Critical pragmatism in planning : The case of the Kathorus Special Integrated Presidential Project in South Africa
Date
2008-09-18T12:20:18Z
Authors
Zack, Tanya
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Abstract
Contemporary South African planning practice is rich in detail, complexity and
innovation born out of a need to fulfil a post-apartheid development agenda. This
practice warrants theorising.
This dissertation aims to advance the concept of critical pragmatism into an analytical
framework that will facilitate the analysis and theorising of one such complex
planning case, and its delivery.
The case study examines the Kathorus Special Integrated Presidential Project (KSiPP)
– an ambitious, large-scale strategic planning programme that was by many accounts
successful in achieving a substantial range and scale of outcomes in an exceedingly
complex underdeveloped and violence-ridden context. This case provides the material
for a deeper analysis of what actually happened in the project, through the application
of my framework.
Within the dissertation I define critical pragmatism as a concept for exploring
planning practice as:
An analytical framework for examining the actual processes and outcomes of
planning practice that is contextually situated; that operates within and through
pervasive power relations, which are exercised through and influenced by multiple
rationalities, and practice in which the planning choices that are made are valueladen
and mutable.
This framework is comprised of five interrelated elements. These are: context,
outcomes, power, rationality and ethics. These are derived through a study of the
philosophical roots of critical and pragmatic schools of planning. My interrogation of
these roots and planning traditions, especially with reference to thinkers such as
Dewey, Habermas, Foucault, Harrison, among others, finds that while the critical
traditions predominantly foreground power, the pragmatic traditions predominantly
focus on action and outcome. Each tradition is limited and a conversation between
them, in an integrated critical pragmatism produces a framework that can address the
sort of complexities manifest in the KSiPP. Out of this conversation and the
identification of ethics as an element somewhat lacking in both traditions, a
contemporary critical pragmatic analytical framework is derived and substantiated,
with significant implications for the discipline of planning. My own involvement as a
practitioner in the project provides close methodological benefits and insights for the
thesis.
The research methodology employed in this thesis focuses on case study techniques,
with a strong leaning on practice writing. An in-depth literature review research into
theoretical concepts in planning and philosophy has enabled the development of an
appropriate framework for analysis. The application of my framework yields deep and
nuanced findings of the KSiPP. These include the extent to which context and
circumstances contributed to the project, whose means and ends were multifaceted.
The explicit assessment of power in the project illuminates its many faces in its
institutional, collaborative and personal forms. A precise examination of the
rationalities that were at play finds competing political and technical rationalities, and their relationships with power and action. Finally, an assessment of the project against
the ethical question of justice, found it lacking and modified the sense of the KSiPP as
an entirely successful endeavour.
The value of critical pragmatism is that it enables a conversation between the
analytical efforts to understand planning practice and outcome, and the efforts to
analyse the power, rationality and ethical choices inherent in planning processes. It
also takes what is implicit within such frameworks and particularly in the work of
Forester, who has written of a critical pragmatic approach to planning, and makes this
explicit and thus available for use in further evaluation.
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Keywords
critical pragmatism, planning, Kathorus, planning evaluation, planning practice, planning theory