Speaker
Description
Planning theory has always been influenced by thinkers outside the discipline, such as Jürgen Habermas, Chantal Mouffe, and Michel Foucault. ‘Planning as transformative action', as the conference title suggests, can be understood as a reference to the work of political theorist Hannah Arendt, which has received little attention in planning theory. Her critical thinking, shaped by the collapse of western civilization, is unfortunately highly relevant again. Arendt calls her approach “thinking without banister” (Arendt 2018), a method free from dogmas and ideologies, based on Kant’s “expanded mentality.” For Arendt, political theory is a secular yet restless, wandering intellectual activity. Her ‘Wandering Type’ of political theorizing (Sigwart 2016) follows neither the tradition of Plato and the noetic vision of universal, stable, incontrovertible and true principles, nor nor the famous Aristotelian concept of the zoon logon hechon and zoon politikon. Her thinking moves between philosophy and politics, adopting a multi-contextual, comparative perspective and a particular way of understanding. An Understanding that is a concrete, engaged confrontation with reality, inseparable from action (Sigwart 2016). In her book ‘The Human Condition’ she views ‘action’ (praxis) as the means by which individuals and communities create political “spaces” of freedom with a relational dimension of interdependency (Arendt 1958). Politics always belongs to the worldly sphere where plural interventions produce a series of unpredictable and uncontrollable events. Her concept of ‘the Political’ is based on the existential human condition of ‘plurality’ that make us political beings, in contrast to conventional idea of politics. Politics therefore demands to be examined according to its own principles. This means moving towards an appreciation of embodied experiences by recognising the importance of narratives in capturing the realities of human existence and a politicization of theory in general (Cavarero 2000).
Arendt dares to undertake a radical phenomenology of the fundamental materiality of the human being, an embodied singularity here and now in this way and no other (Cavarero 2000). Adopting a hermeneutic-phenomenological perspective, Arendt seeks to understand reality from a first-person plural perspective, thereby acknowledging the complexities of the human condition.
Planning and planners are political (Moroni 2020). Planning in not only an institutional technology (Rivolin 2012) but consists of interpretative activities, and since each planning situation is unique, understanding becomes a central epistemic task in planning (Behrend 2024). In this way, planners can be participants on the public ‘stage’ of ‘agonistic communicative action’ (Gunder 2003) in addition to their targeted, purposeful and structured approach in the sense of ‘work’ (poiesis). Participating in this public debate requires a hermeneutic phenomenological process of understanding, which includes a conception of the empirical object, a general idea of the meaning of thinking, and a ‘judgement’ about the understanding of self and other (Redecker 2013). By comparing Arendt's phenomenologically oriented political hermeneutics (Opstaele 2001) with landscape planning hermeneutics (Lührs 1994), I want to demonstrate how considering subjectively perceived contexts from diverse external perspectives can elevate subjective ‘judgment’ of planners to a political-public level.
References
Arendt, H. (1958): The human condition. London: University of Chicago Press.
Arendt, H. (2018) Thinking without a banister: essays in understanding, 1953-1975. New York: Schocken.
Behrend, L. (2024): Understanding is what planners do – Towards a hermeneutic perspective on planning practice and research. In: Planning Theory
Cavarero, A. (2002): Politicizing theory. In: Political Theory 30 (4), S. 506–532.
Gunder, M. (2003): Passionate planning for the others' desire: an agonistic response to the dark side of planning. In: Progress in Planning 60 (3).
Lührs, H. (1994): Die Vegetation als Indiz für die Wirtschaftsgeschichte - Von Omas Wiese zum Queckengrünland und zurück? Kassel: Gesamthochschule Kassel.
Moroni, S. (2020): The role of planning and the role of planners: political dimensions, ethical principles, communicative interaction. In: Town planning review 91 (6)..
Opstaele, D. J. (2001): Die Lücke zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft Hannah Arendts hermeneutische Theorie. In: Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 55 (1).
Redecker, E. (2013): Gravitation zum Guten. Hannah Arendts Moralphilosophie. In: Berlin: Lukas Verlag.
Rivolin, U. (2012): Planning Systems as Institutional Technologies: a Proposed Conceptualization and the Implications for Comparison. In: Planning Practice & Research 27 (1), S. 63–85.
Sigwart, H.-J. (2016): The wandering thought of Hannah Arendt. London: Springer.
| Keywords | planning theory, Hannah Arendt, hermeneutic phenomenology, understanding |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
