Reflexivity and post-colonial critique

Toward an ethics of accountability in planning praxis

Bibliographic Data

ID12709999
AuthorsKatharine N Rankin (University of Toronto, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume9
Issue3
Pages181-199
Publication date2010-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePlanning Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1473-0952 • E-ISSN: 1741-3052
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1473095209357870
OpenAlexW2339760368
LanguageEN
Citations received30
References cited45

In her important essay ‘Praxis in the time of empire’, Ananya Roy (2006) calls for planning theory to confront imperialism and colonialism as the constitutive ‘present history’ of planning and to substitute a liberal ‘responsibility for’ others with a postcolonial ‘accountability to’ them. This article takes up Roy’s appeal with reference to the disciplines of anthropology, critical development studies and feminist studies. It argues that in order to move beyond the limits of ‘liberal benevolence’, planners need an ethics of accountability that recognizes the conditions of postcoloniality, to be sure, but that can also foreground the relational subjectivities of planners and beneficiaries more generally with an eye to broaching the normative terrain of ‘what is to be done?’. Through a review of literature at the juncture of planning and critical development studies, and reflections on my own cross-disciplinary travels, the article identifies four theoretical concepts that planning needs to recognize and engage in order to strengthen both its critical and normative orientations: the structures of imperialism, agency and resistance among the ‘beneficiaries’ of planning action, the subjectivity of planers and the conditions of collective action. The article argues that, cumulatively, these concepts can inform an ethics of accountability that encompasses both postcolonial critique and a ‘reflexive relationality’

Accountability · Agency (philosophy · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Normative · Political science · Politics · Praxis · Reflexivity · Social science · Sociology · Subjectivity · Technocracy · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Law · Philosophy · Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development · Urban Planning and Governance

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