Artefactual anchoring of strategic spatial planning as persuasive storytelling

Transkriptio

1 Artefactual anchoring of strategic spatial planning as persuasive storytelling Raine Mäntysalo, Kristian Olesen & Kaisa Granqvist ä - seminaariin Tieteiden talolle Helsinkiin. - seminaari 1

2 Persuasive storytelling in strategic spatial planning In previous studies, persuasive storytelling and related metaphors and spatial imaginaries have been perceived as instrumental in strategic spatial planning, in complexity Miten reduction hallita monitoimijaista yhteist yötä? and meaning-making, as well as in framing planning issues, conveying particular ways of conceiving space, and providing guidelines for action. ä - seminaariin Tieteiden talolle Helsinkiin. - seminaari Furthermore, their role in coordination and coalition building has been emphasized. In their selective illustrativeness and interpretative flexibility, the storylines, metaphors and imaginaries host multiple meanings and viewpoints. Thereby they can cross disciplinary and lifeworldly boundaries and arrange multi-actor 2 framings of diverging interests.

3 Communicative and coordinative capacity in strategic spatial planning Persuasive storytelling (e.g. Throgmorton 1996; Sandercock 2003) and associated metaphors and spatial imaginaries (e.g. Davoudi 2018) are powerful media of strategic spatial planning. How can their mobilizing force be explained? SSP is integrative: it aims to bring different sectors and scales of governance, as well as private actors and NGOs, within its strategic frame. This makes it challenging in terms of communication and coordination. Such forms of storytelling, metaphors and spatial imaginaries are needed which: enable communication across the boundaries of expertise and scale, create settings of mutual interdependencies that enable joint coordination between the actors with diverging interests. ä - seminaariin Tieteiden talolle Helsinkiin. - seminaari suunnit t elun ja innovatiivisen yht eiskehit t e- 3

4 Hypothesis Storytelling and associated spatial imaginaries and metaphors need to be, not only conceptually flexible, but also artefactually anchored, in order to achieve mobilizing and coordinative force towards realization of the strategic plan. ä - seminaariin Tieteiden talolle Helsinkiin. - seminaari Pääset mukaan keskustelemaan ilmoittautu- This means that with the unfolding of the strategic plan, sufficiently robust malla spatial objects have to be identified and generated as tools and targets for joja the joint coordination of the stakeholders involved. Tilaisuus on englanninkielinen iltapäivän työpa- In order to perform as coordinative media at the inter-actional level, beyond being communicative at the inter-conceptual level, the metaphors and spatial imaginaries that are utilized in persuasive storytelling need to perform as boundary objects. With this association, we draw attention to the artefactual dimension of metaphors and spatial imaginaries: are they instrumentalized in interlinguistic socio-material practices and shared artefactual planning tools and targets, and how? 4

5 Aim To develop a theoretical approach for future case research on the coordinative capacity of persuasive storytelling and associated metaphors and spatial imaginaries in strategic spatial planning. Do the studied metaphors and spatial imaginaries of storytelling involve, or are they connected to, appropriately concrete planning objects and targets, in view of the planning process at hand? If there is such artefactuality to the metaphors and imaginaries, do they perform in the sense of boundary object, providing a shared, yet differentiable, object to the different stakeholders involved, thus enabling their joint coordination? In boundary objects, the inter-conceptual flexibility of interpretation is combined with the robustness of artefactuality. They: [ ] are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and the constraints of the several parties employing them, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity across sites. [ ] They have different meanings in different social worlds but their structure is common enough to more than one world to make them recognizable, a means of translation. (Star and Griesemer, 1989: 393) flexibility of interpretation in different social worlds ä - seminaariin Tieteiden talolle Helsinkiin. - seminaari robustness of artefactuality 5

6 Metaphors and spatial imaginaries as boundary objects The constitutive and transformative role of metaphors and spatial imaginaries depends on their performativity in the form of boundary objects (cf. Carlile, 2017: 24; Marjanovic 2016: 5037; Engels & Münch 2015). Here, their artefactual anchoring is crucial. Products of storytelling may offer a mechanism, in the form of a meaningful artefact that can help transfer knowledge through complex, pragmatic boundaries (Bowman 2016:83). ä - seminaariin Tieteiden talolle Helsinkiin. - seminaari suunnit t elun ja innovatiivisen yht eiskehit t e- Engels and Münch (2015): the transformative success of the studied imaginary (micro smart grid of energy supply) resulted from its performativity as a boundary object. Artefactual anchoring does not necessarily mean reference to concrete physical objects (Carlile, 2002: 452). It is the nature of the planning problem at hand that determines the appropriate concreteness of a given boundary object. At a certain stage of strategic spatial planning, a certain spatial vision may appear as sufficiently concrete to gain coordinative momentum, while at some later stage it may appear as uselessly abstract and vague. Artefacts have different functions as goals or tools for joint action. It is the constellation of the activities involved that determines the use of the artefact. (Kangasoja, 2017.) 6

7 The Kuopio Three Urban Fabrics Model A spatial imaginary of the city. It describes the city as a system of three overlapping urban fabrics: the walking city, the transit city and the car city, and, through this description, also prescribes a more sustainable spatial planning strategy that of hindering the expansion of the car city fabric and promoting walking and transit city fabrics. Tilaisuus on englanninkielinen iltapäivän työpa- It is also a coordinative boundary object, unfolding into further boundary joja objects (physical, data, plan and model artefacts). (Mäntysalo & Kanninen 2013.) ä - seminaariin Tieteiden talolle Helsinkiin. - seminaari suunnit t elun ja innovatiivisen yht eiskehit t e- Walking City Transit City Car City 7

8 8 Contrary example: Helsinki City Plan In Helsinki city region, the spatial imaginary of polycentricity had been used as a vague, politically pacifying concept among the local, city-regional al governance organs, each of which had different meanings given to polycentricity in terms of scale of reference, the status of centres vis-à-vis each other, and the transport system interconnecting them. The lack of shared spatial target of the spatial imaginary was revealed, when the City of Helsinki made its City Plan proposal, fostering its own interpretation of polycentricity and imposing severe impacts to the broader city-regional centre structure and transport system. It shattered the superficial political status quo between Helsinki city government and its neighbouring local and upper-scale governments and public agencies, and revealed the discordance between them in how each interpreted polycentricity in the Helsinki city region in spatial terms. Thus the imaginary did not manage to perform as a target for joint coordination, as the artefactual dimension with associated boundary objects was missing. (Granqvist et al ) ä - seminaariin Tieteiden talolle Helsinkiin. - seminaari

9 Pilot case study Reflections through a preliminary case study of Aalborg knowledge city and growth axis, which has already been studied in terms of storytelling and spatial imaginary approaches (e.g. Popescu 2016; Kidmose & Kristensen 2018; Sharff 2018). Interviews, discussions, document analysis. Our intention is not to make definitive empirical claims of the Aalborg case itself, as further case research is needed. The aim is to show the feasibility and relevance of our theoretical approach in future case studies regarding the coordinative capacity of strategic spatial planning as persuasive storytelling. ä - seminaariin Tieteiden talolle Helsinkiin. - seminaari 9

10 Preliminary findings from the Aalborg case (1) The basic story from industrial city to knowledge city and the associated growth storyline have been translated into a spatial imaginary of growth axis, connecting the main hubs of related activity: the main university campus and the hospital, the airport, the harbour and the city centre with its cultural lighthouse attractions. The gradual artefactual anchoring of the growth axis, with the LRT/BRT line and its key stops, conceived as station-like urban nodes, each with a different character, seems to have been crucial in this coordination, in interconnecting transport and service networks, attracting the investors and developers and in engaging them in projects of detailed urban planning and design. ä - seminaariin Tieteiden talolle Helsinkiin. - seminaari 10

11 Preliminary findings from the Aalborg case (2) Several metaphors in the strategic framing of the story, the spatial imaginary and the associated projects: the key metaphor of knowledge city, the North Denmark s Growth Dynamo metaphor of the growth storyline, the metaphorical presentation of the growth axis as dynamo and spine, the BRT line as driving force, catalyst, growth engine and life nerve of urban development, the bus stops as stations. The effectiveness in the coordination of the different stakeholders activities (joint and coordinated plans and designs, negotiated investment decisions, public-private project development etc.) is achieved by the generation of boundary objects. 11 ä - seminaariin Tieteiden talolle Helsinkiin. - seminaari Then we created our own proposal for a housing programme with different projects in order to talk ourselves into the [growth axis]. All these dots are our project proposals, marked with these circles here and articulated in relation to the growth axis. (Buch, cited in Sharff, 2018)

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