Negotiating polyvocal strategies: Re-reading de Certeau through the lens of urban planning in South Africa

Abstract

The Practice of Everyday Life (de Certeau M (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press) has become a canonical text in urban studies, with de Certeau’s idea of tactics having been widely deployed to understand and theorise the everyday. Tactics of resistance were contrasted with the strategies of the powerful, but the ways in which these strategies are operationalised were left ambiguous by de Certeau and have remained undertheorised since. We address this lacuna through an examination of the planning profession in South Africa as a lieu propre– a strategic territory with considerable power to shape urban environments. Based on a large interview data set examining practitioner attitudes toward the state of the profession in South Africa, this paper argues that the strategies of the powerful are themselves subject to negotiation. We trace connections with de Certeau’s earlier work to critique the idea that strategies are univocal. We do this by examining how the interests of different powerful actors can come into conflict, using the planning profession as an exemplar of how opposing strategies must be mediated in order to secure changes in society.

Exploring the long-term effect of strategy work: The case of Sustainable Sydney 2030

“…We develop a critical vocabulary to analyse strategy as pivotal urban practice and response to a 'new localism' (Katz and Nowak, 2017). Extending ongoing conversations that discuss strategy, tactics and power of urban actors (Andres et al, 2020;Vanolo, 2014), our study highlights the long-term (infra-)structuring effects of strategy.…”

“…As 'watchword of our times' (Carter, 2013), strategy has profoundly shaped discourse and practice of public administration including urban management and governance. Research has responded to this rise of strategy and significantly advanced our understanding of the evolution of urban strategy (Andres et al, 2020;Brandtner et al, 2017;Kornberger, 2012) and public-sector strategy more generally (Brown, 2010;Bryson and George, 2020;Johanson, 2009;Stewart, 2004). Studies analysed the nature of public-sector strategy (Mulgan, 2009), its tools (Bryson, 2018), its ability to engender strategic change (Pettigrew et al, 1992) and its promise to enhance performance (George et al, 2019) at all government levels (for an overview see Ferlie and Ongaro, 2015).…”

Unpacking planners' views of the success and failure of planning in post-apartheid South Africa

“…In such circumstances, the plans become, as one respondent put it, "coffee table documents". Noting the arguments concerning lack of compliance with planning tools in the literature review, this demonstrates that this issue is not merely an issue of state -society conflict but starts with conflict within the state itself (Andres et al, 2020). Some respondents noted these issues and argued that plan implementation requires both technical and social skills, "Walking that line between planning fundamentally being about whom, because that who you plan for, that's who implements your plans, who approves your plans, who funds your plans, who commissions your plans.…”

Education policy is spatial policy: Using spatial imaginaries to enhance education policy research

“…De Certeau helps disentangle how place imaginaries and their interpretations persist and change. He distinguishes between strategies , which are spatial enactments by the powerful, and tactics , which are used to resist those strategies (Andres et al, 2020). Using spatial imaginaries in policy exploration and analysis provides a theoretical and analytical framework for understanding how citizens and residents shape and transform spatial perceptions through everyday actions.…”

“…The investigative and analytical tools described here reveal the resitive tactics. Rather than only relying on policy strategies that seek to enforce formal place imaginaries, we explore methods that generate understandings of tactics that undermine or inform these imaginaries (Andres et al, 2020;Buchanan, 2000). We consider tactics in two domains.…”