Just Telling Stories?

The questions of how we can bring about change and strive for better futures are key themes, both of this journal and recent editorials. This issue is no different, with excellent pieces both reporting on empirical findings and conceptually re-framing debates relevant to planning practitioners and academics globally. In my short introduction, however, I want to reflect on writing, and the relations between ‘words’ and ‘deeds,’ between arguments and actions.

In the first part of the final volume of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan quartet, she reflects on how her understanding of her ambitions has changed during the passing of time and years in which the four books track social changes via the intense and disjointed history of a friendship. Specifically, she recounts a time when, with the input of her friend Lila – both already parents with a long, shared history – they write and publish an account incriminating local gangs with an aim of seeing justice finally served amidst their community. The piece causes some stir, some police investigations but overall does not really change anything; those with power and influence remain so, the social structures of the ‘neighbourhood’ remain broadly stable. I recount this here as Ferrante reflects that beyond the immediate fuss caused by the publication and long-term futility of it bringing about change, the impact of this incident is mainly on Lila whose faith in the power of words is vanquished – marking her full transition to adulthood.

The account is more complex than the very brief summary I have presented here. However, I found this particularly poignant and striking on several grounds. Firstly, the juxtaposition of such a claim at the end of several hundred pages of gripping and moving text is quite unsettling. As a reader, I have been transported by the power of her words, but she now questions the value of this journey; asking what it all means, was it all worth it. In what ways have her words changed anything? What is the relationship between putting ideas on to ‘paper’ and the power to change the world – be it in a neighbourhood, city, discipline, profession or other relevant context.

Secondly, Ferrante describes this revelation as the end of childhood, hinting to a naivety of belief in the power of words, or the possibility of their role in changes for the better. As years pass, and as we grow and experience new contexts, some of the understandings and certainties on which we shaped our stories and motivations seem or become less clear, less important. Does this necessitate cynicism, acceptance and impasse, or should we see this as learning and development – to refocus and better understand. The apocryphal words, often attributed to feminist writer Gloria Steinem (2019) “before the truth will set you free, it will piss you off” come to mind. What do we know about the power of words, and their relationship to change in the world?

At a time when most of the actions playing out at a global scale seem so awful, and so far beyond the scope of any individual to influence positive change, the spectres of nihilism and despair seem close at hand. Do words have a positive part to play here and now? Can words reach beyond echo chambers, offer more than the warm glow of confirmation bias? Whilst tracking some sort of causal link may be highly problematic if not impossible and definitely beyond the scope or ambition of this editorial, these questions are useful to us both as readers and writers.

Putting into words the values of hope, change, memory and understanding may not stop an imminent military offensive, but without a space to narrate the possibility of a different future, or/and to look back and assess where we have come from, do we not lose the power of making meaning and opening possibilities? Writing can offer, for me, a way of making sense and sharing this ‘sense’ of the world. Words can move us to action, but beyond instruction booklets or recipe books, this may well be tangentially, intangibly, slowly. Trying to measure them in the metrics we often encounter in university life does not readily capture this.

That words have meaning, and at times power, is not a novel claim in any way. But asking the question of what meaning, what power, when and how seems to be a valuable task for an academic journal. We exist merely of words (and yes, with some pictures) but how can or should we see or measure their influence, and specifically their influence to change more than the direction and content of subsequent words?

In this issue

This issue opens with Ada Lee and Phil Allmendinger’s assessment of ‘post-politics’ in debates over land reclamation in Hong Kong. The paper provides a strong critical summary of contemporary debates in this field, and demarks their limits in relevance for the Hong Kong context. In so doing, it adds both a valuable case study in ‘postpolitical’ public engagement, as well as shifting and deepening our understanding of this key concept.

Luan Chen, Yaofu Huang, Xinhui Wu and Xun Li’s account of students’ roles in collaborative planning initiatives in two villages in rural China also challenges dominant assumptions about the workings of a foundational concept in planning theory, by bringing in insights from a different context. The different relations between state and community in China as opposed to much of Europe/North America offer underexplored spaces to re-evaluate collaborative practices, specifically focusing on the role of student projects in assisting rural development.

These papers, on top of the contribution of the findings of their specific studies, offer insight into – and an opportunity to take stock – of some of the assumptions within key concepts in the mainstream teaching and research in planning theory. The assumptions about democracy in most literature on post-politics, and about the relations between state, community and professionals, within much collaborative planning practice and scholarship can be found to be just that – assumptions – but exploring these ideas in new contexts allows them to develop and grow rather than rendering them as outdated or culturally bounded.

As noted above, explicitly taking stock of the state of knowledge is Kesar and Ache’s systematic review of the literature in Spatial Visioning. Through rigorous selection and filtering of the databases of existing publications, they draw out the debates into the meanings and interpretations of ‘visions’ in spatial planning, and their role in planning activities such as public participation. As words which should influence outcomes, visions could be of high importance, but as this review reveals – their making and usage is fraught with power dynamics which limit “the right to vision in normative terms”.

Eräranta’s research presented in the fourth paper in this issue discusses the failure of shared leadership in Finnish local government – a popular paradigm for embracing complexity and moving away from linear governance, but one which her research reveals relies on a currently absent need for collective sensemaking. Without the possibility of a shared ‘story’ orienting an organisation collectively to a better future, decisions become fragmented when they are devolved and too focused on individuals.

The papers section closes with a contribution from Frilund and Wangdu who question what the experiences of Tibetan refugees, predominantly in India, can tell us about practical possibilities for better treatment of refugee populations. They compare and contrast the Tibetan refugee experience and governance with the idea(l) of Refugia (Cohen & Van Hear, 2019). As well as detailing a case study which is fascinating in itself and draws on several years’ in-depth research experience, the paper explores the potential and limits of fiction in bringing about better outcomes for vulnerable people.

The Interface explores the role of planning in tackling the Biodiversity crisis, drawing on evidence and experience from Australia, several parts of Europe as well as providing broader reflections on different dynamics in the global north and south. Each piece is co-authored by an academic and a practitioner, making each contribution engage across sectors. This is, of course, core to the aims of the Interface, but seeing the links within each piece makes the dialogue even more fulfilling.

Finally, the Debates and Reflections section provides a concise summary of the ways in which ‘placemaking’ has been evoked and used in contemporary debates, providing a useful framework for future debate and research on this topic. By orienting an agenda through the four frames of post-capitalism, post-liberalism, post-pandemic and post-truth, Noga Keidar, Mark Fox, Odeya Friedman, Yair Grinberger, Tharaa Kirresh, Yang Li, Yaara Rosner Manor, Diego Rotman, Emily Silverman & Shauna Brail demonstrate how the term ‘placemaking’ has both progressive and regressive tendencies, but can be a useful means of understanding. Additionally, the section provides a book review of Regulation and Planning: Practices, Institutions, Agency by Rydin, Beauregard, Cremaschi & Lieto (Editors).

None of these insights provide simple solutions for planners working to protect and enhance the natural environment, but they – alongside all the other contributions to this issue – further our understanding of the world we think and operate within. This understanding, this ‘truth’ to be set free by, is conveyed to us in, annoying as it might be at times, in words. Their power to direct specific changes is not a given, the outcome is not certain, but without them how can we re-write a better version of ourselves?