Reframing postmodern planning with feminist social theory: Toward “anti-essentialist norms”

This article is concerned with the current developments in planning theory literature, with regard to its extensive focus on flexibility and process. When emphasizing the open-endedness and procedural validity of planning, planning theorists do not seem to consider ethical considerations about the results of planning outcomes. This is understandable given that postmodernism and its ardent defense of “open-endedness” is often considered to contradict any prescriptive nuances. However, I argue that normativity of planning is possible within the postmodern paradigm and that postmodern concepts and theoretical standpoints can propose a basis for normativity. To demonstrate this, I adopt the works of political theorists who have addressed normativity and political solidarity within the postmodern paradigm (anti-essentialist, anti-Cartesian), most of whom are inspired by the future paths of feminism. To be clear, what I refer as “feminism” is about not only defending the status of women as a legal category, but also how to construct political solidarity against inequalities—without essentialist categorizations or a priori conceptualizations. Using the ideas of Young (second-/third-wave feminism), Laclau and Mouffe (post-Marxism), Mouffe (post-Marxism/third-wave feminism), and Butler (third-wave feminism/body politics), I outline what could be considered “anti-essentialist norms.” Based on these norms, a planner can judge which people and whose voices—which social groups or “serial collectives”—should be prioritized and heard first, in order to promote a more inclusive and just urban space. The three anti-essentialist norms that I propose are (1) taking into account the historicity of social relations, (2) having a modest attitude toward what we claim as the representation of “the public,” and (3) recognizing a human interdependency that leads to pursuing future-orientedness in a political project.