Australian Planner ISSN: 0729-3682 (Print) 2150-6841 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rapl20 Unlearning the colonial cultures of planning Arabel Lim To cite this article: Arabel Lim (2011) Unlearning the colonial cultures of planning, Australian Planner, 48:2, 104-105, DOI: 10.1080/07293682.2010.517761 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07293682.2010.517761 Published online: 08 Jun 2011. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 90 View related articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rapl20 Download by: [Nanyang Technological University] Date: 06 June 2016, At: 19:06 Australian Planner 2011.48:104-105. 104 Book Reviews in the development and implementation of measures of community wellbeing and social progress can result in some of the most powerful contemporary community engagement. Perhaps the more obvious oversight in the volume is the complete absence of any recognition of the importance of mobile technologies in community engagement. Whether it be ‘e-activism’ or simply communicating upcoming real-time, face-toface community engagement events, new information technologies clearly play a critical role in activating community engagement in all fields, particularly sustainability. Again, with their vast experience, the contributing authors ought to have, at the very least, cast an analytical eye over how much new technologies can help or hinder community engagement. Maybe these quibbles are more the concern of the analyst than the practitioner. The accompanying volume, Speakout, launches straight into a detailed guide of how to conduct speakouts and community workshops by drawing on five case studies based in distinctively different contexts. The depth and passion conveyed in the unpacking of each Speakout story is captivating, and practitioners are sure to reflect on their own experiences as they take in the various ups and downs that challenge such exercises. Again, however, it would have been useful to include details on how these stories were assessed by both the practitioners and the participants and, indeed, why they were all seen to be ‘successful’, and hence included in the volume. The helpful final section of the volume on the importance of evaluation reinforces this oversight in the case study stories. Especially appreciated in the Speakout guide is the dedicated section, Speakouts for Children, a demographic that often has been ineptly engaged with, if at all, particularly in planning circles. As others have argued, the issue of sustainability is most poignant for its effects on the youngest members of our society, and the very practical assistance offered in this chapter astutely differentiates between different age ranges of children and appropriate techniques; another feature disappointingly underdone in community engagement with children and young people. Both books
being so rich with practical hints and advice distilled over decades of wisdom from community planning
will obviously appeal to community engagement practitioners, as the raft of testimonies attest (a little immodestly) on the jackets and sleeves of both volumes. A more ambitious hope is that both volumes end up on the reading desks of the growing number of policy officials charged with overseeing processes of community consultation and so experience some of the rawness and reality of genuine engagement with communities. Geoffrey Woolcock Urban Research Program Griffith University Nathan Campus, Queensland Email: g.woolcock@griffith.edu.au # 2011, Geoffrey Woolcock Unlearning the colonial cultures of planning, by Libby Porter, Ashgate, 2010, 180 pp., $133.10 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-7546-4988-5 Imperative to any culture is the accessibility to land and spatial (cultural) practice, which facilitates the preservation and maintenance of culture. The influence of British colonialism, however, has placed the integrity of Indigenous claims to land that sustain its cultural practices to be often questioned. It raises tensions about Indigenous people’s rights to land and the pressure that the settler colonies engender. In colonial history and throughout (post)colonial setting, Indigenous land is constantly challenged by Western conceptions of land use. As a response, Indigenous peoples are defending their basic right to appropriate land as ‘traditional land owners’. Whilst colonialisation has attracted various book treatments exploring these themes of territorial, economic and political processes and their Indigenous implications, Porter’s Unlearning the colonial cultures of planning tackles the subject from a different slant. It explores this Indigenous struggle through a planning genealogy, arguing that planning’s (cultural) influential power produced the colonial and post(colonial) spaces. The book suggests that colonial sentiments have been carried over into the post(colonial) environment and have never really left. Porter questions past and present colonial ideological formations of planning and evokes the need to engage in a more ethical way in planning. Much of the philosophical influence in the book comes from Lefebvre’s conception of space. Porter agrees with Lefebvre (1991) in recognising that the ‘science of space’ can be extended to any ‘mode of production’ in space. In the book’s case the technocratic planning is considered a mode of production that helped produce the colonial space and continues to do so in the post(colonial) space. More specifically the book draws on Lefebvre’s triad of production of space, including spatial practice (perceived space), representations of space (conceived space) and representational space (lived space). The book narrows in on conceived space and argues this as the prevailing Australian Planner 2011.48:104-105. Australian Planner space in society, and the underlying aim of the book deals with the dialectical interaction obvious in the contest between Indigenous peoples and (European) planning in the production of space. Porter uses the term ‘spatial cultures’ to frame her theoretical premises to understand the production of space throughout time. This works well in supporting her claims. In which the book captures well the tensions between colonial spatial cultures within the production of (post)colonial spaces. The author cites Lockean theory of property (Tully 1980) which supports understanding of how colonial spatial culture’s thought and behaviours lead to the dispossession and appropriation of Indigenous land. The book suggests that Lockean theory of property is regarded as human obligation to fulfil land betterment in the deployment of labour, as it is a God-given law to self preserve. The book recounts various colonial writings from stakeholders that facilitated the production of space in colonies. The overarching theme in the writings concludes that the land was seen as barren and needed to be improved through Western conceptions of land use. Porter raises an important concern, which in many ways is relevant for planning discourses today, in that Indigenous peoples are viewed as blending in with nature and this has led to Indigenous land erasure. The book suggests that the decolonialisation of planning could occur by an orientation toward love as a form of ethical practice. Whilst the author points out it is not of a romantic or intimate love but one regarding humility and compassion it does not sit well in planning discourses. Since it would be hard to apply ‘love’ in planning, given the multiplicity of society, the process of planning means some groups of people will inevitably be dissatisfied with the final decisions made. Moreover, love as radical practice would be undermined by neo-liberalism evident in planning practice. The book would have been strengthened by addressing the question, ‘How to address plurality in planning practice?’ This is a tough question but one that would enrich discussion. However, the book’s strengths include effectively questioning collaborative planning in the (post)colonial context. The writer raises concern in the post(colonial) setting with planning denying Indigenous involvement in planning decisions. The book makes use of two cases that highlight this problem in Gariwerd (the Grampians) and Nyah. In the case of Nyah forest (in Western Victoria), the integrity of the forest has been challenged by timber harvesting, grazing and tourism. Porter explores how in both Gariwerd and Nyah there was evidence of colonial domination over Indigenous peoples in leaving them out of management decisions and that there is a 105 presence of racial stereotypes. Overall, the book provides a good historical overview and deals with the complexity in the colonial and (post)colonial environment. This book is recommended for understanding the Indigenous struggle in planning discourse, and it raises key issues for planning theorists in advancing research. It is written effectively and supported by well-researched documentation and includes an extensive bibliography. The book would be useful as a research reference in all planning history courses. References Lefebvre, H., 1991. The production of space. Oxford: Blackwell. Tully, J., 1980. A discourse on property: John Locke and his adversaries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Arabel Lim RMIT University Email: arabel_lim@student.rmit.edu.au # 2011, Arabel Lim Whose public space? International case studies in urban design and development, edited by Ali Madanipour, Routledge, 2010, 282 pp., $94.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-415-55386-5 Professor Madanipour is an important scholar in the urban design field, with a strong focus on the psychosocial aspects of public spaces in their creation, transformation and management. He has authored a number of significant earlier books, including Design of urban space: An inquiry into a socio-spatial process (1996, Wiley), Public and private spaces of the city (2003, Routledge), Designing the city of reason (2007, Routledge) plus a number of edited works. In this his latest edited publication, he builds on this earlier work using ten case studies of public space from a diverse range of cultural contexts, including the UK and the EU, Taiwan, Nigeria, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Mexico. The aim was to obtain a cross-cultural perspective of the sociocultural drivers of public space creation and the inclusiveness of such spaces in serving the public interest. This is indeed an ambitious task given the cultural diversity of the cases and the variety of theoretical perspectives and methods adopted by the various authors. Madanipour’s introductory chapter offers a ‘broad framework’ for the case studies around the concepts of ‘place and process’ emphasising the