AESOP Eprints
Institutional Repository of the Association of European Schools of Planning
Communities in AESOP Eprints
Select a community to browse its collections.
- Promoting Excellence in Planning Education and Research
- Congresses, Workshops, Meetings, Lectures and Summer School Events
- Safeguarding the development of AESOP’s Quality Recognition Programme
- Awards in Teaching, Best Published Paper, Best Congress Paper
- International, peer-reviewed, open-access journals
Recent Submissions
Proceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the south
(AESOP, 2016) Randolph, Rainer
We are publishing here the extended abstracts presented at the IV WPSC. Those which were discussed in the Track Sessions, as well as a considerable number of contributions in Plenary and Special Sessions and Roundtables. Farnak Miraftab´s Opening Keynote “Insurgency, planning and the prospect of a humane urbanism” was published (in portuguese) in ANPUR´s journal Revista Brasileira de Estudos Urbanos e Regionais (Brazilian Journal of Urban and Regional Studies), v.18, n. 3 (2016), p. 363-377 (http://rbeur.anpur.org.br/rbeur/article/view/5499).
It is our conviction that these texts reflect an important panorama of ideas, thoughts, experiences and practices of the nearly 600 researchers, scientists, students and practioneers who attended the congress in Rio de Janeiro with the aim to have an unique opportunity to discuss the matter of planning with colleagues from all over the world.
As it puts our colleague Carlos Balsas in the conclusions he wrote about his experiences by participating the discussions at the congress: “Attention was directed at the need to look forward to more planning not less, more planning research not less, and more educational opportunities to strengthen urban and regional planning. … Alternative paradigms based on the radical deconstruction of prevailing knowledge sets and philosophies by some of those living in southern and northern hemispheres are making positive strides and can be confidently further developed”
Book of abstracts : AESOP PhD workshop 1999, Finse, Depertment of Geography Univeristy of Bergen, Norway
(AESOP, 1999)
The AESOP PhD Workshop 1999 aims at constituting a small forum of discussion of PhDs in Planning Issues, bringing together a group of PhD students from AESOP member schools and a group of well known planning professors in an informal environment. The focus of the workshop is dedicated to the specificity of a PhD in planning. We are focusing on the role of paradigms in planning research, the role of theory and methodological approach, the relation between theory and empirical analysis in a PhD thesis. We will as well discuss the process in PhD work from idea to final thesis and whether there are identifiable trends in planning research. The workshop is structured into plenary lectures and group sessions. There will be five lectures by the invited teachers. There will be group sessions on Sunday and Monday at which the PhD students will present their papers, and group sessions on Tuesday at which there will be sought a structured discussion on the different theoretical and methodological aspects of the work with a PhD thesis.
Structure of the workshop
The workshop is structured in three types of sessions with specific, and different objectives: Plenary sessions of approximately 90 minutes length. There will be 5 such sessions - two on Sunday morning, two on Monday morning and one on Tuesday morning. In these sessions the invited professors and lecturers will present their lecture followed by a discussion. In these discussions all participants are urged to approach the themes of discussion in the light of their own training background, research and practice experience, as well as in the context of the planning school you come from. It is fundamental to keep track of the content of these plenary sessions in order to adress the topics in group sessions, after the PhD presentations.
From Theory to Methodology and Back Again: The Need for Planning Researchers to Engage with Methodological Concerns
(AESOP, 1999) Campbell, Heather
Concerns associated with the development and implementation of the methodologies which underpin empirical investigations often seem to be treated as if they are of marginal significance to the research endeavour. For example, refereed journal articles seldom discuss the detailed decisions surrounding the conduct of a piece of research. This element is omitted in favour of concentration on the theory informing the research and the implications of the findings; yet it is the methodology which provides the link between the theory and the findings and consequently is instrumental in determining the validity and reliability of the conclusions. The result of this lack of discussion and engagement with methodological concerns has been the creation of something of an academic myth that carrying out a study is a relatively straight-forward and unproblematic undertaking. Experience suggests quite the reverse and that moreover if the quality of research is to develop and progress in the planning field there is much to be gained from open and honest discussion of the theoretical and practical issues associated with the methodological aspects of research. The purpose of this paper therefore is a plea for greater engagement with methodological concerns. In the context of this discussion it is assumed that methodology includes both the techniques used in the field to collect data and also the approach adopted to analyse and interpret the resulting material. The paper is divided into two parts, the first examines existing perspectives on research methods in planning while the second focuses on the seemingly poorly developed relationship between theory and methodology.
Theory for Practice: Anticipating not only Interactions but Success and Failure
(AESOP, 1999) Forester, John
I have been exploring not only theories OF planning practice,but theories FOR planning practice as well. Theories OF practicemight help us to understand what planners do in some new ways,and they might help us to link the behavior and thought of planners to encompassing institutions, planning and political-economic history, or cultural influences (Sandercock 1995; Sandercock and Forsyth 1992; Friedmann 1987; Healey 1992, 1993, 1997; Hoch 1994;Baum 1997a, 1997b).
But theories FOR practice might go one step further: to suggest, in effect, to planners that if they view their work in a certain way, they may avoid specific problems and achieve certain desired ends instead. Such a «use» of theory is not quite instrumental (to achieve this goal, use this means), but it is practical (by viewing value conflict, for example, in THIS way, we can consider THESE responses that might FIT our situation WELL and avoid substantial problems).
Such theory depends on our having a sense of success and failure in planning, a sense of value to be gained or squandered, achieved or lost, a sense of welfare to be achieved or harms to be avoided. Thus «theory FOR planning practice» is intimately tied to a sense of the ethics of practice, what can be gained or lost in practice. So far, this does not specify which ethical arguments are necessarily involved, but it means that the «use» or «application» or «appropriation» of a «theory FOR practice» might enable planners to achieve some value or welfare and avoid some loss or harm. A theory that is USEFUL IN THIS WAY is necessarily (if often implicitly) wrapped up in ethics, since that is just what «useful» (consequentially good!) means. Otherwise, the theory would be use-less.
Using Planning Theory in a PhD in Planning: Plugging into Paradigms
(AESOP, 1999) Needham, Barrie
It is not easy to do PhD research in spatial planning! And one of the main reasons is that there is not one, not even several competing, paradigms which can be used as a framework for the PhD research. The result is either that the researcher has to spend a lot of time searching for a theoretical framework for his/her research, or that the researcher carries out the work without being able to put it into such a framework, whereby the relevance of that PhD research (what it contributes to knowledge) cannot easily be assessed.
More experienced researchers have fewer problems: and the reason is illuminating. It is that they / we have built up over the years our own theoretical framework that we use as a basis for our research, refining it, testing it critically, only very rarely rejecting it and starting out on another one. We have that great advantage. But we tend to keep it for ourselves, for we seldom make it explicit (not even to ourselves) whereby other people (and in particular those with less experience) cannot benefit from it.
My message it that we - the senior researchers - have a responsibility to make explicit the theoretical framework that we use for research into spatial planning, so that others can use it, improve it, tell us why it should be rejected. That will help PhD researchers. And it will help also to build up cumulatively a body of knowledge, for it will help all researchers to relate their research to the research of others.