On the Virtues of Skillful Meandering

Throgmorton, James A.

doi:10.1080/01944360008976121

Cited by 26 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…5. Elsewhere (Throgmorton, 2000) I have argued that this form of planning practice which I call "skillful meandering" takes place within an actual built environment and within a complex web of relationships. Consequently, a skillful practitioner must be able to navigate his or her way through all the actually-existing features of contemporary society and politics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The Bridge to Gretna: Three Faces of a Case

Throgmorton

2008

Planning Theory & Practice

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This paper explores diverse ways in which social scientists help to construct the meaning of particular events (or cases). It does so by focusing on an incident that occurred on the bridge to Gretna when a group of New Orleanians tried to escape their flooded city in August 2005. After scrutinizing three ways (the Scientist's, the Technician's, and the Phroneticist's) in which social scientists and others typically try to make sense out of particular cases, the paper suggests that the meaning of an event depends most crucially on how diverse stories and arguments about the event interact within place-based webs of relationships. Recognizing the crucial role that circulating stories play, social scientists could combine social scientific and humanities-based skills to generate "superior stories" that can transform understandings and facilitate better collective action. This would involve subjecting individual stories to a close reading, juxtaposing stories against one another, and linking the stories to key contextual features. Doing so in the case of the Gretna Bridge incident reveals five important contextual features that forced New Orleanians to undergo a "trial by space": the contestable meaning of "racism", the national news media's role in exacerbating fears, the emotional truth of factually suspect claims, the hyper-segregated pattern of residence in the New Orleans city-region, and the relationship between fear and the imprisonment of young black men.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

The Bridge to Gretna: Three Faces of a Case

Throgmorton

2008

Planning Theory & Practice

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“…Prior to starting my term as mayor, I had just completed a four-year term as a city council member. And almost two decades before that, I had served as a council member for a little over two years (Throgmorton, 2000). Moreover, my story in Albrechts' book stops at the end of my third year as mayor.…”

Section: James Throgmortonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Planners in Politics, Politicians in Planning

Throgmorton

2021

Planning Theory & Practice

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“…The recognition that compelling theorizing does not necessarily entail theoretical innovation demands more than a mere reassertion of epistemological humility. It calls for both a reconsideration of the scope of planning within conditions of structured inequality and a rethinking of the practitioner’s travails (Krumholz, 1982; Laws and Forester, 2015; Throgmorton, 2000) as emplaced within that field of action (Fainstein and Fainstein, 1979; Foglesong, 1986).…”

Section: Part 2: Commentaries and Responsesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unsettling planning theory

et al. 2018

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Recent political developments in many parts of the world seem likely to exacerbate rather than ameliorate the planetary-scale challenges of social polarization, inequality and environmental change societies face. In this unconventional multi-authored essay, we therefore seek to explore some of the ways in which planning theory might respond to the deeply unsettling times we live in. Taking the multiple, suggestive possibilities of the theme of unsettlement as a starting point, we aim to create space for reflection and debate about the state of the discipline and practice of planning theory, questioning what it means to produce knowledge capable of acting on the world today. Drawing on exchanges at a workshop attended by a group of emerging scholars in Portland, Oregon in late 2016, the essay begins with an introduction section exploring the contemporary resonances of ‘unsettling’ in, of and for planning theory. This is followed by four, individually authored responses which each connect the idea of unsettlement to key challenges and possible future directions. We end by calling for a reflective practice of theorizing that accepts unsettlement but seeks to act knowingly and compassionately on the uneven terrain that it creates.

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On the Virtues of Skillful Meandering

Cited by 26 publications

References 18 publications

The Bridge to Gretna: Three Faces of a Case

The Bridge to Gretna: Three Faces of a Case

Planners in Politics, Politicians in Planning

Unsettling planning theory

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