Assembling Urbanism: Following Policies and ‘Studying Through’ the Sites and Situations of Policy Making

Abstract

Recent years have seen a challenge to the territorial orthodoxy in urban studies. An interest in policy assemblage, mobility, and mutation has begun to open up 'the what' and 'the where' of urban policy making. Unfortunately-but perhaps not surprisingly-theoretical developments and empirical insights have run ahead of significant methodological considerations. This paper turns to some of the methodological consequences of studying the chains, circuits, networks, and webs in and through which policy and its associated discourses and ideologies are made mobile and mutable. It focuses on three rubrics under which methodological decisions can be made: 'studying through' (rather than studying up or down), techniques of following actors, policies, etc, and relational situations in which mobilization and assemblage happen. The paper concludes with a brief reflection on how academic research design and writing assemble cities and urban policy making in ways that parallel the assembling practices of policy actors. IntroductionWe both work on 'urban policy and politics'-research with a seemingly clear set of study sites. Yet recently we have found ourselves doing our fieldwork in all manner of situations that we might not have expected: conference halls, corporate offices, drug consumption rooms, minibuses, cafés, and hotel bars. Of course, these are the types of settings that many human geographers inhabit as they conduct qualitative research. More surprising for us has been the range of cities in which we have been doing this fieldwork. We have found ourselves moving from one place to another quite frequently, rather than remaining in the cities we think we are studying-our 'field sites'. Why have we found ourselves in these situations? Well, because we have been striving to make good methodologically on the relational theorizations of cities offered by Massey (1993), Robinson (2006), and Amin (2007) amongst others. We have been following the policies that develop in, move among, and shape the character of cities in ways that others follow 'things' or commodities through supply chains or production networks (Freidberg, 2001;Marcus, 1995). Our work asks how policy actors circulate policies among cities, how they draw on circulating policy knowledge, and how and for whom they put these engagements to use as they assemble their own 'local' policies and, by extension, their own cities.The title of this paper, "Assembling urbanism", was the working title of our recent book. Eventually, the book's title became Mobile Urbanism (McCann and Ward, 2011). It collects a number of theoretically informed, detailed empirical case studies of territorial and relational elements of urban policy. The contributions examine policy in many forms: written policies, policy models and best practices, policy knowledge, policy responses to specific concerns, and the sociospatial manifestations of policy work. In doing so, the book challenges understandings of policy as technical, rational.

Policy learning and sustainable urban transitions: Mobilising Berlin’s cycling renaissance

“…This approach and the data collection methods outlined below have also been chosen in order to allow for greater detail and depth of qualitative empirical analysis -an approach cited as both methodologically desirable (Peck and Theodore, 2012;Cochrane and Ward, 2012;McCann and Ward, 2012; and identified as problematically absent (Temenos and McCann, 2013) in recent discussions of policy mobilities research. More specifically, this research follows Peck and Theodore's (2012) suggestion to use a 'distended case approach' -a flexible and exploratory mode of enquiry that allows research to 'follow' the movement and mutation of policy knowledge in its (often unpredictable) entirety; whilst remaining integrally focussed on an identified in-depth single-case study (Cochrane and Ward, 2012;McCann and Ward 2012;.…”

“…Informed by previous work in policy mobilities, the data collection process was designed as an exploratory and flexible process whereby contacts were snowballed from the initial participants. This reflexive and exploratory approach provides a rich qualitative data set and allowed the research to 'study through' unforeseen networks of influence and causality in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 both Berlin's cycling renaissance and the circulation and mutation of this policy knowledge (McCann and Ward, 2012).…”

Transferability of urban freight transport measures: A case study of Cariacica (Brazil)

“…In consequence, the Cariacica prefeitura needs to negotiate in fora involving such higher levels of governance, alongside neighbouring (wealthier) cities and well-funded private business interests, all of whom might have interests which conflict with those of Cariacica residents. Given that Cariacica is one of the poorest cities in the region ( Figure 5), it is unlikely to have access to one or more of the "global class of `starchitects', consultants, and high-profile planners" who are "behind urban developments and related policies in numerous cities across the world" (McCann and Ward, 2012). Other participants in such fora though might well have such access.…”

Unexpected translations in urban policy mobility. The case of the Acahualinca development programme in Managua, Nicaragua

“…This paper aims at exploring the chains of translations through which urban policies are made mobile and mutable (McCann & Ward, 2012, 2013 -in other words, how urban policies work and are translated into practice. By combining the policy mobility and city management literatures (Clegg & Kornberger, 2006;Czarniawska, 2002Czarniawska, , 2010Czarniawska & Hernes, 2005;Kornberger & Carter, 2010), the paper also aims to bring together two research fields that share a relational understanding of space and organizing but that have so far remained separate communities of practice.…”

“…In practice, policies and their implementation are not separate categories; instead, as recent research into both policy mobilities and city management demonstrates, policy implementation involves the complex translation of goals, policies, and plans into life. Policies are moved and mutated (Allen & Cochrane, 2010;Cochrane, 2007Cochrane, , 2011McCann & Ward, 2012, 2013, translated, changed, and localized in new organizational contexts (Czarniawska, 2002(Czarniawska, , 2010(Czarniawska, , 2013.…”