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Publication

The transformative potential of land use conflicts

Book - Dissertation

Subtitle:unravelling processes of politicisation and depoliticisation
This dissertation makes a critical inquiry into how land use conflicts contribute to social transformation and the relevance of these processes to urban and spatial planning theory. Arguing that often traditional planning theories neglect the role of conflict as a transformative force with an impact beyond the planning profession, the study examines the ways activists and non-professional planners challenge and change how we think about planning and the way land is or should be used, and as such contribute to social transformation. Drawing on post-foundational political thinkers such as Jacques Rancière and Chantal Mouffe, and engaging with contemporary transformative planning approaches such as collaborative planning and insurgent planning, this dissertation observes that different planning approaches apply multiple interpretations of social transformation, hence identifying other processes in land use conflicts to have politicising and depoliticising effects. The thesis describes three perspectives on social transformation. A first conceptualisation sees transformation as including multiple interests in the decision-making process (i.e., inclusion-oriented). A second interpretation understands transformation as changes in power relations through the struggle of counter-hegemonic movements (i.e., power-oriented), and the third interpretation links social transformation to the emergence of new political subjects that change the symbolic order of society (i.e., subjectification-oriented). xii By mobilising four cases –three in Belgium and a fourth in South Africa– and by unravelling the political dynamics that make social transformation possible or prevent it in these empirical cases, this research finds that working with all three interpretations of social transformation often offers the best understanding of the transformative processes at work in complex land use conflicts. Additionally, the dissertation argues that the transformative planning field benefits from exploring the diversity in both politicising and depoliticising processes in land use conflicts. This can be done by diversifying the contexts in which land use conflicts are studied.
Number of pages: 200
Publication year:2020
Keywords:Doctoral thesis
Accessibility:Open