Track 16: Planning “in” or “for” multicultural societies. Diversity, social justice, democracy and the luxury of space

Track Co-Chairs
Francesco Lo Piccolo, University of Palermo
Huw Thomas, Cardiff University

The focus of this track will be the ways that space – its social construction, contesting and management – are implicated in the dynamics of a diverse, often unequal, society; consequently, space is contested and a reason for serious conflicts. This can be explored at various spatial scales from the domestic to the international, and across scales.

At the base of this view and interpretation of space there are Hanna Arendt’s notions of plurality and democracy. According to Arendt (The Human Condition, 2005), the public space of democracy can be defined as the ambit where all the discursive issues can show up their many-sidedness and people can freely show up their own plurality by acting and uttering their plural opinions. Thus, the public space of democracy coincides with the political space of freedom.

In this track, we would like to emphasize the notion of space as:

The socially constructed and even contested place of our meeting with the Other(s)
The physical and metaphorical arena where – according to Hannah Arendt – democracy can nurture and flourish
The sphere where to claim for and have recognized full rights of citizenship.

If the sense (when not the aim) of politics is the freedom of plurality, and therefore understanding a political situation means acknowledging a large framework of different viewpoints and positions from which the situation can be considered and judged, this recognition does not have individuals as its exclusive object but also the spaces and places of the city, negotiating, in the city spaces, different forms of interaction and cohabitation. This is not an easy, natural or automatic process. As a matter of fact, the emotional and identity-laden perception of space changes as well: fear and insecurity are becoming – in many cases – the most evident signs, at the individual as well as the political level (Bauman, City of Fears, City of Hopes, 2003 and Liquid Fear, 2006).

How can planning (and planners) cope with all this? Which theoretical issues and practical experience have to be considered, in order to ensure plurality and freedom in the city space that is the physical place of the space of democracy?

The track especially welcomes – academic as well as practice-based – papers which discuss strategies for social progress, such as fairer use and/or distribution of spaces that improve quality of life: spaces where young people feel comfortable, spaces for cosmopolitan mix, and so on. It is also hoped that there will be contributions which consider socio-spatial relations beyond the city: the implications of the construction of rurality as a ‘luxury’ for urban dwellers, for example. Papers about international spaces and flows – such as migration and its implications – may also find a place in this track. Papers on the politics and ethics of researching diversity, justice and planning are warmly invited.

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