Who for rather than who with - how intended audiences help determine framing dynamics in contested planning

ABSTRACT

This article considers the contested case of the Minhocão, São Paulo, to be either removed or turned into a park. The case provides insights for framing and planning literature. It is analysed through interviews, and media and document analysis. The results show that the involved actors adopt different framing strategies: adaptive, coherent, or deliberative. Each strategy has particular intended and actual audiences that help explain the dynamics of participatory contestation. Each strategy reveals choices in dealing with adversaries, who are present, and with intended audiences, who are largely absent. And each strategy has specific repercussions for learning and planning outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Framing
• contestation
• participation
• intended audiences
• learning

Acknowledgments

I would like to extend a special thanks to Prof. Willem Salet for his continued debates and encouragement on the topic of this article during his supervision of my PhD. I also thank my supervisors Prof. Wendy Tan and Prof. Carina Wiekens for their support as I developed the research and the first drafts of this article, and of course the support and patience of Planning Practice and Research’s Editor and anonymous reviewers.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This article focuses on the relatively conscious form of framing strategy that looks at how framing acts and shifts during interaction, which Dewulf et al. (2009) call interactional framing. However, cognitive framing (Dewulf et al., 2009), that is, the ways more abstract beliefs and ideas repeated and learned throughout life influence perceptions of reality, is also considered relevant to this. Often, even when actors are engaging interactional framing, their cognitive framing – and those of who they are interacting with – co-determine the possibilities for interactional framing (Triandafyllidou & Fotiou, 1998).

2. This article uses the term ‘vereador’ in Portuguese throughout, since its translation can cause confusion as to their function, which differs across countries. São Paulo has 55 vereadores who, together, form the Câmara Municipal, which is the legislative body of the municipality. Its composition is based on elections of political parties every two years (individual vereadores are prioritized through elections based on open lists).

3. AG2 used to advocate demolition but rephrased this as disassembly since they recognized that a demolition would create extreme damage to the area because the structure is built so close to its surrounding buildings. This argument was first put forward by a member of AG1, arguing that the Minhocão can’t possibly be demolished.

Additional information

Funding

The research for this work was originally supported by Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, Grant number 438-15-159, as part of my PhD at Wageningen University, and its continued development was supported by the Portuguese FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology under Grant UIDB/04059/2020.