Planning as Persuaded Storytelling: The Role of Genre in Planners’ Narratives

Abstract

Genre is one of narrative’s key structuring tools, bounding and delimiting texts. When planners write within a given genre, they tacitly endorse specific conventions. By conforming to these conventions, planners reproduce the historical and linguistic arrangements that led to the ratification and codification of certain types of narratives. This paper explores how two of the author’s prior publications fit uncomfortably within the ambit of specific genres. It suggests ways to push back against the limits of genre, to produce texts more responsive to a project of mutual learning between authors and readers. Through recognition, interrogation, and transformation of genre, authors can advance the project of planning for the common good.

Keywords:

• Genre
• narrative
• storytelling
• phronetic planning
• planning theory

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Amelia Duffy-Tumasz, Nicholas Klein, Juan Rivero, Charles Hoch and Robert Lake, as well as three anonymous reviewers, for their comments. I want to thank my Drexel collaborators on the publications discussed in this paper, Julie Hawkins and Neville Vakharia. I would also like to thank the editors of Planning Theory & Practice. Finally, I am grateful to Jennifer Tucker and Sergio Montero for putting together the panel on storytelling and planning at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning that was the impetus for this piece.

Notes

1. I thank Bob Lake for suggesting the phrase.

2. In Sartre’s classic work, the protagonist Roquentin finds resolution to his existential angst (and presumably his dyspepsia) through the realization that he must strive to create meaning in his life (Sartre, 1964).

3. I am grateful to the editors and publishers of Planning Theory & Practice for making the capabilities article free to download for a limited time after its publication.