Speaker
Description
Germany is currently experiencing a wave of large-scale urban expansion projects (Hesse 2021), driven by a growing demand for housing and an ongoing shortage of developable land within city centres. These new suburban developments are being promoted as models of sustainability and participatory, inclusive planning. However, in terms of participatory justice (cf. Blue et al. 2019), it is not only important which ideas and notions of participation are produced in the respective discourses, but also who participates and is heard in planning processes. Document analyses and interviews (Howarth 2005) can only provide limited information about this.
For several years, therefore, attempts have been made to study planning ethnographically (Abram & Weszkalnys 2011). This approach aims to provide insights into marginalisation (Verloo 2023), tacit knowledge and the role of material objects (Rydin & Natarajan 2016). It corresponds with the 'practice turn' (Behagel et al. 2019), which has also been adopted in planning studies. However, few scholars have attempted to combine discourse analytical and praxeological approaches in empirical planning research (Leibenath 2025 in press).
The aim of this paper is, first, to clarify what practices are, how praxeological planning research can be conceptualised, and how it relates to more discourse-focused approaches (Schröder & Leibenath 2025). To this end, the 'praxeological square of cultural analysis' (Reckwitz 2016) is proposed as a heuristic . Secondly, a concrete research design and some exemplary results on participation processes related to large-scale urban expansion projects in Berlin are presented. And thirdly, the challenges of such an analytical approach and ways of dealing with them are identified. The study is part of an ongoing research project that is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) under the grant number 466529662.
References
Abram, S. & Weszkalnys, G. (2011) Introduction: Anthropologies of planning—Temporality, imagination, and ethnography. Focaal, 2011 (61), pp. 3-18.
Behagel, J. H. et al. (2019) Beyond argumentation: a practice-based approach to environmental policy. Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, 21 (5), pp. 479-491.
Blue, G. et al. (2019) Justice as parity of participation. Journal of the American Planning Association, 85 (3), pp. 363-376.
Hesse, M. (2021) Urban expansion re-visited. pnd – rethinking planning, 2021 (1).
Howarth, D. (2005) Applying discourse theory: The method of articulation. In: Howarth, D. & Torfing, J. (eds.) Discourse Theory in European Politics. Identity, Policy and Governance. Houndmills, Basingstoke.
Leibenath, M. (2025 in press) Beteiligungsgerechtigkeit in landschaftsbezogenen Planungsprozessen praxeologisch und ethnographisch erforschen. In: Gailing, L., et al. (eds.) Landschaftsgerechtigkeit: Gerechte und ungerechte Landschaften in der Transformation. Bielefeld: Transcript.
Reckwitz, A. (2016) Die »neue Kultursoziologie« und das praxeologische Quadrat der Kulturanalyse. In: Reckwitz, A. (eds.) Kreativität und soziale Praxis: Studien zur Sozial- und Gesellschaftstheorie. Bielefeld: Transcript.
Rydin, Y. & Natarajan, L. (2016) The materiality of public participation: the case of community consultation on spatial planning for north Northamptonshire, England. Local Environment, 21 (10), pp. 1243-1251.
Schröder, S. & Leibenath, M. (2025) Insisting on not being addressed in that way: Ideology, subjection and agency in the context of spatial planning. Planning Theory, 24 (1), pp. 43-63.
Verloo, N. (2023) Ignoring people: The micro-politics of misrecognition in participatory governance. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 41 (7), pp. 1474-1491.
| Keywords | Practice theories, discourse analysis, participatory justice |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
