached (usually by family members of elderly people) and told that a person who, for instance, had to go to hospital due to a femoral neck fracture, is not able to return to his or her flat due to the fact that the apartment is not suitable for people with walking disability. Against the background of the discriminatory tendencies on the housing market towards the elderly, this is both a vital question with biographical impacts and also a financial one for the municipality as well as the person concerned and their families. However, it also constitutes a robust demand for housing (which is often forgotten). The responsible person from real estate management services asked the commissioner on aging to introduce these elderly persons, and he offered his support when people needed assistance or consultancy, or to check typical cases (such as the rent of one month being paid three times but previous and later bills being unpaid). The caretaker refined his self-image and began to view his ‘helping hand’ (when fixing small stuff in the apartments, carrying shopping bags, changing light bulbs or having a chat with people) not as a waste of time or as a distraction

‘Emergent places’ 179 from his ‘job’ but as necessary, valuable and legitimate action with regard to a novel ‘framework’. The property manager became a broker of social relations and thus started to go beyond the management of the buildings and the contracts, acting on a much wider relational context with the ‘novel’ actors. Similar thoughts, processes and shifting roles evolved between all actors. One of the main results was a most basic commitment that an association for promoting voluntary work should be initiated. The effects of the roundtable – which was followed by interviews by the student who talked to all of the invited actors, causing them to reflect once more about their positioning in various networks and their relation to the very place – were rather strong. The already mentioned relation between the commissioner on age and the property management solidified: the commissioner continuously arranges for elderly people that search for accommodation, which results in a vacancy rate of zero, and the property manager points out people to the commissioner that are in need of municipal support, thereby enhancing his profile. The property manager became a sort of knowledge-broker for the municipality and in exchange receives assistance and tenants. Furthermore, Spitex now uses the established infrastructure to fill part of the ‘gap’ in the product ‘housing for the elderly’: previously there were no services installed, planned or funded. This in turn strengthens the site. Moreover, the neighbourhood, as well as this specific investor, appeared on the map of various policy fields, including care, spatial planning, neighbourhood development and housing. The expert in the field of housing for the elderly started to work as a multiplier, referring to the actors, objects and places in discussions, publications and consultancy work. The place and the actors started to play a novel role on various spatial scales and in varying (discursive) ‘arenas’. Some months later, the association for promoting voluntary work (‘Verein zur Förderung der Freiwilligenarbeit’) was founded and chose the airport neighbourhood as their first project. The owner/investor had been planning for an amelioration of an open space, which included the transformation of a parking lot into a green area with a pétanque field and further amenities. There was an inauguration party to which all tenants were invited, but also people from the wider neighbourhood. The private project developed public qualities as the novel place was staged as a shared and open area for public and private use. At the same time, the inauguration party was used in order to set up contacts between the elderly and the staff from the association. This happened on a personal and thoroughly informal level in order to keep thresholds low. In the following months, the association started its activities to support people in their everyday coping. Besides the direct effects that have been mentioned above, there was a fundamental change with regard to the way the municipality and the investor started to interact  – both with regard to the discussed place and to other locations and assets of the private owner in the municipality. The

180  Joris Van Wezemael and Jan Silberberger shifted and floating identities allowed them to become sparring partners and share ideas – sometimes loosely or not at all connected to actual problems or opportunities  – in informal but regular meetings. In accordance with these new relations, there was a shift and a substantial broadening of topics, which increasingly integrated issues of other departments, namely of the department of town planning. With the latter, there was a joint elaboration of an overarching vision concerning the future development of the site. And, eventually, first steps in the direction of a partial physical redevelopment and urban improvement come to view only recently. That, however, would be another paper yet to be written. It seems important to state that the relations that were initiated at the meeting proved rather stable, but also dynamic. The director of the care home turned out to play an additional role in the municipal administration:  he became head of the department for age and health. In this role, he played a major part in the interaction with the investment foundation after a few months. Also, the director became a member of the board of the new voluntary work association, which was initiated on the basis of experiences of the local community. One could say the latter constitutes a catalyst, because the group that wanted to establish such an association for a long time is now enabled to depict what it is all about, whom the work serves and what project could be a pilot. The establishment of the association has been followed by a large amount of interactions. For instance, the director of the care home acts in terms of the ‘strength of weak ties’ as a mediator of confidence within the administration, which reinforces substantially the planning department’s willingness to negotiate with the investment foundation about the development of the estate. Additionally, the investment manager played several roles, as he also works as an author and commentator in the field of planning and housing – therefore there were a couple of meetings where the roles of the persons shifted time and again, allowing for a wide scope of issues to tackle, but also for an evolutionary adaptation of the roles to play and modes of communication to choose.

Analysis of the case presented The situation observed seems to be almost a perfect case for applying Callon’s (1986) translation concept. We can identify the roundtable meeting as ‘obligatory passage point’ (ibid.). The investment manager invites the relevant actors to take part in order to explore their identities. But it is not himself who defines these identities, rather he enables the actors to interact and develop their identities themselves, mutually, in an ongoing and recursive process. This is a significant deviation from what Callon described, insofar as while Callon’s primum movens is sort of a puppeteer that directs all relevant actors, assigns roles and tries to have things firmly under control, in our case the manager of the investment

‘Emergent places’ 181 foundation slackens the reins. The subscription to novel roles emerged in a rhizomatic way rather than by an active ‘enrolment’ in terms of Callon (ibid.). Also, the primum movens in our case did not try to ‘capture’ one distinct solution – as he would not (yet) know which this could be. He set out in order to fertilize the fields from which novelties may or may not emerge. However, with a hint to Louis Pasteur’s famous quote that ‘chance favours the prepared mind’, the manager put himself in exactly such a position. With this strategy, the investment manager accounted for complexity: he seems to be aware of the intrinsic uncertainty of the complex system within which he acts and of its unpredictability. Instead of trying to achieve a certain imagined solution, he counts on the emergent potential of self-organization of the actors. He therefore ‘forced’ every actor through the point of passage (the roundtable meeting) – but instead of assigning roles to them, he triggered processes in which people were encouraged to explore possible relational roles for themselves (with regard to other actors, but also to places and institutional settings), and where roles were and still are stepwise being mobilized and stabilized in mutual interaction in a wider group. This will possibly lead to more openness, but also to more robustness of the emerging setting because the roles are not assigned once and for all (putting the arrangement at risk when a role ‘fails’ or simply changes). Rather, the actors can engage in different roles or play various roles at one time. A good example is the director of the care home who can also play a role as municipal representative. On the basis of these changing roles and relations, a specific and also surprising mode of collaboration has been generated – on what we would call a virtual plane. Therefore, the potential of the ‘collective actor’ could not be known in advance, but one can clearly experiment with manifold relations in a given situation in order to trigger novelty and change in its lines of becoming. In the beginning, the actors did not know each other well and were even less interconnected. The representatives of the local municipality did not play any part in the story at all; hence, according to Latour (2005), they were not an actor because you could ‘remove’ them without changing the course of action. After the roundtable meeting, a significant change occurred. Before, the actors’ compartmentalization narrowed down their perception. For instance, the care home manager did not think of potential roles to play in the private estates, the Spitex never viewed the airport neighbourhood and the very estates as a (spatial) resource, the property manager did not recognize societal needs such as those taken care of by the commissioner of old age as an important source of knowledge and a market channel. Furthermore, the previous lack of mutual appreciation or even disregard prevented new coalitions, as, for instance, between infrastructure and services or private ownership and public interest. In complexity terms, the roundtable meeting can therefore also be seen as a phase transition; the relations not only changed in quantity but also in quality.

182  Joris Van Wezemael and Jan Silberberger In Callon’s translation model the primum movens aims at becoming the sole spokesperson for all actors. He plays a central role. Interconnections between the other actors are not taken into account. In our case, the investment manager provokes interconnections between the other actors. Nevertheless he manages to assume the central role, to be the master of the situation. On the one hand, in his capacity as member of the professional and public discourse, he plays the role of a spokesperson. On the other hand, the student’s following up on the roundtable meeting made all actors become aware that their concerns and thoughts were traced, observed and reflected upon by the investment manager. In this way the roundtable, that is, the gathering was prolonged. The one-time event continued, so-to-speak. The actors perpetually referred to the roundtable meeting and the investment manager in their following acts and communication with others. The investment manager established an important position for himself and the company he works for: suddenly he takes part in different discourses in the community. The effect of the roundtable – the discussions, interconnections and formations of alliances among actors – is carried further, beyond the initially confined space and framing of the development of the local quarter.

Combining ANT and assemblage theory As the interested reader has noticed, we started out describing the case we studied by applying Callon’s (1986) moments of translation. Yet, during the analysis and especially for the presentation of our findings, we increasingly tended towards assemblage theory. Why is that? First of all Callon (ibid.) describes a process where a main actor (three researchers) interacts with three other entities (scallops, fishermen and the science community), but does not take into account the possible entanglements of the latter. We claim that this – still – is a rather linear perspective. The primum movens forces every entity separately through the obligatory passage point; interessement and enrolment take place with every actor separately. One could say the obligatory passage point is nothing but a summing up of every single translation process and that interaction between the entities that are part of each separated, single translation process is neglected. Such a perspective is obviously insufficient for describing what we have observed. Of course, we cannot blame Callon for this insufficiency, as he only described what he observed (and the three researchers he observed – sticking to a linear perspective regarding their objects of study – simply ignored possible interactions between fishermen and scallops). Callon never claimed to do anything else (or more) than tracing as precisely as possible the reshaping of the identity of the three marine biologists, their fellow scientists, the involved fishermen and scallops, their interplay as steered by the marine biologists and the margins of manoeuvre as regards the definition of the identities of the involved entities throughout the (failed) restock of

‘Emergent places’ 183 Saint-Brieuc Bay. Callon clearly never claimed to have elaborated something as, for instance, a general model for lobbying or the like. The four moments of translation he defined are closely linked to the rather linear conduct of the three marine biologists. Although one might argue that his account can be read as a proof for the inadequacy of a linear conduct for a complex setting. In contrast to the three marine biologists Callon followed, the pension fund manager described in our study considers himself to be part of a complex system. While for the rather linear behaviour of the marine biologists a rather linear description may be adequate, the non-linear approach of our manager needs an expanded concept. In Callon’s case, the three researchers establish themselves as the central entity that tries engaging in a strong relationship with each of the other three actors. In our case, the main actor does not consider himself the sole central figure, but values the importance of interactions between all actors. He speculates about the potential, that is, the possible actualizations generated by means of the interplay of all involved actors (including himself). Various researchers (see, for instance, Latour, 1999; Palmas, 2007; Farías and Bender, 2009) have elaborated on ANT’s Deleuzian (assemblage theory) framework and discussed the similarities and differences between the two concepts. To briefly sum it up, the striking difference between ANT and assemblage theory is that ANT – according to Latour (1999, 2005) – is a method rather than a theory; a method to retrospectively describe observed situations in a very detailed way by tracing as many actors as possible, the relations between them and the way they transform or manipulate situations. But ANT focuses on the ‘seamlessness’ of our world (Hughes, 1986; Bijker, 1993; Latour, 2005) and on the endlessness of the act of tracing actors. It is a method that retrospectively scales down the bigger picture into actors and relations and even more actors and even more relations, but scaling up to ‘emergent actors’ – that is, speculating about potential relations and emerging properties  – is impossible. Assemblage theory on the other hand enables us to – retrospectively – analyse a given situation into separate component parts and at the same time allows the whole to have irreducible properties emerging from the interaction between the components (DeLanda, 2006). That is, by investigating into the sets of capacities of the relevant component parts, assemblage theory allows for prospective thinking and speculating about potential future scenarios. While ANT is a purely retrospectively oriented approach, assemblage theory, in contrast, allows for a two-dimensional investigation:  assemblages may be retrospectively analysed into separate component parts in a very fine-grained manner and at the same time the researcher may speculate about potential relations and possible future properties, thereby widening the formulation of a problem. We would claim that this heuristic principle adds significant value to the method of ANT. In our case, the combination with assemblage theory did not only help to follow and adequately describe an actor that (consciously) operated on the basis of complexity thinking. Moreover, we assume that

184  Joris Van Wezemael and Jan Silberberger assemblage theory proves to be powerful when it comes to study contemporary planning processes in general since planning (nowadays) is essentially about producing and assessing a variety of possible future scenarios and especially because more and more planners (begin to) acknowledge the fact that they act on a complex system.

Conclusion In many places across Europe, people and governments commit to a cutting down of the use of (cultivated) land. The transformation, however, calls for interventions into the urban texture, into existing neighbourhoods, social relations and existing policy routines, and it usually involves assets of private owners or investors. We believe that the challenge of developing contemporary urban areas towards more living quality, spatial justice and environmental sustainability largely depends on the coupling of usually (carefully) separated fields such as economy, policies, town planning, politics, infrastructure or architecture. Our case analysis underlines this and documents a rhizomatic process with its surprising turns and open outcomes. Furthermore, as our assemblage approach allows us to explain, such couplings cannot be conceptualized (and certainly do not work) without a change of the connected fields (or actors). ‘The relations produce the related’ since they generate potential becomings and thus ‘define’ what a collective actor can ‘do’. Thus, planning studies in our view should not, per se, start with a focus on ‘what a planner can do’ but with the examination of the relations at hand. In our view, this observation points to an important strength of research approaches in the line of ANT or assemblage thinking: they strongly support a sceptical empiricism. Talking about planning – as we do in our case – does not necessarily put planners on stage. Rather, the elements of the emerging scene have to relationally qualify in order to become a ‘part’. Planning studies thus might loosen their obsession with the ‘obligatory’ planner in favour of an open approach that seeks to trace what is and map out what could be. In this chapter we have presented a case that, on the one hand, marks the fuzzy zone between real estate and neighbourhood development, and, on the other hand, elaborates on some crucial although very practical differences between the ANT tradition(s) and (more explicit and open) Deleuzian thinking (such as assemblage theory). ANT could be viewed as a key precursor, which makes it clear that anything that cannot be removed from a course of action is part of a heterogeneous actor – thus linking disparate planes. However, with reference to Jean Hillier’s work (2007), when looking at planning’s marriage with a yet unknown future, the move from tracing (‘following the actor’) to mapping (exploring the possible and potential) and then to machining (working upon the generative forces that give rise to the possible), we believe that assemblage thinking (Van Wezemael, 2008) may point out a direction that is not only

‘Emergent places’ 185 analytical and theoretical but also, as the manager in our case study may illustrate, highly practical.

Note 1 In Switzerland, merging medical care and social services are referred to as ‘Spitex’. Seven hundred independent organizations as well as some cantonal associations and foundations form an umbrella institution. They provide ‘health and care services’ and ‘assistance’ outside institutional settings of hospitals and care homes. They aim at conserving or facilitating autonomy in such a way as to enable their service users to stay in their accustomed environment despite personal restrictions.

References Amin, A. (2002) Spatialities of globalisations. Environment and Planning A, 34(3): 385–399. Bijker, W.E. (1993) Do not despair:  there is life after constructivism. Science, Technology and Human Values, 18(1): 113–138. Callon, M. (1986) Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (ed.), Power, Action and Belief:  A  New Sociology of Knowledge. London:  Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 196–233. DeLanda, M. (2002) Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy. London and New York: Continuum. DeLanda, M. (2006) A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity. London and New York: Continuum. Durlauf, S.N. (2005) Complexity and empirical economics. The Economic Journal, 115: 225–243. Farías, I. and T. Bender (eds.) (2009) Urban Assemblages:  How Actor-Network Theory Changes Urban Studies. London: Routledge. Healey, P. (2006) Urban Complexity and Spatial Strategies:  Towards a Relational Planning for Our Times. London: Routledge. Hillier, J. (2007) Stretching Beyond the Horizon. Farnham: Ashgate. Hughes, T.P. (1986) The seamless web: technology, science, etcetera, etcetera. Social Studies of Science, 16(2): 281–292. Latour, B. (1999) On recalling ANT. In J. Law and J. Hassard (eds.), Actor Network Theory and After. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 15–25. Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social:  An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. New York: Oxford University Press. Law, J. and J. Urry (2004) Enacting the social. Economy and Society, 33(3): 390–410. Palmas, K. (2007) Deleuze and DeLanda:  A  New Ontology, a New Political Economy? Paper presented at the Economic Sociology Seminar Series, the Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science. Van Wezemael, J. (2008) The contribution of assemblage theory and minor politics for democratic network governance. Planning Theory, 7(2): 165–185.

12 Planning tactics of undefined becoming Applications within Urban Living Labs of Flanders’ N16 corridor, Belgium Luuk Boelens and Marleen Goethals Introduction: ontological deliberations The planning idea of undefined becoming arose from the augmented conviction that present-day reality has become so complex, fragmented, multidimensional, diffused, alinear and volatile that it is hard – if not impossible – for planners to set predefined, concrete, long-term goals; such as for the sake of society, humanity or some kind of moral standards (Boelens, 2000, 2006). Modernistic planning, which was in essence the ambition to ‘propose communal, democratic solutions for a specific space, based on a long vision on time’ has been finally criticized to its very core (Lyotard, 1979; Harvey, 1989; Boelens, 1990). However, the alternatives  – such as critical rational or procedural (Faludi, 1986), communicative (Innes, 1995) or collaborative (Healey, 1997) planning approaches – also remain more or less framed within this kind of epistemology. The latter still focus on predefined goals, albeit trying to reach those along alternative cyclical, participatory or adaptive planning routes. Although these kinds of approaches are still useful for specific kinds of planning questions (see also below), there is a need to become stauncher and more steadfast when it comes to complexity; especially while these situations become more and more apparent for planning too. There is indeed a growing need to navigate in an ocean of changing settings and contingent possibilities (Hillier, 2007). Nevertheless most planners still set some strategic points at the horizon in this ocean of change. This becomes even more prominent in the work of Louis Albrechts (2012, 2015) and others, who time and again stick tenaciously to the idea of strategic planning, whereby planners set the course, democratically in cooperation with others of course, trying to keep the strategic targets over time, if necessary in subsequent phases, through several sub-stations of ex ante, in-between and ex post evaluations, and/or by implementing it co-productively with various stake- and shareholders. In that respect, planning of undefined becoming takes a more radical course. It goes beyond the idea of a (modernistic, procedural, communicative, collaborative or co-productive) plan. It works from within, or from the outside-in, instead of the usual (administrative planning-oriented) inside-out

Planning tactics of undefined becoming 187 approach. It works from a flat, horizontal ontology (everything or everyone is equal in the beginning), instead of a vertical (top-down or bottom-up) approach. It is more tactical than strategic, focusing on the art of the arrangement, the resilience of the actor network, rather than the specific outcome, impact or structure of the final assemblage. It is less concerned with the overall plan, involving various mutual reinforcing decisions and activities, while it realizes that in complex settings, decisions and a­ ctivities could go several ways and everywhere, without being able to predict, let alone direct or plan them (Boelens, 2010). Nevertheless we still need to plan; perhaps even more than ever. The current state of climate change asks for profound, robust and thoughtful mitigated and adaptive solutions for the long run. Urban health issues and the depletion of raw materials demand major transitions in mobility and energy consumption. The growth of the world population evolves beyond all expected limits (Club of Rome, 1972), and the decline of other populated areas leads towards new redistribution measures, next to smart logistics and innovative food and place (re)production. Even the recent financial and economic crises have proven again that the invisible hand of the ‘wealth of nations’ (Smith, 1776) or networks (Benkler, 2006) doesn’t work. So how to plan these and other major challenges: ‘undefined’? Before we can answer that question, we need first to go into the distinction between complicated and complex situations. Because complicated systems are  – although also highly difficult and fuzzy for laymen  – foremost focused on the elements themselves (like within a clockwork system), while complex systems are foremost driven by the situational and changing relations between the elements themselves (as within a weather system). As such, we can still come up with generic, long-term strategic solutions within complicated situations; while that would be impossible in complex situations, since these are highly time- and place-dependent –situational, in other words – and therefore in need of situation-specific tactical, instead of long-term strategic approaches. Nevertheless there is not one, but several grades of complexity. We distinguish at least four, grounded on the fuzziness of the context or the playing field, versus the object or planning problem in question (Boelens, 2015, Verbeek and Boelens, forthcoming, Terryn et al., forthcoming). In the bottom-left field of Figure 12.1, planners encounter a relative fixed playing field of the so-called ‘usual suspects’, with a relative ‘closed’, well-known object of planning. Here a kind of path-dependent, procedural planning could sustain, whereby each decision could be evaluated ex ante, in-between and ex post, and redirected if necessary towards the overall strategic goals in the end. However, these kinds of planning situations are increasingly rare in our (physical and thematic) cross-bordered volatile and network society. More and more there are also situations in the bottom-right field of Figure 12.1, where  – although the object of planning is still more or less clear or well-known over a longer period of time – the number of involved actors

unknown/changing

adaptive planning

co-evolutionary planning

known/fixed

Challenge Objects in question

188  Luuk Boelens and Marleen Goethals

path-dependent planning

collaborative planning

known/fixed

unknown/changing

Playing field Subjects in question Figure 12.1  Four grades of complexity

is growing or even changing (due to empowerment, contingent settings or other drivers) and therefore requires a kind of participatory or collaborative planning. Or there are situations in the top-left field of Figure  12.1, whereby the (leading or involved) stake- and shareholders – the active involved and passive interested, the ‘drivers’ and the ‘pushers’ – needed to solve a problem or translate a planning challenge to another state remain more or less fixed or well-known, like in the bottom-right corner of the matrix. At the same time, however, the object of planning is so new, innovative or interrelated that the possible solutions, including ideas on how to get there could change very much over time. Here a kind of adaptive planning seems to be needed, navigating through an ocean of changing winds, currents and waves towards the intended goals. What is more, there appears also a growing number of situations in the top right field of Figure 12.1, whereby neither the involved actors, nor the precise challenges or objects of planning are clear, fixed or more or less ‘closed’. Here planners would encounter an ever-growing fuzziness, contingency and complexity, which can only be ‘solved’ by becoming an integral part of the planning process itself, co-evolving with the changing contexts and objects of planning themselves. Here major planning challenges can only be encountered step-by-step, by ‘trying to ride the issue itself’, undefined, while neither the specific object, nor the (courses of the) involved stake- and shareholders are clear beforehand. This kind of co-evolution between evolving objects and evolving subjects could go everywhere, although hopefully towards a more resilient assemblage in the long run; robust and strong enough to sustain following socio-economic and/or socio-ecologic hazards over time. Precisely that ‘ambition’ could be the predominant intermediary task of co-evolutionary

Planning tactics of undefined becoming 189 planners in complex situations in order to translate these to more resilient states of affairs to cope with that kind of contingency; no more, no less. So next to path-dependent, procedural planning approaches and collaborative and adaptive ones, planners need increasingly to cope with ‘full-settings of complexity’ and therefore co-evolutionary planning ideas. Like evolutionary theories, these ideas of co-evolution are rooted in general Darwinism, with its notions of heritage, fitness, survival of the fittest, mutation and variety. However, it also goes beyond these classic evolutionary concepts in the view that groups of organisms are evolving not only by themselves in specific biotic circumstances, but also and in explicit circumstances through reciprocal selective interaction with other related ­organisms, contexts or systems (Ehrlich and Raven, 1964). As such, over time and space, subjects and objects dissipatedly influence each other continuously, co-evolving towards a new, if possible more resilient situation, which in turn etc. (Durrant and Ward, 2011). As said before, here the dissipative arrangements between the species or elements and their settings or contexts become more crucial than the evolution of the elements themselves. In other words, within co-evolutionary approaches, the networks or evolving assemblages between the elements become the main focus point in order to receive useful insights or cope with complexity. Planning of complexity is therefore not so much about places or spaces itself, but foremost about spatial situations, meaning the specific and time- and space-dependent relations between actors and with their settings or contexts reciprocally. Here therefore, the Actor Network Theories (ANTs) of Callon (1986, 1995), Law (1986, 2004) and Latour (1993, 2005) – the main subject of this book – would come in; because ANT also starts off with actors and relations (or networks), not only between the actors themselves, but also between the human and non-human actors; for example, the specific ­characteristics and entities of time and space. Moreover, ANT agrees that technical, social or spatial artefacts are neither outside nor opposed to society, but are in fact the results of it. ANT argues that the world is made up of heterogeneous networks of actors (Latour, 2005: 247). Not only is every action thus fundamentally relational, it can only occur as a consequence of the specific connection between the people, entities and resources concerned. At the same time, those people, entities and resources only have meaning within networks (Law, 1986). Or, in other words: What there is and how it is divided up should not be assumed beforehand. Instead it arises in the course of interactions between different actors… Actors are entities, human or otherwise, that happen to act. They are not given, but they emerge in relations. (Law, 2004:102) Here, and as mentioned before, ANT assumes that in principle, symmetry exists between objects and subjects, the human and the non-human, the

190  Luuk Boelens and Marleen Goethals actor and its settings; in ANT-terms ‘the actant’. It cannot be presumed in advance who or what is most important for the action:  a person, an entity or a resource, such as context. For example, relevant people could reach agreement about a plan, or all the elements required to put a plan into practice could be present, but the contextual setting or momentum could still not be sufficient to put the network in action. However, ANT claims that it is possible for a specific actant subsequently to become more dominant than others, by seducing or enforcing other actants to behave according to its own prerogatives; for instance, path-dependently – where context or resources would remain predominant – or innovatively – whereby institutional settings would be reframed accordingly. Thus as a result, this actant  – who/which dominates or organizes the association or network  – may consist for ANT of either human or non-human entities. As such, it goes beyond the structuration theory of Anthony Giddens (1984). ANT spans all rationally attributed differences between (conscious) subjects and (passive) objects, culture and nature, the technical and the social. It is not ‘a sociology of the social, but a sociology of associations’ (Latour, 2005: 9) in all kinds of assemblages between human, non-human and even abstract entities. In principle, this is what ANT calls ‘the translation of the objectives, limitations and opportunities of other actants’ so that these can start ‘behaving’ on their own accord, but in line with the wishes/characteristics of the dominant actant (Latour, 1997). Here, and as mentioned in the introduction of this book, Callon (1986) distinguishes four phases of translation – problematization, interessement, enrolment and mobilization of allies – while Latour (2004) distinguishes more or less similarly four steps of the collective: wonderment, consultation, hierarchy and institutionalization. Although Actor Network Theory may thus be characterized as a form of sociological epistemology, or perhaps even as a new ‘a-modern monistic ontology’ (Latour, 1993), ANT has also influenced ‘notions of space in a post-structural sense’ (Murdoch, 2006:  73). A  crucial element of such notions is that there exists no absolute time-space – just as there is neither absolute nature nor absolute society – but only specific time-space configurations, which are conditioned by motives and relations in networks. The attribution of any significance to scale or any idea of micro- or macro-issues is in fact superseded. In principle, one ought rather to follow the actors, or better still the actor networks, which condition specific time-space situations. The point here is not to analyse specific places within specific times. Instead, spatial planning becomes the science, or skill, of the analysis and/ or planning of heterogeneous associations or actor network assemblages in time and space. Spatial relations are reduced to network relations and spatial planning is understood as a process of network building, in which entities of various kinds are assembled in ways that allow robust, embedded and/or resilient spatial situations within complex and changing settings. Thus ANT appears at first sight to offer attractive prospects for contemporary spatial planning with regard to the four situations of complexity.

Planning tactics of undefined becoming 191

ANT

ARA

NAVIGATIONS

1. Situational Uniqueness Problematization/ Wonderment Interessement/ Consultation Enrolment/ Hierarchy Mobilization/ Institutionalization

(factors of importance)

2. Actor Analysis (actors of importance)

3. Windows of Opportunities (opening up)

4. Roundtables (networking)

5. Business Cases (pilots and try-outs)

6. Regime Development (elaboration of the fit)

7. Associative Democracy

Tracing Joint Fact-Finding Mapping Joint Seeking Diagramming Joint Acting Agencying Joint Becoming

(coevolving policies)

Callon 1986; Latour 2004

Boelens 2009

Hillier 2009; Sanders 2009

Figure 12.2  Four collectives – seven ARA steps – four planning navigation techniques

Nevertheless, due to its key proposition of the ‘radical symmetry’ of human and non-human actors (the so-called actants), ANT has especially proven its usefulness in retrospect; how did we get over here? Accordingly the question comes up of how to apply ANT proactively in planning; how to induce future situations of (undefined) becoming? For that purpose, we have developed the idea of the Actor Relational Approach (ARA) of planning (Boelens, 2009). Here and in reference to Chapter 1 of this book by Yvonne Rydin and Laura Tate, ANT is mainly taken as an inspiration; a kind of m ­ ethodology or, better still, planning tactic offering powerful ways of dealing with planning in increasing complex situations. The main presumption here is that proactive planners could as well serve as intermediaries, bringing actants and settings in association with each other, as well as mediators, mediating the proposed interests of non-human actors, self-reliant actors and contexts towards possibly more resilient co-evolutions. Moreover and in reference to the four phases or steps of Callon and Latour, ARA has distinguished seven proactive translation steps starting from the identification of the unique features or challenge in question, towards the final formal or informal institutionalization of undefined becoming (see Figure 12.2). In order not to lose one’s way totally in these complex planning settings of undefined becoming, ARA has distinguished four planners’ navigation techniques (Hillier, 2009; Sanders, 2009): •

•

Tracing, as a kind of joint fact-finding, by jointly interpreting matters to determine how it has come to be this way, through systematically following the tracks to the origin of an area, problem, challenge or existing association, in proportion to the framework of the question. Mapping, as a kind of joint opportunity seeking, by jointly looking for new arrangements or possible translations that the traced ‘origins’ in

192  Luuk Boelens and Marleen Goethals

•

•

the first phase can live up to; open enough to be adapted to new actors, precise enough to genuinely make a resilient match. Diagramming, as a kind of joint transformation of the action fields, by jointly looking for mutual matches of interest and possible added values in changing circumstances, contributing to several solutions for the mapped challenges or opportunities. Agencying, as a kind of joint institutionalization of becoming, by jointly developing formal and informal agencies to facilitate resilient co-evolutions, through procedures of self-repairing, which are able to change and adapt itself to complex and altering settings.

Practicalities Based on these deliberations and ideas we have conducted some 15 actor-relational practices from 2000 onwards (www.urbanunlimited.nl). These have received preliminary evaluation in Planning Theory (Boelens and de Roo 2014). There it is concluded that overall actor-relational planning of complexity and especially with regard to its fourth situation of co-evolutionary practices of undefined becoming, still remains thin on the ground. Although there is internationally a growing attention for planning of organic complex systems (Oswald et al., 2003; Urhahn, 2009; de Roo and Silva, 2010; de Roo et al., 2012; Balducci, 2011; Moulaert et al., 2013; Rauws, 2015; Boonstra, 2015), experimenting with planning tactics of undefined becoming in real life remain scarce, since structuralist strategic planning is still mainstream in planning theory and practice. Even the above-mentioned alternatives with regard to procedural/cybernetic, collaborative and adaptive planning approaches seem to get cold feet about submitting themselves wholeheartedly to the ideas of ‘undefined becoming’. Nevertheless, we also concluded that some of Urban Unlimited’s actor-relational practices are still (co)evolving after 15 years and are in need of further ongoing attention from engaged planning theorists and practitioners. Moreover we also concluded that there evolves a growing number of upcoming new complex planning questions regarding energy, mobility, ecological and patrimony transitions, which are in need of more co-evolutionary approaches. Therefore we pleaded for further experimentation in real-life situations through ‘Planning Living Labs’, in order to enhance the conditions of co-evolutionary planning of undefined becoming (Boelens and de Roo, 2014). These kinds of Living Labs are in fact real-life testing and experimental environments for user-driven information (Desouza, 2013, 2014). Originally grounded in technologically driven innovations, which embrace urban regions as test-beds where experimentation and dissipative innovation could take place before putting the new technology on the market, Living Labs have expanded over administrative, social, economic and infrastructural issues. As such, Living Labs also involve crowdsourcing ideas and actively engage citizens, businesses and public administrations in experimentation

Planning tactics of undefined becoming 193 and solution development (www.openlivinglabs.eu). Nevertheless, since these kinds of Living Labs generally focus (in ANT terms) on the enrolment phase of the socio-technological translation, Planning Living Labs need to stretch over all four moments of ANT’s ‘collective’, due to its all-encompassing need for openness and co-evolution from upcoming problematizations towards their final institutionalizations. With this intention in mind, we have proposed to put up two Planning Living Labs in the Policy Research Centre on Spatial Development 2012–2015 of the Flemish government, in order to develop co-evolutionary resilient planning tactics for the Flemish peri-urban situation: one with regard to polycentricity as a guiding concept for analysis and future planning and one with regard to resilience as a guiding concept for analysis and future planning. Here we will discuss the first of them, which was focused on latent sustainable translations of the so-called N16 corridor between the municipalities of Temse and Willebroek. Moreover, this Planning Living Lab was connected to not only the evolving PhD-research within the Policy Research Centre itself, but also to the evolving Master’s programme Urban and Regional Planning at Ghent University. As such, this Planning Living Lab served as a kind of quadruple helix between scientific-civic-business-public interests, not only serving co-evolutionary translations on the ground itself, but also serving the possible scientific and educational renewal of planners’ foundations towards undefined becoming.

The N16 Lab The N16 is the Flemish regional highway, which connects the Belgian national highway E17 (Antwerp-Ghent) and the national highways A12/ E19 (Antwerp–Brussels). The regional highway was built shortly after World War II as a means to make Belgium catch up economically with neighbouring countries, such as the Netherlands and France. A hybrid highway design was adopted, with central thoroughfare lanes and parallel service lanes for local addresses, meant to attract national and even multinational companies in search of brand visibility in the area between Brussels and Antwerp (Ryckewaert, 2007: 505–515). Due to the fact that the adjoining industrial land was plenty and cheap, at only a 30-minute (40km) drive from Zaventem National Airport, in the heart of the Flemish Diamond (Antwerp-Ghent-Brussels-Leuven), the area became soon an attractive business location for major pharmaceutical firms such as Pfizer, Capsugel, Alcon etc. and big production and distribution facilities such as Frisia, Campbell/ Continental Foods, Duvel, SMEG, DHL etc. Unlike in neighbouring countries, the policy adopted for this region of infrastructural development for economic expansion was not matched with urbanization and housing development (Ryckewaert, 2007: 505–515). Together Puurs and Bornem have at the moment some 18,000 jobs; while the municipalities house only 37,830 inhabitants. As a result more than 75 per cent of the workers are travelling

194  Luuk Boelens and Marleen Goethals each day by car from home to work, although there is a good railway system at hand. So we set up the Planning N16 Living Lab, according to ARA and with a focus to reduce the ecological footprint and traffic jams through a joint mobility innovation platform. However, discussing the idea of a Peri-Urban Living Lab with the involved businesses, civic interest groups, municipalities and other (intermediary) organizations, we soon discovered that there evolved also a growing interest towards a more sustainable energy transition; this due to the general climate change and sustainability discourses, but specifically due to expected shortages on the Belgian energy market. Moreover, a great majority of the stake- and shareholders were willing to experiment with the idea of the Peri-Urban Living Lab on these items, as they agreed that they could not execute the new transition challenges alone and needed mutual collaboration. Therefore, in joint cooperation, the Living Lab started from February 2014 onwards, with a rough focus on mobility and energy transition, in order to evolve to more resilient assemblages in this respect. A Living Lab coordinator was adopted, a mutual ‘curratorium’ installed, the policy research on polynuclearity N16-focused and the Master’s studio and theses were prepared – all trying to ‘ride the issue’, without knowing beforehand how, where or even when it would end. We first started out with a kind of ‘joint fact-finding’, discussing the ­problem definition and possible solutions with regard to the intended mobility and energy transitions in bilateral talks and group meetings, in order to set the focus and gather the data. At first, much focus was put by these actors on structural, strategic measures (especially by the public servants and civic interest groups); for instance, with regard to a major modal shift from car towards public transport by extending the railway and public transport services, flanked by financial inducements; or with regard to the introduction of technological innovations in the field of tidal energy, biomass or small high-efficiency windmills. Discussing these options with the transport and energy providers, including the politicians, made clear that although these solutions seemed to be easy to implement, with low costs, at first sight, they could only be realized in the long run after debates at several forums, with major adaptations of institutional frameworks, and with no real perspective of possible outcomes. Therefore, the involved businesses stressed the importance of coming up with easily obtainable gains, to be realized with readily available means. Based on these inputs, we jointly decided to set off with these kinds of gains, trying to get convincing returns on short notice, in order to promote an enthusiastic vibe and induce ‘an all-stick-together-effect’ with the involved and possible new stake- and shareholders in the course of the process. While this process would be highly time-consuming, it had been decided to include the regular Studio Regional Studies and Governance of the Master’s course in Urbanism and Spatial Planning at Ghent University. Two groups of seven students, assisted by the scientific research in the Policy Research Centre, set out from October 2014

Planning tactics of undefined becoming 195 onwards to collect international references of software and orgware solutions for mobility and energy transition. The next step was to study with great precision whether these solutions could become viable and resilient tools in the area under study. Emphasis was both on spatial accuracy and on financial and managerial feasibility. In order to apprehend their implementation in the study area, students contacted the politicians, administrators and private entrepreneurs involved in referential cases such as, for the mobility projects, Vipre, Blue-bike, I-bus and Taxistop, or, for the energy projects, Ecopower and Eandis. From the main employers and energy consumers in the region – public institutions such as schools, hospitals and care centres, as well as private multinational companies – data were retrieved on vital issues such as their energy consumption and production, their energy policy or the location of their staff’s residences and their means of transport. After a number of bilateral meetings of the involved researchers and interested parties, a broad set of actors were invited to a series of two workshops, the first in November, the second one month later, where results were presented and discussed. Ideas on mobility transition that met with little enthusiasm from the main actors were abandoned after the first workshop. Ideas such as shared biking and vanpools, to the contrary, were welcomed with greater – if reserved – interest, and were singled out for further elaboration. As to energy transition, the micro-grid proposal fostered in the first workshop by the research team was supplemented with an additional proposal, advocated by some of the actors, for energetic wood banks. Moreover, not only local politicians, administrators, companies and activist committees attended the workshops, but also entrepreneurs and experts from the reference cases, all of them non-local. This means the network of actors was substantially extended by the contacts made by the students. After the workshops, the students left the scene and the (PhD) researchers of the Policy Research Centre organized a number of meetings:  bilateral, trilateral and roundtable meetings, succeeding each other in several rounds. The whole of this process resulted in four promising options. Shared Biking Systems (SBS) is the first of these. Although SBS is already a tested and developed concept  – such as, for instance, De Hoge Veluwe in the 1970s, from the beginning of the 1990s onwards in French and Scandinavian cities and at the moment in more than 700 cities (Shaheen et  al., 2015), including the Velo-system in Antwerp, Villo in Brussels and Libiavelo in Namur – they have all been developed in dense urban areas. This proposal would be the first to experiment with SBS in peri-urban regions. After intense discussions with the involved pharmaceutical companies (Pfizer, Alcon, Capsugel and Purna), municipalities (Puurs and Bornem) and shared-mobility intermediary (Taxistop), the intention for the moment is to invest in a small part (only 2–5 per cent) of the labour force of the preliminary involved companies, which would mean some 40–80 shared bikers each day and two shared biking stations; one at the railway station of Bornem and one at the station of Puurs. However, it is the ambition

196  Luuk Boelens and Marleen Goethals to expand SBS after a short trial period, with a greater percentage of the involved labour force, additional companies and possibly other customers, such as, for instance, the inhabitants and/or recreationist bikers during the weekends. In that case, additional shared-biking stations could be put up at other places in the region. Moreover, it would need the resolution of a number of missing links within the free biking system (Vanderstraeten and Verhulst, 2014). In the long run, some envisioned a kind of electrical SBS, which would enhance markets even further. Others regarded these options as wishful thinking and promoted a cautious step-by-step approach, with periodic evaluations and renegotiations of the financial and managerial operations every one or two years. The second mobility project, which has been discussed among the stakeand shareholders, concerns the idea of a vanpool. This idea has also already been introduced and developed elsewhere, especially in the USA and recently in the Netherlands by VIPRE. Vanpools are elements of a transit system that allow groups of people to share a ride – similar to a carpool, but on a larger scale, with concurrent savings in fuel and vehicle operation costs (Vipre, 2015). In this case, we have mutually developed a business proposal whereby the vans will be purchased by the pharmaceutical employers (Pfizer, Alcon, Capsugel and Continental Foods) and made available for a group of maximum nine employees living in close reach of each other. While the pharmaceutical firms operate under the same shift conditions 24/7, it was possible to develop an inter-firm proposal with a greater mass of optional vanpool riders. Studying the addresses of the involved employees within 10–30km travelling distance, we came up with a potential of eight van-routes during the two day-shifts and six van-routes during the night-shift. For the moment it concerns 23 vans and an investment of some €550,000. Taking into account a depreciation of these vans over five years, it would cost the companies some €0.10/km/employee, including fuel and vehicle costs; nearly the average company’s commuting allowance (€0.08/ km/employee). Nevertheless it would also save 2,700m2 parking space and it would uplift the company’s ecologic image (Bostoen et  al., 2014). Furthermore, at the moment we are discussing the possibilities to use the vans (with an additional volunteer driver) for other purposes during the two day-shifts of the employees; for instance, for the purpose of transporting schoolchildren for sports, or for the purpose of transporting e­ lderly or handicapped people to hospital appointments. Also these measures would further enhance the feasibility of the project, extend demand-driven public transport in the region and minimize the mobile ecological footprint accordingly. The third project is the idea of an energetic woodbank in the region. For a long time, the Scheldt region was covered with vast and small woodlands, while the farmlands were often demarcated with wood fringes. As a result of the rationalizations and scaling of agriculture, especially after World War II, these fringes and small woodlands have been gradually lost. Nevertheless,

Planning tactics of undefined becoming 197 several studies show that the burning of woodchips from the residues of an environmentally friendly maintenance of these fringes could generate highly sustainable energy resources (de Vries et  al., 2008; Loosvelt et  al., 2015). Therefore, more and more projects are being implemented in Germany, the Netherlands and even Belgium. In this case, however, the project is also focused on the recovery and the improvement of the ecological network in the regions. Moreover, it could serve as a welcome addendum to the small income of farmers in the region. Therefore, this situational idea opts for a new alliance between the farmers (production, gathering and drying of the woodchips), representatives of the nature and land trusts (preservations and/ or maintenance), municipalities and regional governments (owners of woodlands) and the main heat demand (like the hospital, elderly homes, schools, sport facilities, etc.). We researched an already existent regional potential of some 6,300 MWh/year. Moreover, design research showed the opportunities for the planting of additional wooden fringes and pocket woods along existent and new municipal functional and recreational ‘slow’ roads, along creeks and along the main ecological networks (Goethals, 2015). At the moment we have mutually decided to start out with the current supply of governmental woodchips, including a programme to gather 30 per cent of the private wood waste, by the involved farmers in the region, including start-up grants by the Flemish Nature and Landtrust (VLM) and the Flemish Investment Fund (VLIF) for the planting and initial investments in infrastructure and machines. Preliminary tentative calculations have made clear that this project would be feasible for €60/MWh with a guaranteed price for 15  years; nearly the present-market gas-prices, although without any guaranteed maximum. The final mutual discussed project for the moment concerns a micro-energy-grid in the area of the two plants of Pfizer and Alcon, and their direct surroundings. The micro-grid should serve as a more reliable answer with respect to the shutdown energy plan of the Belgian government, due to the technical and political problems with the two nuclear power plants in Belgium. That would be unacceptable for the 24/7 production lines of both pharmaceutical firms. Furthermore, plans to expand more sustainable energy supply (such as, for instance, wind turbines) are for the moment highly contested by the neighbouring inhabitants; next to the fact that the existent heat-supply is inefficiently used. Moreover municipal plans opted for an extra 120 houses in the west, and an additional sports park, with an indoor tennis court in the south of the area. The micro-grid would induce a corporate network of these actors, contribute to collective investments for energy production and exchange energy in times of demand (companies mainly during the day, households mainly during the evening) and supply (sun during the day, cogeneration of heat during the night), with only one connection to the national grid (Belmans et al., 2014). New Tesla batteries within the newly built houses would serve as buffers and computer systems would manage the two-way flow of power for operators and users.

198  Luuk Boelens and Marleen Goethals Although this kind of technology is still in its infant phase and needs further testing in the field (Barnes et al., 2007), there is already a joint support in the region to anticipate this kind of technology, while it offers greater control allowing different local power sources and preventing a total shutdown in cases of a rolling blackout.

Discussion Each of the projects described above only concerns the first preliminary niches of the intended mobility and energy transitions. They don’t refer to an overall strategic plan, but to small, short-term tactics towards resilient futures, although still highly undefined. At its best, each of these projects has passed the phases of tracing or mapping, but is still unclear about its further enrolment or implementation; let  alone that they are or could be ­institutionalized already. They could still go in none or many ways. This is partly due to the features of planning of undefined becoming itself. Instead of setting and (path-dependently) planning concrete and precise goals in a given time or space frame according to the principles of parliamentary democracy, this kind of planning starts with the real-life actor networking itself, trying to become a respected part of it, in order to (inter)mediate from within. As a result, and in principal, the proposals are always down to earth, unclear in timing, depending highly on the internal support, creativity and limits of each of the stake- and shareholders. Here the weakest link sets the strength of the overall chain. Nevertheless what regularly occurs in these ‘within, or outside-in processes’ – and again in this N16 case – is a kind of self-reliant local buzz, where actors meet each other, crossing borders and themes, become aware of each restrictions or possibilities and if possible co-develop them in surprising, unexpected ways. In other words, these kinds of planning processes could induce seeding grounds for further self-organization within complex settings. Moreover, what happened here in this N16 case is that most of the proposals were induced and developed by the PhD and Master’s students themselves, in co-evolution with the involved stake- and shareholders. Although the case-area itself was chosen by the curratorium of the Planning Living Lab experiment in dialogue with the management of the Policy Research Centre on Spatial Development, and although first bilateral contacts were made by the Living Lab coordinator, the PhD and master students themselves delved into the situation and tried to mediate project ideas that could proactively serve the interests of a variety of stakeholders in mobility and energy transition. This served two major developments. First, scientific research and academic education became vital and integrated parts of the planning process. They were no longer aloof objective observers trying to generate universal propositions from real-life situations, but they (co)evolved towards a kind of inferential action research being a situational and instant part of the chosen arrangements itself.

Planning tactics of undefined becoming 199 Second, young planners were confronted with research and teaching situations that they had never faced before. In the process, they were able to gain skills with regard to complex situations of undefined becoming. Therefore, possibly in the near future, the frames and stakes of planning of complexity itself could gain from this in return. Furthermore, the success of the Living Lab experiment was highly dependent on the special position of the young planners and academic researchers: they were unprejudiced and self-invited in the actor network. Although many stakeholders were familiar with the project idea, few felt urged to take the initiative and to break ground. Informal talks during the process suggested that the same project ideas would not be acceptable if local or higher governments or the companies or civilians themselves had initiated them. As such, almost all the proposed tactics for energy and mobility transition really relied on people working together to establish networks among governments, local companies, local institutions such as schools and hospitals, local inhabitants, landowners, farmers, etc. However, with only a few exceptions, notably a highly committed alderman, nobody felt entitled to organize and initiate these networks. The Planning Living Labs successfully embodied this vacant role. It is clear that definitive success can only be obtained if the newly originated networks of actors can further unite around a professional ­organizer or pivotal party. Therefore the process is still going on, undefined, with a little help of the Policy Research Centre, but also with new local and other tactical planners that recognize the possibilities and are inspired by it.

References Albrechts, L. (2012) Reframing strategic spatial planning by using a coproduction perspective. Planning Theory, 12: 46–63. Albrechts, L. (2015) Ingredients for a more radical strategic spatial planning. Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, advance online publication. Balducci, A. (2011) Strategic Planning for Contemporary Urban Regions. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. Barnes, M., J. Kondoh, H. Asano, J. Oyarzabal, G. Ventakaramanan, R. Lasseter, N. Hatziargyriou and T. Green (2007) Real-world microgrids: an overview. In Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on System of Systems Engineering SoSE’07. Belmans, E., D. De Baets, N. Deham, E. Dhaenens, I. Leijnen and H. Vandermaelen (2014) Energietransitie N16, eindrapport Studio Ruimtelijke Analyse en Regionaal Project. UGent (on request by AMRP). Benkler, Y. (2006), The Wealth of Networks:  How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Boelens, L. (1990) Stedebouw en planologie  – een onvoltooid project:  naar een communicatieve benadering van de ruimtelijke planning en ontwerppraktijk. Delft: Delft University Press.

200  Luuk Boelens and Marleen Goethals Boelens, L. (ed.) (2000) Netherlands Networkcountry:  Towards a New Approach in Urbanism and City Planning. Rotterdam, the Netherlands: NAI Publishers. Boelens, L. (2006) Beyond the plan:  towards a new kind of planning. disP:  The Planning Review, 42(167): 25–40. Boelens, L. (2009) The Urban Connection: An Actor-Relational Approach to Urban Planning. Rotterdam, the Netherlands: O10-Publishers. Boelens, L. (2010) Theorizing practice and practising theory:  outlines for an actor-relational-approach in planning. Planning Theory, 9(1): 28–62. Boelens, L. (2015) Epilogue. In G. de Roo and L. Boelens (eds.), Spatial Planning in a Complex Unpredictable World of Change. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. Boelens, L. and de Roo, G. (2014), Planning of undefined becoming: first encounters of planners beyond the plan. In G. de Roo and L. Boelens (eds.), Spatial Planning in a Complex Unpredictable World of Change. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. Boonstra, B. (2015) Planning Strategies in an Age of Active Citizenship:  A  PostStructuralist Agenda for Self-Organization in Spatial Planning. Groningen: InPlanning. Bostoen, F., W. L’Ecluse, L. Stroobandt, D. Van den Saffele and A. Vissenaekens (2014) Mobiliteitstransitie N16, eindrapport Studio Ruimtelijke Analyse en Regionaal Project, UGent (on request by AMRP). Callon, M. (1986) Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (ed.), Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge? London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 196–229. Callon, M. (1995) Agency and the hybrid collectif. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 94(2): 481–507. Club of Rome (1972) The Limits to Growth, New York: Spectrum. Desouza, K. (2013) Designing, planning and managing resilient cities: a conceptual framework. Cities, 35: 89–99. Desouza, K. (2014) Intelligent city. In P. Knox (ed.), Atlas of Cities. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. de Roo, G. and E. Silva (eds.) (2010) A Planners’ Encounter with Complexity. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. de Roo, G., J. Hillier and J. Van Wezemael (eds.) (2012) Planning and Complexity: Systems, Assemblages and Models. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. de Vries, B., J.J. de Jong, R. Rovers, F.A. Haccou, J.H. Spijker, C.A. van den Berg, C.M. Niemeijer, D.I. Frank and J. Westerlink-Petersen (2008) Energie à la carte. De potentie van biomassa uit het landschap voor energiewinning. Alterrarapport 1679, Wageningen. Durrant, R. and T. Ward (2011) Evolutionary explanations in the social and behavioral sciences:  introduction and overview. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 16: 361–370. Ehrlich, P.R. and P.H. Raven (1964) Butterflies and plants: a study in coevolution. Evolution, 18: 586–608. Faludi, A. (1986) Critical Rationalism and Planning Theory. London: Pion. Giddens, A. (1984)  The Constitution of Society:  Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity. Goethals, M. (2015) Energie uit het landschap van Klein-Brabant. Potenties voor verwarming met biomassa uit houtige reststromen. UGent (on request by AMRP).

Planning tactics of undefined becoming 201 Harvey, D. (1989) The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Healey, P. (1997) Collaborative Planning:  Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hillier, J. (2007) Stretching Beyond the Horizon: A Multiplanar Theory of Spatial Planning and Governance. Aldershot: Ashgate. Hillier, J. (2009) Poststructural complexity: strategic navigation in an ocean of theory and practice. In M. Cerreta, G. Concilio and V. Monno (eds.), Knowledges and Values in Strategic Spatial Planning. Amsterdam: Kluwer. Innes, J. (1995) Planning theory’s emerging pardigm:  communicative action and interactive practice. Journal of Planning Education & Research, 14: 40–143. Latour, B. (1993) We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (1997) On Actor Network Theory. Paper to the actor network and after conference, Keele, Staffordshire: Keele University. Latour, B. (2004) Politics of Nature:  How to Bring the Science into Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social:  An Introduction to Actor-NetworkTheory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Law, J. (1986) On power and its tactics. Sociological Review, 34: 1–34. Law, J. (2004) After Method:  Mess in Social Science Research. London and New York: Routledge. Loosvelt, L., S. Tobback and P. Verdonckt (2015) Groene warmte door kleinschalige houtverbranding voor landbouw, kmo’s en industrie. Rumbeke:  Mia Demeulemeester – Inagro. Lyotard, J.F. (1979) La Condition Post-moderne: Rapport sur le savoir. Paris: Editions de Minuit. Moulaert, F., D. MacCallum, A. Mehmood and A. Hamdouch (2013) The International Handbook on Social Innovation:  Collective Action, Social Learning and Transdisciplinary Research. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Murdoch, J. (2006) Post-Structuralist Geography. London: Sage. Oswald, F., P. Baccini, with Michaeli, M. (2003) Netzstadt:  Designing the Urban. Boston and Berlin: Birkhäuser, Basel. Rauws, W. (2015) Why Planning Needs Complexity: Towards an Adaptive Approach for Guiding Urban and Peri-Urban Transformations. Groningen: University of Groningen. Ryckewaert, M. (2007) Working in the Functional City:  Planning the Economic Backbone of the Belgian Welfare State 1945–1973. Doctoral thesis, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Sanders, W. (2009) Unmappables. In L. Boelens (ed.), The Urban Connection: An Actor-Relational Approach to Urban Planning. Rotterdam: O10-Publishers. Shaheen, S.A. et  al. (2014)  Public bikesharing in North America during a period of rapid expansion: Understanding business models, industry trends and user impacts. Mineta Transportation Institute report, 12–29. Smith, A. (1776) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London: W. Strahan. Terryn, E., L. Boelens and A. Pisman (forthcoming) On the right track? Evaluation as a tool to guide spatial transitions. European Planning Studies. Urhahn, G. (2009) The Spontaneous City. Amsterdam: Urhahn Urban Design.

202  Luuk Boelens and Marleen Goethals Verbeek, T. and L. Boelens (forthcoming) Environmental health in the complex city:  a co-evolutionary approach. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. Vipre (2015) Presentation for Pfizer, Puurs. Vanderstraeten, E. and K. Verhulst (2014) Mobiliteitsplatform N16, deelaspect Fiets. UGent (on request by AMRP).

13 Hydro-urbanism in London Using co-evolutionary Actor Network Theory as a prospective methodology Tse-Hui Teh

Introduction The planning profession transforms the material world that people live in. However, the most recent trends in planning have been mainly focused on social rather than material concerns, using policy and governance to intervene in the redistribution of resources in society. This results in an almost unintended spatial and material impact from the implementation of policy. These social concerns have been supported by philosophical theories and social science research about culture, society, economics, power and welfare. The physical implications of planning have mostly been limited to land use and regional plans, which have been supported by normative theories such as connecting hubs, segregating industry from housing, transport-oriented development and building and engineering codes. As planning has not been interested in the material, these concerns have been taken up by the rising professions of urban design and landscape architecture, where the tradition of experience and polemics rather than theories and research have been used to develop new ways to approach the design of the material world. All these professions have the common goal of creating a better world for people, but their approaches are dichotomous with no common framework or vocabulary to see how ideas might connect or to understand the implications that policy might have on design or vice versa. Co-evolutionary Actor Network Theory (ANT) is one way that relationships between the material and social can be understood and articulated. This enables planning to see how policy manifests in the material, as well as how urban design, landscape architecture and engineering relate to policy. It also enriches all the fields, as theory and research can be linked to experience; and the normative developed by philosophical insights. This chapter describes a methodological case study showing how a co-evolutionary ANT has been applied to research that explores possible reconfigurations of water infrastructure in London. It will also discuss how the theoretical framework and methodology of this research could be further extended and applied to other planning concerns.

204 Tse-Hui Teh

Co-evolutionary Actor Network Theory Co-evolutionary ANT is an amalgamation of insights from two schools of thought in science and technology studies:  the socio-technical approach and ANT. ANT offers a wide range of concepts to understand phenomena through material and social relations, while the socio-technical approach offers a long range view of changing relational networks between people and technologies. The combination of insights from both schools of thought makes it possible to not only analyse existing networks, but also find probable ways in which the network relations will alter in the future. This shifts both approaches from analysing existing or past networks, to projecting new possible network relations in the future. Enabling ANT and the socio-technical approach to project future network relations is important to professions such as planning, urban design, landscape architecture and engineering, because these professions are concerned with the future shaping of cities for the benefit of citizens. The two key elements of ANT that have been used in this case study are the idea that all phenomena in the world are composed of a network of relationships between human and non-human actants (Latour, 1993); and that there are five stages to network formation (Callon, 1986; Latour, 2005). These ontological stances lead to particular epistemological outcomes because the research methods are focused on finding and describing existing relationships between humans and non-humans that create particular phenomena; and testing these relationships to find out how they may change in the future. The five stages of network formation are problematization, interessement, enrolment, mobilization (Callon, 1986) and stabilization (Latour, 2005). Within this research, the three stages that are investigated are stabilization, problematization and interessement. Stabilization is when network relations are renewed continuously, without question. The water system of London is a mostly stable set of network relations. However, both small and large changes such as a burst water pipe, a lack of rainfall or a water-conserving person can trigger problematization, interessement, enrolment, mobilization and a new stabilization of network relations. These alterations create co-evolution, but do not destabilize the broader network of relations. Problematization is when actants identify that there is a need to change relationships within the network. This is usually defined by a human, because humans can communicate an intention in a way that non-humans cannot, but a non-human often inspires the problematization. For example, this research uses the problematization of water scarcity in London. While the problematization is articulated by the researcher, a human, it is directly related to water, a non-human. Without human representatives, network relations can still be reconfigured through the same process of problematization, interessement, enrolment, mobilization and stabilization. An example of a non-human problematization would be if there was an algal bloom

Hydro-urbanism in London 205 in the water reservoirs serving the drinking-water infrastructure system of London. Interessement is when actants test the possibility of reconfiguring the network of relations to form new phenomena. Enrolment and mobilization refer to new network formations. Enrolment is when new network formations are initiated and tested out. At this stage, actants continue to redefine themselves relative to other actants in the network. Mobilization is when a set of particular relations are agreed and acted out by all actants in the network. Stabilization is when the relations are repeated continually over time and very few new problematizations occur within the relational network. From many people’s point of view, the water infrastructure of London is a stabilized network of relations of pipes, pumps, toilets, taps and people. However socio-technical co-evolution reveals that while every set of socio-technical relations feels stable to the participants, it is actually in a state of continual infinitesimal change that is only perceivable when a long-range historic perspective is taken (Geels, 2005; Shove, 2004). This long-range view is atypical of research using an ANT approach, as these have generally been concerned with a short timeframe when a controversy arises and an alternative perspective is stabilized (de Laet and Mol, 2000; Law and Callon, 1988). The long-range view shows that network relations do not always require a crisis or emergency in order to alter. Rather it is ongoing problematizations that come from existing relationships that create changing relationships. Socio-technical co-evolution agrees with the ANT perspective in that it describes an entanglement between people and technologies where it is impossible to know from whence the change in network relations originated. Hence both actants – humans and non-humans in the form of technology – are equally implicated in the formation and stabilization of the network relations. It also demonstrates that changes to network relations arise from existing relations; hence there is a trajectory to change. These particular theoretical perspectives direct this research to find the ways in which the network relations are currently configured and to identify the tiny unique ways that these relationships are altering in order to understand how these small changes may lead to larger-scale changes to water infrastructure and urban form in the future. It extends socio-technical co-evolution and ANT from the limited analysis of existing networks to the possibility of exploring future network relations.

Hydro-urban co-evolutionary ANT methods for London The water infrastructure of London needs adaptation due to the ecological damage it causes from water abstraction and discharge; and the risk of water shortage from projections of a growing population and altering rainfall patterns. The form of water infrastructure that currently serves London has been developed for centuries and is one of the first large-scale piped water distribution and sewage collection systems in the world. It is a

206 Tse-Hui Teh paradigmatic model that has been replicated and aspired to in urban areas around the world, therefore it could be argued that this is a particularly persistent and intransigent model of water infrastructure with little likelihood of alteration. A co-evolutionary ANT approach revealed that although the network of relations that form the water infrastructure of London is currently stable, there are changes afoot that could escalate to an alteration of the system should water become scarce in the future. The participants for this research were a mixture of professionals and environmentally aware citizens who all affect the quantity, quality and location of water in London. Professionals were recruited through emails, telephone calls and a few personal contacts. Environmentally aware citizens were engaged through notices on websites, and email lists from sustainability and environmental groups. The environmentally aware citizens were self-identified and selected as a group because the pilot interviews with non-environmentally aware citizens exhibited wariness in answering questions about water use. Thus it was felt that they would be a difficult group to recruit and the answers would lack openness. There were many stages to this research in order to understand the existing network, find the unique relationships within the network, test the ways in which the network may change and explore which changes were most likely to occur. The existing network was investigated by two means. First, by asking the participants how they interacted with water on a daily basis and other irregular interactions. Second, by having the participants keep a water diary comprised of a 27-exposure disposable camera and a notebook to record every water interaction they had in a day, if they had any additional exposures they were asked to record water interactions that were unusual or meaningful to them. This method also recorded unique relationships within the network, as people’s daily, unusual and meaningful interactions were not necessarily alike. Testing the ways in which the network would change was done in two ways. First, problematizing the water infrastructure by asking the participants how they would change their water interactions in times of extreme water scarcity. The scenario given to the participants was that they would need to collect the water for domestic use from a public standpipe located 750m/0.5 miles away from their front door. After gathering these responses and those of the unique water relationships, a set of designs was developed. These designs escalated from small interventions in the private domain, which were imagined to be able to be done immediately, to larger infrastructural moves that required redefining new types of public space projected to occur 100 years hence. Despite the different scales and timeframes, a narrative of escalating the convenience, volume and efficiency of water reuse linked these different designs together with the network situation of today. The interessement of the possible networks for these designs to be implemented were then explored through a set of interviews with the participants who had previously been asked about their existing and water-scarce water

Hydro-urbanism in London 207 interactions. The favoured designs were then further detailed and retested in a group discussion format with a mixture of some previous participants with new professional and citizen participants. A single favoured theme from this process was further developed through a co-design game process in a two-day workshop that involved 14 professionals and interested citizens, most of whom had not participated in any of the previous stages of research. This workshop comprised of educational site visits and homework that set a common ground prior to playing the three co-design games that were invented specifically for the purposes of this research. The first game, ‘Macromoves’, creates the broader contexts of an imagined future scenario. The second game, ‘I-count’ elucidates the system dependencies and influences throughout the network of relations. The third game, ‘Landed’ used the experiences and results from the previous two games to develop a video of a future London. The combination of these methods, staged over different time periods, allows for an exploration and elaboration of how London’s water systems could co-evolve in the future. It starts with a specific understanding of how material and human relationships currently exist in London. It then problematizes these relationships through a water scarcity scenario. These new networks are combined with unique existing networks to form design interessements that begin with small private changes and escalate to shared alterations to the network of relations. The reactions to the design interessements form the basis of the likelihood of that co-evolution pathway, which then led to a different type of interessement that was formed through the co-design games.

Hydro-urbanism in London The analysis of the interviews and photographic diaries for the existing network of relations found that most people participating in the research had very similar material–water–human relationships. The first water interaction of the day where people altered the quantity, quality and location of water occurred when people used the toilet to expel urine and flush the waste via sewerage pipes to a wastewater treatment plant. Others began by using a basin and tap to access and dispel water to wash their face or brush their teeth; or a shower to clean their body. A few people had water by the bedside to start the day with a drink of water when they woke. The next water interaction was typically using a tap, kettle, stove and cup to drink a hot beverage or make breakfast, before using a tap and sink to wash the dishes. This continued throughout the day with more toilet flushes, water drinking and food preparation. Additional regular water interactions included watering the garden; and cleaning soiled clothes, paving, floors and other items. However, not everybody used the same types of water to conduct these actions.

208 Tse-Hui Teh There were several people who made efforts to conserve their use of potable water. The majority of these people used a rainwater butt to collect rainwater from roof surfaces to use at a later time to water the garden. Some other people practised ‘yellow mellowing’, which is a practice that originates in dry climates that use a flushing sanitation system such as Australia and California. The full ditty is ‘If it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.’ In other words, conserve water by only flushing after defecating. These practices show that people will change the types of water they use and how much they use depending on how plentiful they perceive water to be. There is a prioritization of water from taps for uses that interact with the body, rather than to flush waste or maintain plants. With these two methods and a concerted effort to get all household members to adhere to practising water conservation, one participant was able to lower water consumption to 52 litres per person per day for a household of three adults and one teenager. Very unique people altered the way the infrastructure in their houses operated. They problematized their potable water use; created interessement for different ways of reducing the potable water use; enrolled various pipes, reservoirs, valves, microbes and pumps in order to mobilize new water circulation systems in their homes, which then became stabilized when proved successful. One such person used simple technologies to alter their water infrastructure. The bath was used as a grey-water reservoir to save the water used after showering. A  bucket was then used to fetch the grey-water to flush the toilet, mop the floors, water the garden and do hand-laundering. This was a very unstable set of network relations as it required the person to lift and transfer water from one location to another. When the person felt tired, the set of relations reverted to potable water. This participant had attempted to mobilize a water diverter directly from the bath to the garden, but unfortunately the bathroom was level with the garden and the necessary water pressure for the system to operate could not be obtained. Another person had a different set of material relations with regards to the location of the bathroom and garden, whereby the bathroom was on an upper floor, therefore the used water from the shower and basin could simply be diverted to a drip irrigation system in the garden using pipes and gravity. The water diverter was through a pipe on the exterior of the building with a valve that could be turned from the garden back to the sewer pipe to prevent flooding in the garden should the ground be saturated from rain. However a ladder was required to reach the valve, hence the setting had never been changed and the water was always directed to the garden. This set of relationships for water reuse was easily mobilized and very stable. The most complex technology was a house refitted with a grey-water system. This included installing grey-water abstraction pipes to the showers, baths, basins and the washing machine to a grey-water membrane treatment system and grey-water distribution pipes to the toilets, washing machine, outdoor areas and an overflow to the sewer system. The grey-water membrane treatment system sits in the basement of the house and the treated

Hydro-urbanism in London 209 water is of a potable quality, but cannot be classified as such because there is no regular testing of the water to ensure the consistency of its quality. Once mobilized, this set of relationships was very stable, as there were no alternative water sources. Trust of the drinking quality of this treated grey-water occurred accidently for the participant. It happened because there was a misconnection of the grey-water distribution pipe to the kitchen tap. Water was being used from the kitchen tap for all kitchen uses including drinking and cooking. No ill-effects were suffered before the misconnection was discovered, therefore when this participant was asked what they would do in times of water scarcity, treated grey-water was cited as a potential alternative source of drinking-water. The misconnection was an unintended water quality experiment for the participant. The lack of ill-effects from the treated grey-water was the theatre of proof that confirmed the scientific evidence that the water was safe to drink. This is comparable to the theatre of proof at Pouilly-leFort created by Pasteur to confirm to the public that he had created an effective vaccine against anthrax (Latour, 1988). Most people when asked how they would behave in times of water scarcity stated that the first thing that they would alter would be to flush the toilet less frequently. There is, of course, a material resistance that limits how little the toilet can be flushed. Smell, hygiene and unsightliness of human waste will create the circumstance where the toilet will be flushed. A poo would need to be flushed immediately, but a single pee would not, but then how many pees would there need to be before the toilet is flushed? These problematizations then led people to think of replacing the flushing toilet infrastructure with compost, chemical and night soil collection systems. People were also willing to reuse their water for other purposes that were seen as being progressively dirtier or not requiring drinking quality water. For example, water used for rinsing dishes could be repurposed for washing the floor, watering the garden or flushing the toilet. These common responses and the unique infrastructural relationships formed the basis of the following design interessements that escalated in complexity over time. These included a washing-up bowl with a lid to enable easy, splash-free water reuse from the kitchen throughout the house in the immediate timeframe; in 10–25 years’ time this could be improved upon by adding a water diverter from the shower, bath and basin on the upper floor to the toilet cistern in the lower floor. This design is reliant on the common building form in London of attached houses of multiple storeys containing stacked wet areas at the rear of the house. In 50 years’ time, the system could be developed further by a group of neighbours investing in a shared grey-water recycling system as fitted by one of the participants in the research. A group of neighbours would make the system economically viable for the initial capital investment, ongoing operating costs and make the grey-water recycler more efficient as it would be treating a volume of water closer to its operating capacity. Then after 100  years, this

210 Tse-Hui Teh system could be consolidated to include everybody who lives in a typical London block, whereupon every house would be connected to a reticulated grey-water system that would gain efficiencies through being able to treat water biologically and reuse nutrients for aquaculture and wetland crops such as water hyacinths, wild rice or cranberries. Grey-water could also be exported to other places such as schools, offices and industries that can use grey-water but do not produce much of it. These design propositions were then used to seek interessement with the participants whose responses were the basis of their development. All the propositions except for the collaboration with the neighbours had a favourable interessement. The collaboration with the neighbours was a failed interessement because people felt that this type of interaction with their neighbours would be the cause of personal conflict. It was also felt that the typical rental tenure in London with an annual turnover of tenants would also prevent this type of relationship from forming with landlords and cause too many communication troubles as each new tenant would need to be initiated into the operation of the system. The failed design interessement demonstrates which particular network relationships were more intractable than others. It also demonstrates how actants not typically associated with water infrastructure, in this case rental tenure, are in fact significant to its stabilization and enactment. Despite missing this intermediate step, retrofitting an entire block for grey-water recycling was considered possible. Before adapting existing neighbourhood blocks, the suggested intermediate step towards this was for the system to be first implemented in new developments, or housing association buildings where the building and landscape management is already centralized. Other additional actants were suggested by the participants for both the retrofit grey-water recycling community and the dry sanitation relational networks. For the grey-water recycling community, participants suggested the following actants that could be added to the network: rainwater could be another water source for the system; and renewable energy sources such as wind and photovoltaics could be used to power the pumps to reticulate the water. For the dry sanitation system, participants suggested that the vehicle used to collect the pee and poo could be powered by the biogas produced from the anaerobic digestion of the poo; and a vacuum system was also suggested as an alternative to kerbside collection of the waste. Both the dry sanitation system and the retrofit grey-water recycling systems added these suggestions before being tested again for interessement with participants that had not been part of the previous stages. The additional actants in the design interessements were used to see if these co-evolution pathways would gain more interessement from human actants if these elements were incorporated into the network of relations. The additional actants of new research participants were necessary to see if the design interessement could be applied to the general population of London,

Hydro-urbanism in London 211 not just the specific participants whose altering network relations enabled these particular design interessements to be developed. This interessement was done by introducing the altered design suggestions to participants in a workshop format. The workshop was held on one evening with 35 participants divided into eight groups of three to five people each with its own facilitator to conduct the discussion. It was found that despite the additional actants being added, there was no further interessement by participants, a saturation point had been reached with this method of interessement. In order to develop the relational network, further actants would need to be enrolled that could result in a potential implementation in a locality. The co-design games began this further interessement for the dry sanitation system. The first day of the workshop familiarized the co-design participants with existing actants and relationships of the wet and dry waste systems of London and currently available alternative sanitation systems. The icebreaker was for each person to introduce themselves with a photograph of their domestic sanitation system. This enabled everyone to realize the similarities and differences of their personal toilet contexts and the researchers to verify the existing material relationships each participant was embedded within. The participants then toured a wastewater treatment plant and the North London Waste Authority’s site where incineration and composting take place and other waste is sorted for landfill and recycling. These visits demonstrated the scale, capacity and sophisticated set of relationships that create the existing infrastructure. For example, the solid waste system serves approximately 1.9  million residents that produce 836,000 tonnes of waste annually (North London Waste Authority, 2014). All this waste is collected from the kerbside; transported to the waste sorting site; then categorized for recycling, composting, landfilling and incinerating; before being stored, treated onsite or transported. This process requires the coordination of trucks, people, weighing scales, containers, sorting machines, conveyor belts, fire, computers, gases, centrifugal forces and sensors that synchronize the safe and hygienic salvage and treatment of all this rubbish. Following these tours, the participants were taken for a walk in an area of north-east London that is representative of London’s typical urban form. This was introduced as the site where the co-design scenario would be located. Finally, a series of presentations complemented by an exhibition of alternative sanitation systems completed the first day of the workshop. The second day of the workshop was when the co-design games were played. The day began with participants showing a photograph of their most interesting moments at both the dry waste facility and the wastewater treatment plant. This helped to consolidate the learning from the first day and link it to the activities of the second day. Then four future broader context situations were developed using the ‘Macromoves’ game, which asked each participant to write on cards three reasons why dry sanitation would

212 Tse-Hui Teh happen in the future, and three reasons why dry sanitation would not happen in the future. These cards were then themed so that all participants could see the intensity of certain concerns above others. The cards were then shuffled and each participant took three random cards. The participants were then formed into groups of three or four who developed a scenario based on the cards that their group had at hand. Four scenarios were then explained to the whole group ‘Brown Economy’, ‘Wonderloo’, ‘Yes to Dry’, and ‘Cost’. ‘Brown Economy’, and ‘Wonderloo’ described a situations where poo and pee are valued commodities. ‘Yes to Dry’ was an intermediate scenario where pilot dry sanitation was being considered. ‘Cost’ was a situation where it was too expensive to implement an alternative sanitation system. These situations were then used as the basis for the context in which the participants then collaborated to design a sanitation scenario in London. Having developed ideas about the context for future sanitation systems, two sanitation systems were then developed using the co-design game ‘I-count’. This game was devised to identify that every actant is related to all actants. It also reveals how actant relations constrain future choices such that past actant definitions need to be redefined if new sanitation systems are to arise. This game involved a predetermined set of actants of a sanitation system each described on a card that was randomly selected by each participant. Each participant then gets to decide on the qualities of that actant. For example if the actant is a toilet, then the toilet could be a flush toilet in a private cubicle or maybe a vacuum flush composting toilet; if the actant is receiving environment, then this could be biodynamic agricultural ecosystem or it could be a constructed wetland. The first player to roll ‘1’ begins the system, with each subsequent actant having to respond the preceding actant relationships. At the conclusion of each full system of decisions, the whole system is reiterated by each of the participants, recorded on Post-It notes, and analysed for relationships the participants liked and those that they did not like. These areas were then taken as relationships to be encouraged or avoided in the design of a sanitation scenario in London. This game was played twice resulting in two systems, ‘Worms-R-Us’ and ‘Community’. The relationships to be encouraged from ‘Worms-R-Us’ was the vermiculture where the value of poo was recognized as a resource, which resulted in improved aquatic ecologies. Those to be avoided were the noisy, high-energy and easily vandalized vacuum flush systems. While the relationship to be encouraged from ‘Community’ was the sense that sanitation was a collective endeavour that everyone took part in and those to be discouraged were the high level of manual labour needed to ensure the system operated and the creation of systems that were too small for the optimal harvesting of nutrients. Finally the co-design participants were reorganized into new teams of four or five to play the final game ‘Landed’. This game required the participants to roll a dice to allocate which contextual situation and which system relationship combinations they should prioritize and avoid to create

Hydro-urbanism in London 213 a sanitation design scenario for the north-east London neighbourhood that they had visited the day before. The sanitation design scenario was represented by a three- to four-minute video that explained the material and social relationships that formed the system. This resulted in three design scenarios ‘Silvia Does a Poo’, ‘McWorm’ and ‘Status Quo’. ‘McWorm’ invented a system where vermiculture was used to treat the pee and poo; then the vermiculture worms were harvested and processed to create protein for hamburger patties; which then in turn were eaten and created more pee and poo, which then returns to create more worm food and worm protein to eat. ‘Silvia Does a Poo’ made a set of relationships between the residents of the neighbourhood; a vacuum sewer system installed within existing sewer pipes; a neighbourhood collection and treatment facility; and farmers that sold produce at the neighbourhood farmers market. Silvia was the resident whose pee and poo was followed in its virtuous cycle from the point of creation to collection, treatment and repurposing. The poo was used to generate electricity to power the vacuum flush system, for local street lighting and fertilizer for local farmers and neighbourhood gardens. The urine was collected separately from urinals and also used as fertilizer. The vegetables fertilized with Silvia’s pee and poo were then sold at the local farmers’ market, thereby completing the cycle. ‘McWorm’ and ‘Silvia Does a Poo’ both played with the boundaries of what could be acceptable in a future sanitation scenario. While it is unlikely that either scheme would be adopted in the near future by the residents in this area of London, they both identify potential actants that could make an alternative sanitation system. Especially important was the recycling of the treated waste product as nutrients for food production as this was the main endeavour of both schemes. ‘McWorm’ concentrated on an entrepreneurial economic system whereupon a private enterprise would be responsible for the worm farm treatment facility and the harvesting and processing of the worms into protein. On the other hand ‘Silvia Does a Poo’ attempts to diversify the by-products of human waste into urine for liquid fertilizer, biogas from anaerobic digestion for electricity, and solid waste from the anaerobic digestion for fertilizer. While the relationship of material flows is well described in this design scenario, the flow of money was not well developed. ‘Status Quo’ on the other hand describes both a potential alternative sanitation system, how it may go wrong, how much it might cost the end user to implement a new system and how the current sewerage provider might react to the development of alternative sanitation systems. The alternative sanitation system described was one in which waste is collected and treated in a new biogas digester placed underground in a local park. Similar to ‘Silvia Does a Poo’, the products from the biogas digester are proposed to be reused for fertilizer and electricity. The issues brought forth against its implementation were the potential hygiene problems should there be any spillage in the collection service; the safety of the biogas digester in a park; the smell from the digester; and the personal cost and disruption as new

214 Tse-Hui Teh types of toilets that allowed waste to be collected would need to be bought and fitted into existing bathrooms. In this design scenario, the existing sewerage provider is a sinister presence who anonymously attends the community meeting discussing the alternative sanitation system to monitor the probable implementation of the system in order to decide on how it will curtail an alternative system. The co-design games also showed how actants redefined themselves relative to each other in the interessement stage of network creation. The qualities that were defined relatively were composed of both the meanings to different people as well as the physical qualities of particular actants. This can be illustrated by the biodigester in ‘Status Quo’ and ‘Silvia Does a Poo’. The biodigester was proposed to be located underground in the local park where children play. The biodigester actant was at first defined as a technological component of an alternative sanitation system. Its location in under a park, then redefined the park actant as a space that was used for waste treatment as well as play. In ‘Status Quo’, this redefined the biodigester actant as a potential source of danger due to the gases that are created in the treatment process. The redefinition of the park as a place for waste treatment then redefined children in the park as actants who were vulnerable and potentially innocent victims of dangerous equipment. These redefinitions of actants at the interessement stage resulted in the biodigester being excluded from a possible set of new material configurations in ‘Status Quo’. However, the same biodigester actant in ‘Silvia Does a Poo’ was redefined as a source of energy and compost, never a source of danger. This resulted in its interessement within that set of network relationships. This set of methods developed using a co-evolutionary ANT framework enabled a shift from understanding existing individual material–water relationships and how these would change in times of water scarcity, to project design actants that escalated from these personal changes to larger scale infrastructural changes on a neighbourhood scale. By using these designs to test for interessement with human actants, it was found that water reuse and alternative sanitation at the personal and neighbourhood scales were both ways that produced interessement with participants. There was the same degree of interessement with both those whose material–water relationships the design actants were based on, and those who did not participate in this stage demonstrating the wider applicability of these results in London. To further elaborate the interessement, a set of co-design games was developed and played to explore in greater detail what types of actants and interessement are considered necessary for an alternative sanitation system in London. This found that among the participants for the co-design games, the creation of circular systems of nutrient cycling was considered the most significant set of relationships to enrol and stabilize a new network of sanitation relationships. These results show that London’s water infrastructure is not intractable. Prolonged water scarcity would create a situation where the network would

Hydro-urbanism in London 215 change to create new relationships of water reuse and alternatives to the waterborne sanitation system. The results also reveal that an alternative sanitation system may arise not only because of the problematization of water scarcity, but also in response to a problematization of creating more efficient circular cycles of nutrient and energy use.

Conclusion Co-evolutionary ANT is the framework that formed the basis to develop a set of methods to test the possibilities of prospective network relationships. The ANT perspective created a method that was equally concerned between the human and the non-humans that were part of the network of relationships that formed the water infrastructure of London. ANT also gave a way to identify the stages of possible new network formations and stabilizations. The co-evolutionary aspect of the framework sought out the unique relationships within the water infrastructure as potential relationships that could be expanded to more places. It also recognized areas where relationships were more unstable as parts of the network that are more likely to coevolve. These were places of potential problematization where human values, needs or desires were misaligned with the non-human relationships that form part of the water infrastructure. These areas of unstable relationships were then targeted with design proposals that tested the ways in which these networks could change by the intensity of interessement by human actants. The next step of this research process would be to shift from interessement, to enrolment and mobilization to see what types of stabilizations could occur from these network shifts. By using the co-evolutionary ANT framework, methods could be developed to use the philosophical insights of ANT to develop socio-material evidence of people’s water practices and values that were the basis for design proposals that extrapolated from small network changes to larger-scale effects. In this manner, it was possible to explore prospective network reconfigurations that began with personal water reuse to a neighbourhood infrastructural system of grey-water recycling; and from reduced toilet flushing to an alternative sanitation system. This connected the micro and personal to the macro and communal. The co-design games extended these insights by inviting human actants to redefine their relationships with non-human actants in new possible interessements that could then be compared to find which relationships were considered the most necessary to a new network configuration. These links between philosophical insights, research evidence and design proposals formulate an approach to planning that takes into account the material and cultural shifts that policy affects. It enriches design solutions from a normative basis, to include a critical forum to explore options that combine the understanding and experience of interested citizens and professionals with proposed change to their current material relationships.

216 Tse-Hui Teh By using co-evolutionary ANT to frame the alterations of network relationships, a common vocabulary and understanding is created that can be used to relate policy and design concerns, thus a more integrated model for change. This approach and methods can be applied to other planning concerns beyond water such as infrastructures for wellbeing, energy, food production and distribution, social welfare and transportation.

References Callon, M. (1986) Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fishermen of St Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (ed.), Power, Action and Belief: a new sociology of knowledge? London: Routledge, pp. 196–223. de Laet, M. and Mol, A. (2000) The Zimbabwe bush pump. Social Studies of Science, 30(2): 225–263. Geels, F. (2005) Co-evolution of technology and society:  the transition in water supply and personal hygiene in the Netherlands (1850–1930) – a case study in multi-level perspective. Technology in Society, 27(3): 363–397. Latour, B. (1988) The Pasteurization of France. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (1993) We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press. Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social:  An Introduction to Actor-NetworkTheory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Law, J. and Callon, M. (1988) Engineering and sociology in a military aircraft project:  a network analysis of technological change. Social Problems, 35(3): 284–297. North London Waste Authority (2014) North London Joint Waste Strategy: Annual Monitoring Report 2013–14. London: North London Waste Authority, www. nlwa.gov.uk/docs/annual-reports/strategy-monitoring-report-2013–2014.pdf. Shove, E. (2004) Comfort, Cleanliness and Convenience: The Social Organization of Normality. Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers.

14 Towards an extended symmetry Using ANT to reflect on the theory and practice gap David Webb

Introduction Perhaps the publication of this book can itself be seen as an example of the particular processes of socio-material interaction that have been spotlighted by work in the actor-network theory tradition. The book represents, in part, an attempt to bring together those scholars whose work draws on the actornetwork theory literature and to frame that work as a subset of a wider field of planning research that has similar conceptual roots. The individual contributions express a diversity of aims, they engage with the subject of planning in different ways and using varied examples, and yet the very fact that they are to be presented alongside one another suggests, to some degree, a shared direction and, at a certain level, a shared discursive project. Such experiments in group formation are a central concern of the early ANT literature, driven by its debt to material semiotic philosophers and in particular to Michel Serres. The guiding propositions within this literature include a determination to avoid axiomatic grids of analysis or, as Michel Callon puts it, to ‘refrain from judging the way in which the actors analyse the society which surrounds them’ (Callon, 1986: 198): research participants must be free to negotiate how they define themselves and others. Much of the work in the 1980s and 1990s explored this principle through tightly bounded case studies of the process of negotiation and collectivization of identities, while there has since been a loosening of focus to appreciate the ‘partial connections’ (Strathern, 1991) and multiplicities of networks in which any one process is caught up. For the vast majority of work in the ANT tradition, a focus on group formation provides a tool for understanding the world ‘out there’. In doing so, however, it is recognized that these accounts must themselves perform, reaffirm and reconstruct identities and that they do this by attending to particular concerns, by privileging and advancing selected storylines and by giving meaning in a way that appeals to the minds and attitudes of others (Moser, 2008). Such processes do not only affect those about whom the research is written, they also enact disciplinary concerns, research conventions and scientific communities. This book, then, is an illustration of just that process, since the by-product of a fresh set of

218 David Webb accounts of planning practice is the reaffirmation and possibly the reconfiguration of particular academic and practitioner identities as well as the nature of the relationship between them. The central concern of this chapter is to explore the inevitable, doubled-edged nature (Law, 2004) of the process of identity construction that flows from the writing of academic accounts, and in particular to query some of the multivalent discursive conditions that both frame and are reproduced by academic work. It is intended less as a conclusive account of the performance of particular identity-politics and ethics through academic research than as the delineation of an area that seems to be underdeveloped in planning scholarship but has significant potential to contribute to our understanding of what has become known as the ‘theory–practice gap’ (Alexander, 1997; Watson, 2008; March, 2010). My contention is that the use of concepts from ANT as a means of developing accounts of planning should be a phenomenon to be problematized, explored and accounted for in much the same way as the latest government policy agenda or local development strategy. One way of articulating this is to talk of symmetry in our approach to both domains. To do this is to extend Michel Callon’s call for the academic ‘observer’ (Callon, 1986: 198) to adopt a symmetrical understanding of both human and non-human actors. An extended symmetry embraces both the observer and the ‘observed’, and recognizes both as caught up within networks that, to a large extent, govern their desires and the constraints under which it is possible for them to act. In the future, although not necessarily within this chapter, such a symmetrical approach might usefully lead to a greater appreciation of the dominant definitions of planning scholarship, together with the frames and constraints attached to them, and also of the means by which those definitions are stabilized ‘from a distance’.

Symmetry as a means of looking outwards/forwards and inwards/backwards A call for symmetry is a fairly established corollary of thinking through actor networks, often deployed as a means of breaking down dualisms such as those between humans and hon-humans or nature and society (Latour, 2004; Murdoch, 1997). However, while researchers frequently appear as the subjects of ANT accounts, the call for symmetry has less frequently been applied to the dualism that arises from a distinction between the researcher of actor networks and the researched who operate within those actor networks. John Law outlines how this situation has prompted two related critiques of ANT. The first accuses the early literature of being masculine and managerialist as a consequence of its focus on selected sites of network formation and extension (Star, 1991). Second, it is accused of imposing a fixed relational ontology in an imperialistic way, thereby excluding from view those issues not amenable to network inquiry (Lee and Brown, 1994; see

Towards an extended symmetry 219 also see Spivak, 1988). These accusations, that the network perspective has been accompanied by a lack of critical reflection on that perspective’s own conditions of possibility and on its potential for othering, highlight the danger that ANT might inadvertently maintain the largely rejected subjectification of the academic expert as having a privileged, more comprehensive or more factually accurate viewpoint than those s/he studies. Part of ANT’s response must of course be to find productive synergy in the use of a combination of methods and perspectives (Law, 2004). John Law (2008) has, furthermore, underlined the politics inherent in ANT accounts. He states that: There is nowhere to hide beyond the performativity of the webs. But since our own stories weave further webs, it is never the case that they simply describe. They too enact realities and versions of the better and the worse, the right and the wrong, the appealing and the unappealing. There is no innocence. The good is being done as well as the epistemological and the ontological. (Law, 2008: 154) Such comments draw attention to the work that actor network-based accounts can do in highlighting particular concerns, informing debates and helping research communities to consider future courses of action. They are voiced alongside a significant level of critical reflection on the arguments that have been made by scholars of ANT and their position in relation to competing schools of thought at the time. But in the light of changing, privatizing and increasingly diverse university cultures (Allen and Imrie, 2010), they must not fall into the trap of accepting the institutional conditions of ‘free thought’, from which ANT scholars often speak, as given. These conditions are affected not only by change but also by disciplinary variety, and their evolution is connected with developments that assume different trajectories across the disciplines. ANT accounts must therefore not only concentrate on their own, individual implications, as process-driven accounts are often so fond of doing, but must also attend to the historical and evolving conditions under which such work is carried out, as well as to the influence of ANT accounts on the future shape of those conditions.

Tools for working inwards/backwards The contribution of those who have advanced the use of Foucault with ANT (Rutland and Aylett, 2008; Webb, 2012) has been to combine ANT’s ontology of power and freedom as things that are performed through a plethora of imbricated networks (Callon and Latour, 1981), and Foucault’s higher-level analysis, which sees these as a constantly shifting meshwork of governmental strategies (Skinner, 2008; Foucault, 1991). Foucault’s work on regimes and dispositifs acts as a kind of meta-theory, gathering together subjective

220 David Webb similarities and complementary patterns of government that can be seen operating across many – more ANT-led – case studies (cf. Kooij, 2015). If this is applied, not just to the subject of academic work in geography and planning, but to the conditions that make it possible then this forces us to ask critical questions about the forms of government that populate academia and their relationship with those found in practice. Instead of seeing the ‘transfer’ of theory to practice as a move from the pure to the messy, this establishes both realms as messy arenas in which discourses vie to establish the frameworks and matters of concern to which action should be directed. A  key advantage of adopting this symmetrical approach to research and practice is that it promotes a clearer appraisal of the political work desired by research, the means by which it is pursued and the identities created or secured in the process. One consequence of this kind of self-analysis is that academic research is made into something much more humble (cf. Jasanoff, 2003), viewed as always made possible by wider discourses of the worth of academic disciplines and assumptions about what is to be gained by inquiry; for example, those that expect ‘impact’ to arise from ‘pure’ academic work. The implications for research are, arguably, much more significant and much more challenging than the implications for how we study practice because they challenge everything that is routine, established and expected in the way that academics behave within their scholarly institutions, reducing academic action instead to a practice that is inherently tied up and connected with broader social views and historic discursive legacies that shape our sense of what academics should be doing, why and to what end. In this conception, academic and planning practice are both seen as subject to messy entanglements with discourses and technologies for governing academia that establish the frameworks and matters of concern for research in much the same way, although perhaps to a less constrictive extent, as they do the world of practice. In terms of academic practice, one of the questions that arises is that of why current practices are allowed to exist, and even encouraged, particularly in the light of frequent or perhaps even pervasive academic criticism of practice.

Thinking through the government of academic accounts A starting point for thinking about how to extend the principle of symmetry to the study of academic accounts might be to follow Jonathon Murdoch’s distinction between rationalities and technologies. Murdoch’s work on areas such as housing policy (Murdoch, 2000), spatial plans (Murdoch et al., 1999) and urban geography (Murdoch, 2006) incorporates elements from both Foucault and ANT as a means of offering an extended analysis of planning and urban development that stresses its relationship with evolving patterns of government. Of particular note here is Murdoch’s development of Foucault’s work, which distinguished ideas, or rationalities, from

Towards an extended symmetry 221 the formalized institutions and process technologies designed to implement them. In his sense, rationalities are understood almost as more explicit and detailed articulations of broader discourses and they are mobilized in policy arenas in particular as a way of achieving coherence across a policy regime and marshalling legitimacy for a particular approach to a governmental problem. Technologies represent the formal processes and performances through which these rationalities are given traction over policy problems. They establish the categories through which problems can be made visible and negotiate their deployment across diverse sites. The nature of contemporary disagreements about the purpose of academic knowledge and the way in which it should be governed means that there are at least two broad sets of mechanisms that can be broken down using Murdoch’s framework of rationalities and technologies. In broad conception, the marketization of higher education emanates from a view of research which is concerned with its ability to add to or revise an existing stock of knowledge, rather than on the overlapping and often conflicting knowledges associated with different disciplines. The progression of knowledge is in this sense linear; to an extent it has to be since the aim is to promote ‘quality’. At the level of technologies, a set of conceptual tools provide a more concrete means of measuring the value of academic knowledge; their essential purpose is to promote academic knowledge as a tradeable and marketable entity. They are an ostensibly precise set of specialized definitions, used as intermediaries to regulate the relationship between the department responsible for funding and the academic institutions. They establish that the greatest reward should flow to knowledge that is ‘world-leading in terms of originality, significance and rigour’ (HEFCE, 2011: 43), while impact is measured according to the effect, change or benefit of research beyond academia (ibid.). One consequence of this is to reaffirm the importance of the self-referential process of peer review and to thereby support the continued freedom of academic disciplines to set their own agendas. However, the framework also seeks to guide these agendas towards issues that have the greatest capacity for managed processes of instrumentalization. While present directions suggest an increasingly commercial future for academic work, they also demonstrate a recognition of its established capacity for self-government and a fear of impinging on this too greatly. Self-government within disciplines can equally be seen, in Foucauldian terms, as a governmental technology:  one that strongly influences how researchers behave. However, it is methodologically difficult to draw on ANT to develop accounts of this technology. actor-network theory’s focus on group and identity formation has resulted in a process-driven character, sometimes likened to drawing with a pencil (Latour, 2005), which, although effective as a means of theorizing concentrated power and long-distance control, is challenged by the often anonymous and highly distributed nature of peer review. Equally, while the shift from technologies of academic self-government towards marketized processes can be likened to broader

222 David Webb shifts from liberal to advanced liberal forms of government (Miller and Rose, 2008), this results in only a general level of analysis. Some further considerations are necessary to help with any exploration of disciplinary self-government; although of continued importance here, and following ANT, is a need to emphasize the subjectivities arising from contemporary struggles over the way in which academia should be governed.

Extending a relational approach to disciplinary self-government Schoenberger (2001: 368) argues that disciplines can be defined by a ‘practical consciousness’ in which ‘ideas are actually a part of material social processes’. This view emphasizes the significance of processes of data collection, knowledge construction and validation in shaping disciplinary identities, while also tying these processes to definitions of ‘what counts as evidence and what does not’ (ibid.). This certainly suggests a link between everyday, self-governed research practices and the framing of research, which in turn could be said to attribute identities to participants, observers, audiences and so on. Furthermore, Schoenberger explicitly suggests that the practical consciousness of a discipline goes on to shape the way researchers understand the possibilities for action in the world around them. In this sense, disciplines establish patterns of relationships with practice that condition, to some extent, the expected forms of academic impact that may be possible and the processes through which it is assumed to occur. This account of the social power of disciplines presents fields such as planning theory and critical geography as resting on a disciplinary orientation that guides both the concerns to be addressed and the means of addressing them. This can be problematic because self-government may not only respond to social necessities and perceived moral obligations but because individualistic, careerist ambitions may find expression in attempts to strengthen and enlarge disciplines, thereby inviting the prospect of a degree of self-perpetuation (Harvey, 1974). Orzeck (2012: 1452), in discussing the case of critical geography, recognizes that disciplines can also ‘impede lateral knowledge sharing, they cannot accommodate sharp departures from intellectual precedents, and they are rendered coherent as much through exclusion as through inclusion’. More positively, however, she argues that these same self-regulating qualities have allowed universities to discuss and advance public understanding of emerging and often unpalatable ideas, including racial equality and feminism, that have later gone on to become widely accepted. This essentially positions disciplines such as critical geography as a necessary counterweight against the potentially authoritarian nature of formal democracy. The purpose of universities becomes less about achieving managed processes for achieving impact by instrumentalizing academic knowledge and more about the propagation of scholarly debates and the promotion of interchange between these and the public sphere. This says

Towards an extended symmetry 223 nothing about whether this task is being performed well or effectively, but it nevertheless has important implications for how the identity of geography and planning scholars is framed in relation to those outside the academy. In contrast with this clear sense of the public purpose of critical geography, much of the planning theory literature is situated on a threshold between a similar goal of critical interrogation and reflection, on the one hand, and a relationship with professional practice that invites the possibility of a more instrumental use of knowledge. This relationship strengthens planning’s ability to assert what David Harvey’s analysis above termed its ‘social necessity’ (Harvey, 1974: 20), and in doing so, to compete with other disciplines for public funds. Indeed, he describes how, in the wake of British imperialism, geography sourced renewed legitimacy by also addressing itself to ‘[t]‌he technics and mechanics of urban, regional and environmental management’ as demanded by the corporate state (ibid.). Today in the UK, 26 institutions receive formal accreditation from the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) and, in an increasingly competitive job market, the prospect of professional recognition presumably has a significant effect on the degree course choices of many students. The RTPI boasts that: The designation Chartered Town Planner helps you stand out from the crowd in a competitive job market. It is also a requirement for many employers. It can increase your earning potential and speed up your career. (RTPI, 2015) It further argues, in a rather more contestable statement, that:  ‘Being a member of the RTPI makes you part of a community at the forefront of planning’ (ibid.). Such a definition of planning heralds it as a formalized and professionalized activity, while asserting that such activity should be regarded as being ‘at the forefront of planning’. This in turn implies specific identities for both planners and academics. If planners are well-paid, they presumably offer valuable skills in return. If they are at the forefront of planning, it is only reasonable to assume that these skills go beyond mere technical capability and include a significant level of influence over the future trajectories places take. Such conclusions suggest that planning academics have a role helping them to plan better. This examination of some of the forces influencing the government of planning as a discipline may help to explain a trend within the planning theory literature first identified by Boelens as a ‘government related, view on planning: from the inside-out’ (Boelens, 2010: 30). Boelens’ paper explains how a long succession of work in planning theory has assumed that planning is (or should be) principally done by government or local authority employees. His examples range from the communicative turn (Healey, 1997; Innes, 1995) through discourse alliances (Hajer, 1995; Hajer and Reijndorp, 2001) and network urbanism (Dupuy, 2008) to Deleuzian, multi-planar

224 David Webb planning (Hillier, 2007, 2010). What these examples also have in common, with the possible exception of work on discourse alliances, is a weakly developed consideration of the capacity of institutional sites to act on theoretical knowledge. The same can be said of the majority of that work within planning theory that approaches planning practice as a site from which to draw out principles, tools and process models in order that the merits and drawbacks of these might be discussed. Such work presumably anticipates that it might be taken up by those working in planning or, as a minimum, that planners might be encouraged to think differently about how to approach social conflicts, and in this respect it continues a familiar subjectification of planners as reflective professionals with high levels of autonomy.

Subjectivities of neoliberalized planning It would be precarious to argue that there are no instances where planners ‘out there’ find themselves with a high level of autonomy and capacity to act on their reflections and indeed there is much literature that searches for, and consequently discovers, such cases (Healey, 2009; Forester, 2015). What is more important is that it is not simply assumed that this self-image of the planning professional provides a sufficient starting point for negotiating the relationship between theoretical ideas and practice. As Orzeck notes: Far from representing thematic divisions found in the real world, disciplines represent intellectual niches that must be secured and defended in a competitive academic economy. (Orzeck, 2012: 1452) The subjectivities invoked through the production of theoretical research are therefore unlikely to simply reflect those found in practice. Rather, they are a politically contested domain and one that, in itself, requires a body of investigation to explore the means by which they are governed. Furthermore, the need for this work is underlined by what appears to be an increasingly poor fit between these subjectivities and the kinds of identities most likely to achieve progressive influence in practice. There is little detailed research into how far theorists’ process models are understood by practitioners (but see Alexander, 2010), or whether they are capable of acting on them, but that which does exist is not generally positive (March, 2010; Allmendinger, 2009). In terms of British planning in particular, there have been numerous, rather depressing commentaries on the consequences of nearly four decades of neoliberalization (Campbell, 2010; Rozee, 2014). The public sector is now largely absent from the development sector, there is insufficient funding for infrastructure, land assembly is thoroughly privatized and hobbled by the peculiarities of disputes within the private sector, the capture of land value uplift is haphazard at best, while local plan-making is mired in complexity and frequently subverted. Professional autonomy is no

Towards an extended symmetry 225 longer subject only to national guidance but heavily circumscribed by prescriptive forms of national policy that set out what must be done and how. Where theories do appear to have had traction on practice beyond isolated examples, they are often found to be reduced largely to the status of labels, with their academic status appropriated while much of their underlying critical content is removed. Collaborative planning, for example, was explicitly mentioned as an influence on the UK Conservative Party’s localism agenda (Conservatives, 2010). Efforts by planning academics to impact this formulation of local planning practice are likely to either prove unworkable or to find themselves compartmentalized and swiftly appropriated. The existence of a disjuncture between the identity attributed to planners within much of the theoretical literature and that necessary to achieve progressive practice may explain the tendency for some professional planners to view theory as aloof and detached. David Harvey’s (1974) acknowledgement above that disciplinary self-government contains the potential for self-perpetuation might also suggest a need for planning academics to experiment with producing new identities for themselves and others in their engagements with practice. Boelens’ (2010) suggestion to replace an inside-outward planning approach with an outside-inward one is an early step towards that. However, may simply substitute one relatively fixed set of identities with another, and to that extent it is in danger of promoting a new, ostensibly universalistic and possibly privatized model for planning. If such experiments are to be taken forward they must entail a clearer recognition of the institutional and disciplinary forces that shape academic work at any given moment in time and use this to pursue potential alignments with the shifting world of practice, variously defined. This is about more than taking the latest philosophical – perhaps poststructuralist – ideas and finding ways to deploy them as tools for practice and it almost certainly requires decoupling research from a focus on ‘the planner’. One of the greatest contributions of ANT, alongside other poststructuralist approaches, has been to make agency contingent on relational processes. An example is Michel Callon’s (1986) seminal account of scallop farming, which reinforced this by demonstrating the overpowering agency exerted by scallops in dissolving a network focused on their domestication. In doing so, he emphasized the importance that non-human actors can have on the construction and destruction of networks. In the case of planning, the non-human actors that have the greatest bearing on planning issues are often those policy documents, methodologies for evidence generation and legal processes that have been set in place by others in an attempt to codify particular mindsets and regimes of development. Planning academia often finds itself locked out of, or at least very selectively included in, those arenas of detailed enquiry and methodology-building that help to refine and advance these dominant approaches, ‘held back’ by a form of disciplinary self-government that remains largely averse to framing research in line with dominant political ideologies. Planning scholarship ‘from the outside’ is,

226 David Webb I would contest, more likely to find itself trying to pull apart these policies and methodologies, linking them to wider social and economic influences and leveraging the spaces between technologies:  in ANT terms, trying to prevent them from appearing combinable and therefore solid and ‘real’.

Concluding discussion If the theory–practice gap is considered as part of a debate on the government of planning scholarship – how it is that scholars are able to speak and why – then it seems to me that, as long as planning is viewed as a professionalized discipline and activity, attempts to translate planning theory into practice are likely to be frustrated, while a growing pressure to demonstrate impact is likely to entail significant departures from traditional activities of stimulating, informing and improving the quality of public debates. Such attempts at impact are susceptible to being pulled either towards an instrumental role within local planning, which has little real influence on the big planning questions, or to being marginalized by the proliferation of think tanks and consultancies capable of achieving ‘impact’ as a consequence of their freedom from any form of disciplinary self-government and their willingness to support the framing of research in line with dominant political thinking (Peck, 2010; Law and Williams, 2014). Both routes are likely to fall squarely under the definition of impact as a managed, linear process but their potential for positive impact certainly appears to be no greater than the traditional attempts to inform public debates. A cynic might even go so far as to argue that the ability of research to be critical of politics and practice is correlated with the extent to which its impact on such domains has been rendered ineffectual. ANT, however, offers a means of conceptualizing the interchange between the academy and practice more closely. If planning theory is to achieve progressive impact, its task must be to work within an understanding of landscapes of power as means of experimenting with and seeking to build alternative forms of practice. To do this is to negotiate the dual purpose of the planning discipline as a space to inform critical debate on people’s relationships with their environment and an academic subject with applicability to practice. The current state of professional planning appears to be the product of an accumulation of policy technologies aimed at confining and surveying professional agency, and yet the task of government is always evolving in response to new problematics and shifting foci. A fruitful direction for theory may therefore be not only to concentrate on the possibilities for action research that are enabled by such changing environments but also to share knowledge of how these shifts have been identified and their potential explored. This is likely to involve not only accounting for practice but also finding or creating institutional spaces within the academy, and ways of framing research in enabling terms, that allow sufficient variance to exploit the blind spots and interstices that arise from changes and adaptations in

Towards an extended symmetry 227 governmental strategies. One recent account that might be held up as writing in this vein is Thompson’s examination of local innovation in definitions of property rights and its potential to contribute to a broader shift towards cooperative forms of ‘ownership’ in a capitalist economy (Thompson, 2015). The recent turn, in the UK, towards cooperation and social enterprise as a reaction to public sector cuts may also provide opportunities to understand how progressive action can be negotiated through the blurring of categories within expanded or changing fields of activity. The well-documented tendency for successful radical experiments, such as Ebenezer Howard’s programme for peaceful reform, to be appropriated means that action research needs to comprise of a mixture of action, analysis and reflection that allows such dangers to be negotiated. The role of the academic may not be tied to any of these but may change depending on needs and opportunities. This approach has implications for the government of planning as a discipline, since it breaks down linear notions of transfer and associated, hermetically sealed ‘theories’ of planning and, building on Latour’s promotion of academics as ‘diplomats’ (Latour, 2004), may cast researchers also as networkers, collaborators and, ideally, debate-shapers capable of promoting reflection, refinement and dissemination of ideas across emerging movements. David Mullins’ work on self-help housing (Moore and Mullins, 2013) might again be seen as an indicative example of this. In this respect, the relationship between academia and practice is an iterative one and not one that is characterized simply by ‘knowledge transfer’. For some academics, and some of those in charge of the institutions that guide academic work, these ideas may be discomforting because they urge a process of continual reinvention or at least reappraisal and reassertion of the value of research emanating from the academy. This, however, should be seen as strengthening rather than weakening the traditional connection between research and public debate (Law, 2010). In an increasingly neoliberalized context, thinking symmetrically, as a means of scanning for and pursuing opportunities for change, offers a tool with which planning as a discipline might defend itself from authoritarianism, by reaffirming its accountability to sites from across society. To do so is to seek to strengthen disciplinary self-government by promoting its renewal and critical relevance, and in this project are the seeds of a fight back against those alternative forms of government that see the future of the university as an increasingly monitored and marketized product.

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228 David Webb Allen, C. and R. Imrie (2010) The Knowledge Business:  The Commodification of Urban and Housing Research, Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. Allmendinger, P. (2009) Planning Theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Boelens, L. (2010) Theorizing practice and practising theory:  outlines for an actor-relational-approach in planning. Planning Theory, 9(1): 28–62. Callon, M. (1986) Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and the fisherman of St Brieuc Bay. In J. Law (ed.), Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge? London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 196–223. Callon, M. and B. Latour (1981) Unscrewing the big leviathan:  how actors macro-structure reality and how sociologists help them to do so. In K.D. Knorr-Cetina and A.V. Cicourel (eds.), Advances in Social Theory and Methodology:  Toward an Integration of Micro- and Macro-Sociologies. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 277–303. Campbell, H. (2010) The idea of planning:  alive or dead  – who cares? Planning Theory & Practice, 11(4): 471–475. Conservatives (2010) Open Source Planning Green Paper, www.conservatives. com/~/media/Files/Green%20Papers/planning-green-paper.ashx. Dupuy, G. (2008) Urban Networks – Network Urbanism. Amsterdam: Techne Press. Forester, J. (2015) What kind of research might help us become better planners? Planning Theory & Practice, 16(2):145–148. Foucault, M. (1991) Governmentality. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, P. Miller and M. Foucault (eds.), The Foucault Effect:  Studies in Governmentality. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, pp. 87–104. Hajer, M.A. (1995) The Politics of Environmental Discourse:  Ecological Modernization and the Policy Process. Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press. Hajer, M.A. and A. Reijndorp (2001) In Search of New Public Domain: Analysis and Strategy. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers. Harvey, D. (1974) What kind of geography for what kind of public policy? Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 63: 18–24. Healey, P. (1997) Collaborative Planning:  Shaping Places in Fragmented Societies. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Healey, P. (2009) In search of the ‘strategic’ in spatial strategy making. Planning Theory & Practice, 10(4): 439–457. HEFCE (2011) Assessment Framework and Guidance on Submissions, www.ref. ac.uk/media/ref/content/pub/assessmentframeworkandguidanceonsubmissions/ GOS%20including%20addendum.pdf. Hillier, J. (2007) Stretching Beyond the Horizon: A Multiplanar Theory of Spatial Planning and Governance. Aldershot: Ashgate. Hillier, J. (2010) Post-structural complexity:  strategic navigation in an ocean of theory and practice. In M. Cerreta, G. Concilio and V. Monno (eds.), Making Strategies in Spatial Planning. Netherlands: Springer, pp. 87–97. Innes, J.E. (1995) Planning theory’s emerging paradigm:  communicative action and interactive practice. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 14(3): 183–189. Jasanoff, S. (2003) (No?) Accounting for expertise. Science and Public Policy, 30: 157–162. Kooij, H.-J. (2015) Object formation and subject formation: the innovation campus in the Netherlands. Planning Theory, 14: 339–359.

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230 David Webb Star, S.L. (1991) Power, technologies and the phenomenology of conventions:  on being allergic to onions. In J. Law (ed.), A Sociology of Monsters? Essays on Power, Technology and Domination. London: Routledge, pp. 26–56. Strathern, M. (1991) Partial Connections. London: Rowman and Littlefield. Thompson, M. (2015) Between boundaries: from commoning and guerrilla gardening to community land trust development in Liverpool. Antipode, 47: 1021–1042. Watson, V. (2008) Down to earth:  linking planning theory and practice in the ‘metropole’ and beyond. International Planning Studies, 13(3): 223–237. Webb, D. (2012) Conceptualising the bounded agency of housing researchers: the case of housing market renewal in England. International Journal of Housing Policy, 12(3): 315–330.

15 ‘A grand question of design’ Knowledge, space and difference in early and late Latour Malcolm Tait and Kiera Chapman

Why would the Moderns be the only ones who have no right to a dwelling place, a habitat, city planning? After all, they have cities that are often quite beautiful; they are city-dwellers, citizens, they call themselves (and are sometimes called) ‘civilized’. Why would we not have the right to propose to them a form of habitation that is more comfortable and convenient and that takes into account both their past and their future – a more sustainable habitat, in a way? Why would they not be at ease there? Why would they wander in the permanent utopia that has for so long made them beings without hearth or home – and has driven them for that reason to inflict fire and bloodshed on the planet?   The hypothesis is ludicrous, as I  am very well aware, but it is no more senseless than the project of an architect who offers his clients a house with a new form, a new arrangement of rooms and functions; or, better still, an urbanist imagining a truly new city by redistributing forms and functions: why would we not put factories here, run subways there, ban cars in these zones? And so on. It would not be a matter of diplomacy – for the others  – but of convenience  – for oneself. ‘And if you were to put science over there, while relocating politics over here, at the same time that you run the law underneath and move fiction to this spot, wouldn’t you be more at ease? Wouldn’t you have, as people used to say, more conveniences? In other words, why not transform this whole business of recalling modernity into a grand question of design? (Latour, 2013: 22–23)

How do different domains of knowledge production fit together? In his most recent work, Inquiry into the Modes of Existence (Latour, 2013, hereafter Inquiry), Bruno Latour imagines the epistemologist confronting this question as an urban planner. Poised high above the city, she must engage in ‘a grand question of design’, deciding where different engines of knowledge are located, and how they are to be joined up in order to achieve an environment that is at once comfortable, efficient and convenient. Science must occupy a different space from politics, law must be situated in a separate district from fiction, although each area must be well-connected to the others to allow the place to function as an harmonious whole. The goal for

232  Malcolm Tait and Kiera Chapman the metaphorical planner-epistemologist is to show that each area of knowledge within Latouropolis can be distinct, yet attractively interconnected, luring the Moderns into accepting a plurality of knowledges and truths. Later in this chapter, we will explore the limitations of this picture of urban design, and investigate what Latour’s use of this metaphor reveals about the ways in which his recent work struggles to deal with very ­complex activities – such as planning – that are inherently mixed in nature. We shall argue that, by an amusing irony, the work of actual planners is poorly captured by this metaphor that compares the organization of knowledge and truth conditions to the zoning of a city, precisely because it struggles to deal with activities such as planning that are intensely hybrid, working at the intersection of many official and institutional modes such as science, law and politics, but also dealing with deeper ideological commitments to group values and identities. For now, however, we want to explore the idea that institutional and disciplinary knowledges can be made to fit together like districts of a city in more depth. We will suggest that the Inquiry’s account of fact or truth production is significantly different to that offered in Latour’s earlier Actor Network Theory (ANT) texts. Our contention is that Latour has abandoned (or at least compromised) some of the commitments of his earlier work, and that this draws attention to a wider problem with the epistemological underpinnings of his version of ANT. While we recognize the different contributions of key figures such as Michel Callon and John Law to ANT and we believe that some of the objections that we raise here may also apply to their work, in this chapter we are concerned largely with Latour alone. Our central argument is that the earlier Latour is a realist, while the later Latour appears to have abandoned at least some of his commitment to realism. At first sight, the idea that he has ever been a realist may seem like a paradoxical claim. After all, Latour is perhaps best known for his insistence from the very start of his career that knowledge claims, such as scientific facts or legal truths, are constructed, the product of a series of practices carried out on a network of objects. Surely he is therefore a constructionist? Our answer is:  yes, but only in a certain sense of that term, a sense that has to do with the practical mechanics of knowledge generation, that concerns itself with test tubes and legal folders and all of the other agents that must interact constantly to produce facts or truths. Indubitably, Latour traces (sometimes at considerable length) the way that networks of material objects and human practice interconnect to produce knowledge within institutions, repeatedly showing us that nature and the human are not separate domains, but hybrid and intertwined. However, at a deeper, more philosophical level, the early Latour remains an obstinate realist. He is resolutely opposed to Cartesian dualism, for instance, because Descartes’ separation of mind and body removes the thinking consciousness from the world, and therefore creates a problem around how we ensure that our ‘inner’ representations correlate to a world

‘A grand question of design’ 233 ‘outside’ us. For Latour, this whole way of thinking represents one of the foundational errors of a modernity that relentlessly seeks to separate nature and society. Nor is he an advocate for the phenomenological notion that we have immediate access only to the rich, lived experience of a world as it is filtered through our consciousness, regarding this too as a symptom of a separation between the objective world and the subjective human. He explicitly situates his work as a corrective to these viewpoints, describing his objective as a ‘realistic realism’ (Latour, 1999: 15), which is to be achieved by plugging the mind ‘into the connections that would provide it with all the relative certainties it needed to know and act’ (ibid.: 12). As this suggests, ANT provides Latour with a powerful tool to treat subjects and objects on an equal footing, dissolving the problem of a gap between mind and world by studying negotiations within networks that contain both human and non-human agents. Yet the Inquiry sets out a rather different viewpoint, which stretches beyond breaking point Latour’s earlier understanding of the relationship between mind and world. Here, he introduces the concept of ‘modes of existence’, which are the rules that govern the production of truth within a particular institutional area, be it law, science, religion or politics. His project is unashamedly systematic in nature, and aims to show how knowledges generated in different areas can be governed by different veridiction conditions. Yet, in accepting that different areas produce truth in different ways, Latour makes explicit a problem that remained implicit in his earlier work: if law and science produce ‘true’ knowledge by different practices and according to different criteria, then are there a plurality of different truths in the world? Could a scientist, a politician, a lawyer and a priest fundamentally disagree not merely in their interpretation of data but in their basic understanding of material reality? Could two people disagree at a fundamental level about the elements, constitution and operation of a particular network? And if they can, does this not open a further problem of the way that other types of identity shape one’s vision of reality, compromising his ‘realistic realism’ with a far more contested and pluralist model of truth?

The relationship of mind and world in early and later Latour A pivotal work in Latour’s analysis of the relation of mind and world is his book, We Have Never Been Modern (Latour, 1993). In this text, he argues that philosophy took a wrong turn around the seventeenth century, with the advent of modernity. This was the period at which thinkers began to separate science and the world of material nature from society and the world of culture and politics. (God, meanwhile, was removed from both sides of the equation). Nature became something ‘out there’ in the world, passive, ready to be discovered, while society became something that men actively create. Simultaneously, at a hidden, practical level, the Moderns moved in the

234  Malcolm Tait and Kiera Chapman opposite direction, creating laboratory practices that revealed nature to be constructed, and treating society as something transcendental. Modernity, then, is characterized by a contradictory dual movement, which suggests both that nature is a construct and that it is transcendent, both that socially we are free and that we are infinitely surpassed by social laws. Triumphal separation prevailed in one direction, while in the other, hidden associations, mediations and translations constantly occurred, and were as constantly denied. For Latour, this nature/society binary creates a series of false philosophical problems. It does so in three main ways: by constructing a radical separation between subject and object (a tradition stretching from Cartesian dualism through Kant to Habermasian communicative rationality) then insisting that the gap between them must be explained; by focusing attention solely on the semiotic system of reference to the neglect of the material (as exemplified in phenomenology, structuralism, language philosophy); and by isolating ontology as a special realm (Heidegger). It is his discussion of the first of these – the problem of the relationship between mind and world – that interests us in this chapter. For Latour, ANT can emancipate us from the subject/object divide by developing a flat ontology that is able to capture heterogeneity, to consider both human and non-human actors and the ways in which they mingle to create hybrids. By doing away with the need to treat subjectivity as some special category of being, he claims to have solved the problem of correlating sense impressions with an external world. Instead of positing a mind on one hand and a world on the other, networks act as practical machines that constantly produce chains of reference and equivalence between things and their representation. By refusing to acknowledge any division between mind and world, and instead treating all things as agents with an equal mediating role, Latour aims to remove the issue of the mind’s ability to ‘capture’ reality and instead to focus on the multiplicity of negotiations that occupy a more unified ground between the poles of subjectivity (humans-in-themselves) and objectivity (things-in-themselves). As we suggested in the introduction to this chapter, there is a strong element of realism in the world of early Latour in this very specific sense: he believes in reality not as something that lies passively outside us ready for description, but as a practice that can be traced via multifaceted networks reaching across time and space. Facts may be constructed in laboratories, legal judgments in courtrooms, and in both cases networks act as a kind of shuttle that rockets backwards and forwards to produce objectivized knowledge or agreed judgment via a series of mediations or transactions. There is no sense, however, that these associations might be understood in radically different ways by the different agents involved depending on their identity and position within power relations. Indeed, the ability of networks to admit human and non-human actors on an equal plane relies to a great extent on there being no possibility of really radical hermeneutic difference in the way that the network is captured by the observer. After the

‘A grand question of design’ 235 publication of Aramis, Laurier and Philo noted that Latour’s realism leaves little space to account for the way that ANT accounts function as inevitably selective and edited narratives, or for the notion that different observers might pick out completely different objects from the infinite plenitude of the world to comprise a network and explain change. ‘[What] other conceptual moves, perhaps other relations of people, things, and practices, might have arisen if the “cuts” and plots taken to narrate specific actor-networks in Aramis had been different[?]‌’ they ask (Laurier and Philo, 1999: 1068). We want to drive this point further, to suggest that Latour’s networks struggle to deal with difference when it is envisaged not merely as a matter of capricious individual editorial decisions or of established institutional processes, but as a result of deeper cultural and social variance in a group’s relationship with power. For example, in The Making of Law, Latour insists on the need to ‘remain on the surface of things’ when delineating a network (Latour, 2010: 143, emphasis in the original). Rather than focusing on the hidden internal cognitive processes of the lawyer or on the invisible structures of formal rules that lie behind the daily business of the court system, he seeks to explore the material and logical practice of legal reasoning, seeking the ‘explicit signs of the changes of position’ of those acting within the court’s structures (ibid.: 129, emphasis in original). However, this focus on practice is intended to entail a realism, anchoring the ethnographic interpretation in something solid and visible that is independent of the commitments of any particular observer. Latour therefore aims to outline the ‘more or less recognizable traces that we will use as empirical findings’ in order to ‘ensure that the foundation of our commentary is not too fragile, and that the reader is always able to check for himself that we have not over-interpreted the documents’ (ibid.: 129). Put simply, this focus on practice makes a claim to a certain kind of realism: the account of the passes by which a particular case is weighed against a vast corpus of past cases according to a complex bureaucratic methodology for reaching an agreed judgment is not intended to be merely one interpretation among many, but to capture something essential about how this court actually operates, to produce an account that can be verified by the student. (Similarly, the earlier Science in Action (Latour, 1987) describes at length the resources a scientist brings to a paper to marshal the assent of others). At the meta-level of producing conviction in his own methodology, by openly showing his use of the available sources Latour endeavours to produce agreement with his account of the network among his own readership. While there is much of interest in the idea of a flat ontology that emphasizes the everyday and the non-metaphysical (arguably also a feature of the work of the later Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Dewey and Rorty), the historical argument by which it is supported in Latour’s case is open to question. His account of the Moderns grossly simplifies the complexity of attitudes towards science and subjectivity between the seventeenth and twentieth

236  Malcolm Tait and Kiera Chapman centuries, flattening a complex and contested series of debates about the relationship of nature and society into a simplistic master narrative (for a corrective, see Daston, 1995; Daston and Galison, 2007; Poovey, 1998). In so doing, he also erases an alternative philosophical way of formulating the problem of the relationship between mind and world. Latour’s solution is concerned with allaying the doubts of empiricists such as Locke or Descartes who tended to see the mind as a passive (but possibly error-prone) reflector of the outside world, and who worried about guaranteeing the accuracy of sense data in relation to the real world. By showing the network as a shuttling between multiple intermediaries, a constantly criss-crossing pattern of negotiations and translations that occur to correlate reference and world, Latour creates a powerful answer to this type of objection. However, in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, a very different model of perception developed, as the popularity of visual technologies such as the camera obscura shifted people away from a concept of mind as a potentially inaccurate mirror, reflecting the world towards the idea that it inevitably contributed something to perception, like a lamp shedding light out onto the world (Abrams, 1953). The perceiver was increasingly imagined as ‘an active, autonomous producer of his or her own visual experience’ (Crary, 1992: 69), and the ways in which the mind reorganized and reconfigured sense data led to an increasingly embodied, physiological and material account of perception. We want to suggest that this tradition of thought is a serious challenge to ANT’s idea of networks in two ways. First, if our perception is coloured by our identity in some way, then it is unclear whether a flat ontology is epistemologically possible. The ethnographer’s access to any given network would be heavily influenced by her own position, and indeed her humanity, which raises the question of whether it would be possible for her fully to admit non-human agents or actors within a network. This is not to say that there are no other ways of being outside of the human, merely that they might occupy a space of such radical alterity that they may not be fully accessible to us (as Wittgenstein (2009: 223) put it: ‘If a lion could talk, we could not understand him’). It also adds a significant relativism to the idea of networks as a realist middle ground between subject and object: simply showing that scientific knowledge is produced via a series of material practices that involve conscious and non-conscious material actors engaged in the production of an agreed truth can no longer be seen as a guarantee of access to the real that is uncoloured by perceptual filters. The ability of ANT to move beyond the subject/object binary begins to look in need of further philosophical underpinning. A second challenge comes from the later outworkings of this tradition, in particular the poststructuralist idea that different groups within society might hold radically different concepts of ‘reality’. This sets the mind/world relation on a new footing: no longer mired in solipsistic individualism, the perceiving mind is envisioned as something that is profoundly collective and shaped by culture, and particularly by features of group identity (race,

‘A grand question of design’ 237 gender, sexuality) that are connected to the perceiver’s position within very public practices of power. As Young (1990: 9) argues: ‘While groups do not exist apart from individuals, they are socially prior to individuals, because people’s identities are partly constituted by their group affinities.’ This introduces a far more radical concept of alterity between human actors than is available within Latour’s corpus: subjectivity might be constituted by social practice in his work, but his realism and his emphasis on institutionally agreed forms of knowledge limit the extent to which different groups might hold very different conceptualizations of the world around them. These differences of position between cultural groups are set much deeper than the differences of opinion he discusses between lawyers or scientists, and since they are constitutive of subjectivity and identity and thus shape perception, they cannot be escaped by setting ‘reality’ at a deep level, and its cultural representation at a higher level. As Foucault (following Nietzsche) argues in his 1973 lectures ‘Truth and juridicial forms’, shared understanding and cultural context are constitutive of knowledge and meaning at a primary level (see also Hekman, 2009): There cannot be particular types or subjects of knowledge, orders of truth, or domains of knowledge except on the basis of political conditions that are the very ground on which the subject, the domains of knowledge, and the relations with truth are formed. (Foucault, 2000: 15) We are arguing, then, that the emancipatory potential of Latour’s early ANT in epistemological terms pivots on its ability to exclude these collective, cultural differences and their links to power relations. It can free us from the problem of negotiating the mind/world binary only by showing a network that weaves between things and minds, leaving the sedimented cultural frameworks by which reality is understood at a primary level largely untouched. A  large part of the problem here is the institutional emphasis within Latour’s ethnography, which tends to focus on areas of knowledge that are explicitly a matter of bureaucratic and procedural agreement, such as law and science. Yet very little of our everyday, practical knowledge is of this type. Once we admit the possibility that two accounts might differ radically in their understanding of reality depending on, say, the race or gender of the perceiving group, and that there could be a plurality of accounts of political ‘truth’ on offer that are far less simple to resolve than the controversies within a laboratory or a law court, then we begin to feel the need a far more sophisticated framework to deal with the social and the cultural. To be clear: we are not calling for a return to Cartesian dualism, or trying to defend the sceptical idea that the mind cannot access the world. Nor are we advocating a return to any kind of correspondence theory of truth between world and mind. At a personal level, we are broadly in agreement with the anti-foundationalist

238  Malcolm Tait and Kiera Chapman premise that a metaphysics is not necessary in order to ‘found’ philosophy, which Latour shares with Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Dewey and Rorty. We also agree with these thinkers that the idea of the mind as a special ‘inner space’ whose relationship to the external world must be explained should be challenged. It is the nature of Latour’s solution, and particularly the absence of sufficiently sophisticated arguments in his work about how culture and power operate, that we question. Yet it could be argued that Latour’s more recent work, particularly the Inquiry, grapples with pluralism, in particular the need to explain how different disciplinary and institutional types of knowledge, and different standards of truth and falsity, fit together. The Inquiry retains the earlier ANT idea of a network (or [NET] as it becomes in the Inquiry’s three-letter system of reference) as the primary way of understanding a situation in terms of the mobilization, translation and enrolment of various actors. Alongside it, however, Latour introduces a new concept, that of ‘prepositions’ [PRE]. These are essentially interpretative keys, each of which has its own conditions for deciding what counts as true. They extend beyond language into practices and institutions (so, for example, we have law [LAW], politics [POL] and religion [REL]), but also include more conceptual entities such as organization [ORG], attachment [ATT] and morality [MOR]). Importantly, each preposition has its own veridiction conditions, which define how one understands, translates and transcribes what occurs within this particular area of knowledge to produce truth. In other words, there are multiple kinds of preposition in the world, which means that there is no one single standard of truth and falsity. The notion of [PRE] introduces a disciplinary pluralism that complicates Latour’s realism. Prepositions fragment the world into zones of veridiction or ‘modes’, where particular institutional value systems predominate. Between them, there are crossing points, where one of these modes confronts another with different values and truth conditions. In introducing [PRE], Latour shifts us from the idea that mistakes are due to errors of equivalence that can be corrected by a practice of constant calibration that moves us ‘towards objectivized knowledge’ according to the conditions pertaining to a particular field (Latour, 2013: 51), to the idea that errors can emerge as a result of problems of direction or category mistakes that confuse the set of conditions that are applied in one area with those that are applied in another. Latour himself insists that these two positions can sit comfortably side by side, provided they are treated diacronically – the network analysis is to be conducted first, followed by a prepositional account: We shall thus say of any situation that it can be grasped first of all in the [NET] mode – we shall unfold its network of associations as far as necessary – and then in the [PRE] mode – we shall try to qualify the type of connections that allow its extension. The first makes it possible to

‘A grand question of design’ 239 capture the multiplicity of associations, the second the plurality of the modes identified during the course of the Moderns’ complicated history. (Latour, 2013: 62) We are less convinced that this temporal succession resolves the problems for network analysis that are introduced by [PRE]. If ANT promises to free us from the question of how to relate mind and world by showing us that knowledge is a shuttle that flies merrily back and forth, weaving a chain of practice between reference and thing, then the idea that each network is somehow bounded seems to complicate the immediacy of access offered by [NET] and to call into question the ability of an ethnographer to produce a single account that can command universal assent. Further, separating the ANT account [NET], from the notion of modes [PRE], tends to prejudge what can be included within any one account and to reduce hybridity, neglecting the ways in which science might be simultaneously scientific, political and religious, not merely as a matter of crossing between pre-existing modes, but at a much deeper level. The problem, then, is less the notion of [PRE] as a filter, than the way in which it prioritizes circumscribed disciplinary realms of knowledge and truth. Undoubtedly, there are procedural and institutional ways of establishing fact that are specific to areas such as law and to science, but there are also forms of difference that cut across these areas, which may be philosophically more fundamental. If we accept that perception may be shaped by features of collective identity, such as race, gender and class, and that these are related at a deep and ideological level to power structures within wider society, then Latour’s modes begin to look inadequate at capturing important structural differences between one person’s everyday account of reality and another’s. We contend that this leads Latour into an impoverished and deracinated conceptualization of politics, which focuses heavily on the procedural work of government and democracy to the neglect of the extra-governmental, everyday workings of ideology. The central political problematic, in his eyes, is to move away from the Moderns’ conception of politics as a discipline that needs to adjudicate according to an unattainable ideal of universal rationality. Instead, he suggests that we think of politics as an impossible circle that is never completed, which moves from multitudes to unities, creating collective groupings that are continually dissolving back into pluralities: Start with a multitude that does not know what it wants but that is suffering and complaining; obtain, by a series of radical transformations, a unified representation of that multitude; then, by a dizzying translation/ betrayal, invent a new version of its pain and grievances from whole cloth; make it a unified version that will be repeated by certain voices, which in turn – the return trip is as [sic] least as astonishing as the trip out  – will bring it back to the multitude in the form of requirements imposed, orders given, laws passed; requirements, orders, and laws that

240  Malcolm Tait and Kiera Chapman are now exchanged, translated, transposed, transformed, opposed by the multitude in such diverse ways that they produce a new commotion: complaints defining new grievances, reviving and spelling out new indignation, new consent, new opinions. (Latour, 2013: 341) Now this may serve as a description of how a reform passes from popular grievance into the institutions and organizations of government to effect change, but that nonetheless represents a rather superficial and obvious sense of the political. While politics as a parliamentary practice might be a relatively bounded entity that operates in this kind of way, politics as the differences of race, gender and class that constitute identity and influence perception seems to outrun this mode. What Latour fails to describe is the deep workings of ideology, understood not as the rhetorical sound and fury of the political machine, a curtain behind which we can all peep to find out the ‘truth’, nor as a homely pragmatism (late Latour draws on Dewey and James), but as a web of interconnecting and contradictory collective and normative assumptions that emerge from practice and enable social reproduction, and that constitute both subjectivity and individual identity.

Spatializing difference: planning’s place within ANT In the second section of this chapter, we want to illustrate this issue by looking at the ideas of the later Latour from the perspective of planning theory. To do so, we will return to the comparison of knowledge with city planning quoted at the commencement of this chapter. Here we see Latour comparing his view of the modes of knowledge (each of which has its own prepositional form) to the zoning of a city. ‘And if you were to put science over there, while relocating politics over here, at the same time that you run the law underneath and move fiction to this spot, wouldn’t you be more at ease?’ The metaphor of a planned metropolis offers Latour a way of conceptualizing delimited epistemological zones that fit together into a functional unity. Politics can run its endless round ‘over there’, while different veridiction conditions exist ‘over here’ for science and ‘underneath’ for law. Yet while they are separate, these regions are also elements within a coherent and unproblematic whole: they are connected by a transport infrastructure that allows multiple ‘crossings’. By suggesting a pluralism-in-unity, the metaphor serves to mask the philosophical problem that we outlined in the previous section: is perception governed only by institutional and disciplinary boundaries or is it mediated at a deeper level of cultural group identity that overruns the boundaries of institutional contexts? The first thing about this description that is likely to strike a student of planning theory is that Latour’s idea of a city designer is highly technocratic. The urban designer zones areas of practice with a view to making the intellectual Latouropolis convenient and functional, and the question

‘A grand question of design’ 241 ‘convenient for whom?’ is never asked. There is no emphasis here on consultation, participation, agonism or pluralism. By a strange twist, when Latour, author of We Have Never Been Modern, sets out to describe his revised view of the intellectual landscape in spatial terms, he turns out to be a modernist city planner with a top-down approach to design. Of course, we are deliberately stretching Latour’s casual use of a metaphor too far here. But it is nonetheless revealing that his figure of speech falls apart when it is confronted with the complexities of collaborative and participative planning methodologies that seek to acknowledge a plurality of identities in the activity of place-making. Like both early and late Latour, planning has turned away from the idea that a real city simple ‘exists’ as a physical entity that can be revealed, described and even rearranged, but unlike Latour, it has begun to move towards the idea there might be a plurality of ideas about the significance of place that are determined not only by institutional position, but by the way that different collective identities interface with power. Latour’s use of a planning metaphor to describe epistemological partitioning also tends to imply that spatial pluralism can only occur between places, and not within them:  each zone of the city has one clear function. There is a contemporary tendency within the spatial disciplines to view spatial metaphors with suspicion, to see them as a linguistic device which associates space with representation, and thus deprives it of dynamism and multiplicity (Massey, 2005). Geographers like Neil Smith have expressed concerns that these linguistic devices rely on space being the term of difference, making it a blank receptacle for free-floating ideas unfixed from material ‘reality’: Refracted in the mirror of a highly rigid absolute space, metaphorical space carves out ‘room to move,’ the space in which to be fecund, dialectical, life-giving. It is in this way that metaphorical space gains its richness  – at the expense of material space, whose impoverishment it reinforces. (Smith, 1992: 64) We fundamentally disagree with the idea that metaphor is always and inevitably deleterious to an understanding of the richness of real space, but in this particular case, by making the urban an empty container for his epistemological cityscape, Latour treats the spatial very much as if it were given and rather univocal, requiring only a rational ordering by an appropriately qualified technician. Because he wishes to draw on a language of separation and zoning, he loses any sense that individual space might be as richly complicated, as sharply contested, and as richly political as any other domain. Let us move away from this somewhat unfortunate epistemological metaphor to look at the position of spatial practices within the framework that Latour outlines in the Inquiry. Latour does not explicitly consider planning within his framework, but if he were to do so, he might well

242  Malcolm Tait and Kiera Chapman place it in the mode of organization [ORG], as a fragile series of practices, enacted by actors (most of whom are human) who follow and modify scripts that, in turn, frame their activities. The organization, in his view, is nothing more than the practices or activities that surround it, obviating the need for a more essentialist and abstract definition. Yet is this capable of capturing the complexity of what planners actually do? The [ORG] mode is separate from the legal, economic, aesthetic and scientific modes, and Latour is also very clear that it excludes politics (see Harman, 2014 and Elam, 1999). Yet planning is an intensely hybrid activity:  the most junior practitioner working within a local council or consultancy will be operating across the social and the natural, the aesthetic and the technical, the scientific and the political in almost equal measure on a daily basis. Yet it is also more of a stable activity than would be implied by Latour’s idea of a simple crossing between different modes. Whereas Latour’s framework deals ably with highly codified, bounded, institutional methods of producing agreement, it is less satisfactory when faced with more provisional, contested practices such as planning, which work across epistemological domains. We want to push this further, to suggest tentatively that Latour’s ANT may not treat space in a sufficiently pluralist manner. Because it does not allow for difference at a deep level of cognition, his analysis struggles to capture the open-ended nature of the place-commitments held by ordinary people, to pay attention to a wide diversity of ways in which space is experienced by people with different positions within power relations, and the way that these inform a plethora of higher-level political and economic accounts of what constitutes a just city. In this paper, we have argued that cognition, at a primary level, needs to be viewed as something that is not private and inner but profoundly bound up with public, shared frameworks and power relations. If we argue that there can be no understanding that is not always already social and cultural, then we dissolve Cartesian dualism in a way that admits readmits space to the world of the mind as well as the body, to cognition as well as movement, to the mental as well as the material. Planning can then be pictured as an activity that brings together groups who disagree with one another at a fundamental level about the significance and constitution of spatial realities, and the economic and political future that a place should embody. However, it is also questionable whether other types of current planning theory offer an alternative and better way of handling deep difference than ANT. While in both practical and theoretical dimensions, planning has long been aware of the democratic need to pay attention to deeper elements of group identity within place-making, collaborative and participative methodologies developed in the 1990s approached the problem of place-making as one of reaching a democratic decision between multiple competing interests by following inclusive procedures. The task of the planner becomes the reconciliation of these viewpoints into a single, univocal future vision for a

‘A grand question of design’ 243 place, which could be reached by encouraging the right type of dialogue, or by mediating between parties in a sufficiently agile way, so that a rational solution emerged from the participants themselves over the course of a facilitative process. Beyond the common objection that such a process might involve elements that are problematically coercive, there is a deeper question about whether the Habermassian communicative rationality on which much of this type of planning theory is based requires individuals to subscribe to a shared ideal of reason and a procedural (although context-specific) idea of truth as the outcome of a process of rational argumentation. If this is the case, then the argument outlined in this chapter is not merely a challenge for ANT theorists in particular, but also for planning theory more generally. If difference really does run deeper than Latour’s ANT suggests, it may also outstrip current collaborative and participative approaches. This would mean that it was necessary to rethink not just planning but spatial theory more generally in epistemologically pluralist terms, not only finding new ways of listening to deep difference or of making space more plural, but also a new principle of mutual tolerance and diversity that can actively encourage relationships of mutual duty, care and responsibility.

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244  Malcolm Tait and Kiera Chapman Massey, D. (2005) For Space. London: Sage. Poovey, M. (1998) A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Smith, N. (1992) Contours of a spatialized politics:  homeless vehicles and the production of geographical scale. Social Text, 33: 55–81. Wittgenstein, L. (2009) Philosophical Investigations, revised 4th edn, Chichester: Blackwell. Young, I.M. (1990) Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Index

absences, analysis of 20, 28 absent presence concept 115, 118, 121–3 academic practice 220–2 actants 6–7, 46, 189–91, 204–5, 210–15 action research 226–7 ‘active disentanglement’ 96 Actor Network Theory (ANT): and action research 9; and assemblage theory 182–4; co-evolutionary 203–6, 214–16; and community engagement 62–6, 73–6; and complexity 176–7; as a conceptual framework 27–30, 40, 59; contemporary significance of 3; and coordination 169, 171; criticisms of 12, 15, 114, 218; and energy systems 142–3; first emergence of 3–5; and implementation 10; and intention 168; and interaction 189–90; key features of 5–8; as material-semiotic toolkit 113–17; non-judgemental nature of 171; and normative decision-making 139–40; and planning 8–9, 45–6, 64–5, 128–9, 138, 159, 166–71, 176–7, 190–1, 217–18; politics inherent in 219; and power 10–12, 219; and prescription 169–71; process-driven character of 221; progressive potential in 12–17; real-world applications of 16, 95–7, 102, 106–8, 112–13; and relational processes 225; research linked to 4; rhizomatic nature of 4–5; terminology of 19; and theory–practice gap 226; and transformative action 11–12

Actor Relational Approach (ARA) 191–2 agencement of elements forming society 4–5 ‘agencying’ technique 192 Albrechts, Louis 186 Alcadipani, R. 12–13 Allen, J. 47–8, 81–2, 85 Anderson, B. 81, 83 Andersson, C. 130 ‘ANT thinking’ 142 assemblage thinking 5–6, 12–16, 19–20, 79–91, 143–4, 147–55, 167–71, 182–5, 189–90; definition of 81; dilemmas and difficulties of 91 A-Text Retriever database 98 Aylet, A. 76 Base 33 youth club 87–8 Beauregard, Robert A. x, 13, 45, 70, 75, 171; co-author of Chapter 10 Bender, T. 143 Bennett, Jane 142, 153 Berardi, U. 28 Berker, Thomas x, 13–14, 17, 20; co-author of Chapter 6 ‘Big Society’ agenda 18, 79–80, 83–91 ‘black-boxing’ 8–11, 17, 19, 30, 33, 36, 38, 47, 53–6, 63–4, 115, 117, 123, 139 Bloomberg, Michael 161, 164–5 Boelens, Luuk x, 14, 139–40, 223–5; co-author of Chapter 12 Bowker, G.C. 38 Bo01 housing exhibition 111, 119–20 Brayshay, M. 10 Brenner, N. 12 Brown, S. 97, 114

246 Index Brownill, Sue x, 13–19; author of Chapter 5 Bylund, J. 47 Callon, Michel 3–4, 7, 29, 40, 52, 95–7, 100, 102, 109, 113–14, 175–6, 180–3, 191, 217–18, 225, 232 Cameron, David 80, 85–9 carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions 121–2 Cartesian dualism 232–3, 237, 242 Castoriadis, Cornelius 112 Challenging Lock-in through Urban Energy Systems (CLUES) project 144 Chapman, Kiera xi, 14; co-author of Chapter 15 China 111–12, 120–2 Chmutina, Ksenia xi; co-author of Chapter 9 Clarke, J. 81 climate change planning 13, 159–64 Cochrane, A. 81–2, 85 co-evolution 189, 192, 203–7, 214–16 communicative rationality 234 community engagement 62–76, 109 complex situations and complex systems 176–7, 183–4, 187–92 complexity, grades of 187–8 Conservative Party 225 correspondence theory of truth 237 Crary, J. 236 critical geography 222–3 critical theory 170 Dalian 146 Darwinism 189 Davies, J.S. 81 Davoudi, S. 80 de Blasio, Bill 164 ‘decoupling’ economies 121–3 Deerns (engineering consultancy) 147–8, 154 de Laet, M. 107–8 DeLanda, M. 5, 176 Deleuze, Gilles 4, 81, 176, 183 Descartes, René 232–3, 236 Dewey, John 235, 238, 240 ‘diagramming’ technique 192 disciplinary self-government 221–7 distributed action 169 Dokka, Tor Helge 99 Duindorp 145–6, 149, 151, 154 Dymond, A. 6 eco-cities 111 empowerment 71–3, 80–1

Eneco (company) 148, 153–4 energy systems 143–6, 149–53 engagement theory 62 enrolment of actants 7–18, 46, 64, 68–9, 176, 204–5 environmental policies 31–7, 40–1 epistemology 116 Essex, S. 10 Farías, I. 12, 40, 143 Feldman, M. 11, 17, 72, 76 Flanders 14, 193 ‘flat’ ontology 19, 169–70, 187, 234–6 Flyvbjerg, Bent 16, 76 foster care system for young people 66–75 Foucault, Michel 115, 219–21, 237 four-stage model of network action 7, 12 Fuller, S. 170 Gaia Architects 103–5 Giddens, Anthony 190 Gjøding Farm project 103 Goethals, Marleen xi, 14; co-author of Chapter 12 Gomart, E. 97 Goodier, Chris xi; co-author of Chapter 9 Göransson, S. 130, 136 Goulden, Shula xi, 13–14, 17–20; author of Chapter 2 grant activity, including payments 13–15, 62–76 ‘green buildings’ 13, 27–41; ANT perspective on 31–9 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 32–3, 38–9, 160–6 ‘greenwash’ 37, 40 Gregory, D. 114 group identity 12 Gualini, E. 160 Guattari, Félix 4, 81 Guggenheim, M. 30, 128 Guy, Simon xi, 13, 16; co-author of Chapter 9 Habermas, Jürgen 234, 243 The Hague 13, 16, 143–50, 153–4 Halifax, Canada 146 Hammarby Sjöstad 111, 119–20 Harvey, David 223, 225 Hassard, J. 4, 12–13 Healey, P. 176 Hegli, Tine 99–100

Index 247 Heidegger, Martin 234–5, 238 Hennion, A. 97 Hetherington, K. 114 Hillier, Jean 116, 143, 151–2, 184 Hillingdon 88 Holifield, R. 12 Howard, Ebenezer 227 Howell, John 85 Hughes, Thomas 143, 154 Hult, Anna xii, 13–14, 20; author of Chapter 7 Hunter Development Corporation 48 Hurdal eco-village 102–9 Hurricane Sandy (2012) 163–6 Huyssen, Andreas 112 ‘hybrid’ activities 232, 242 hydro-urbanism 207–15

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) 29 Lee, N. 97, 114 Lefebvre, Henri 112 Lewis, P. 9 Li, T. 82–3, 86 library services 87–9 Lieto, Laura xii, 13, 171; co-author of Chapter 10 localism 13, 79–87, 90–1, 225 Localism Act (2011) 80, 84 Locke, John 236 London 14, 203–15 long-range view in research 205 Lowndes, V. 80–1

Kant, Immanuel 234 Karl X Gustav, equestrian statue of (Stortorget square) 131–40 Kårrholm, Mattias xii, 13–15, 18; author of Chapter 8 Kelowna 13, 63, 66–75 Kilden eco-community 102–3 Kock, Jörgen 127 Koteng, Ivar 100–1

McCann, E. 83 McFarlane, C. 12, 81, 83 McGuirk, Pauline xii; co-author of Chapter 3 ‘Macromoves’ game 207, 211–12 Malmö 13, 119; see also Stortorget square Madanipour, A. 80 ‘mapping’ technique 191–2 Marjamaa architects 131–3, 137 ‘material turn’ in planning 3 mediators 8, 47, 191 Mee, Kathleen xiii; co-author of Chapter 3 Meistad, Torill 97 Miller, F. 104 mind/world relation 234–7 Mitchell, Keith 86, 88, 90 mobilization 7, 47, 176, 204–5 modernity and modernism 186, 233–4, 238–9 ‘modes of existence’ concept 233 Mol, A. 107–8 Mullins, David 227 Muniesa, F. 96, 100 Murdoch, J. 8–9, 190, 220–1

Lacan, Jacques 112 ‘Landed’ game 207, 212–13 Larssæther, Stig xii, 13–14, 17, 20; co-author of Chapter 6 Latour, Bruno 3–10, 14, 29, 40, 46–7, 53–4, 63, 108, 113–15, 134, 140, 152, 167–70, 181, 183, 190–1, 227, 231–2, 242; earlier and later thinking of 232–41 Laurier, E. 235 Law, John 3–4, 29, 95–7, 100, 102, 109, 113–17, 170, 176, 189, 218–19, 232

neoliberalism 91, 224–6 network building 7–9, 14–18; stages in 204 network relations 5–6, 45–6, 204–8, 210, 214–16 New York City 13, 159–64 Newcastle, Australia 13, 44–5, 48–59; map of 49 Newman, J. 79, 81, 83, 87 Nietzsche, F. (and the Nietzschean worldview 97, 237 normative theories of planning 203

‘I-count’ game 207, 212 images, use of 56–7 ‘imaginaries’ 112–13 ‘immutable mobiles’ 46–7, 152 interesssement 7, 48, 176, 204–11, 214 intermediaries 8, 46–7 Israel 13–14, 17, 31–9 Jacobs, J.M. 38 Jacobs, J.S. 44 Jacobsen, Rolf 103 Jenson, O. 51 Johansen, Kyrre Olaf 98 Johnston, R.J. 114

248 Index N16 corridor 193 nuclear power 121 object agency 6 Øivind, Solum 102 ontology and ‘ontological politics’ 116; see also ‘flat’ ontology Orzeck, R. 222, 224 Oxfam 88 Oxford, City of 84, 87 Oxfordshire 13, 79, 83–6, 90 Painter, J. 82 Pasteur, Louis 181, 209 peer review 221 Pentland, B. 11, 17, 72, 76 Peres, Shimon 32 performance indicators 164–6 phenomenology 233 Philo, C. 235 Pill, M. 81 Planning Living Labs 192–9 plans, making of 160–2, 165–6 Plymouth, UK 10 politics, different views of 239–40 Portsmouth, UK 146 poststructuralism 225, 236 power, topographical concept of 82, 91 power dynamics 10–11, 14, 63, 71 Powerhouse Brattørkaia 98–102, 106–8 Pratchett, L. 80–1 ‘prepositions’ (Latour) 238–9 problematization 48, 50–1, 73, 75, 176, 204–9, 215 public consultation 11, 17 public spending cuts 86–7, 227 Pullman, Philip 87 qualculation and non-qualculation 95–7, 100, 102, 108 radical symmetry between the material and the social 6 rational and irrational planning 96–7 ‘realistic realism’ (Latour) 233 relational thinking 142 resilience, concept of 162–3 Retzlaff, R.C. 28, 36–9 Rorty, Richard 235, 238 routines 11, 17–19, 74 Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) 223 Ruming, Kristian xiii, 13–18; co-author of Chapter 3

Rutland, T 76 Rutman, D. 66 Rydin, Yvonne xiii, 12, 45–8, 52, 59, 63, 70–6, 159, 168, 171; co-editor sanitation systems 210–15 Sassen, S. 81 Schein, E. 9 Schoenberger, E. 222 Schön, D.A. 9 Schwai, Markus 100 seawater heating systems 143–6, 149–53 Serres, Michel 217 Seville 57 Shanghai World Expo (2010) 111–13, 118–22 Sherriff, Graeme xiii; co-author of Chapter 9 Silberberger, Jan xiv, 14–15; co-author of Chapter 11 Smith, Neil 241 social construction 3–4, 6 social justice 71 socio-technical relations 204–5 Söderström, O. 128 spatial theory and spatial pluralism 241–3 stabilization of networks 204–5, 210 stakeholders 147–8 standard-setting 16–19 Star, S.L. 38 Stockholm 111 Stortorget square, Malmö 127–40 Strand, Lillian 97 strategic planning 186 subjectivities of planning 224–6 Summerton, Jane 142–3, 155 Summertown (Oxford) 87, 89–90 sustainability policies 27–8, 31 Sweden 13, 111–13 Swedish Sustainable Urban Imaginary 114, 117, 120–3 SymbioCity concept 117–22 symmetry in networks 218–20 Tait, Malcolm xiv, 14–15, 46, 51; co-author of Chapter 15 tasers, use of 6 Tate, Laura xiv, 10, 13, 18, 63, 66; co-author of Chapter 4 and co-editor Taylor, Charles 112 Teh, Tse-Hui xiv, 14–18; author of Chapter 13

Index 249 theory–practice gap 14, 218, 226–7 Thompson, M. 227 Timbuktu (Swedish artist) 131 Toronto 17 Torp, Simen 103–5 ‘tracing’ technique 191 translation, concept of 7, 10, 18, 29–30, 33, 38, 44, 46, 115, 175–6, 180–2 Trondheim 13, 98–9 undefined becoming, planning idea of 186–7, 192–3 urban form and function models 52 urban regeneration 13, 44–5, 51, 59 Urry, J. 116, 176 Vaizey, Ed 85 Van Wezemael, Joris xiv, 13–15; co-author of Chapter 11 Vancouver 10, 18, 62 Vestia (social housing provider) 147–8, 153–4

Vilches, Silvia xiv, 13–15, 18, 66–7; co-author of Chapter 4 Wachsmuth, D. 154 water conservation 208–9 water infrastructure 14–16, 203–8, 214–15 Webb, David xv, 14; author of Chapter 14 Weisser, Agnethe 100 Williams, A. 86 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 235–6, 238 Wolvercote (Oxford) 88 Yaneva, A. 128 Young, I.M. 237 young people emerging from child protection 66–75 zoning of cities 240 Zurich 14, 175, 177