In the following essay written for HUSO2378 at the RMIT, I will discuss Leonie Sandercock’s work on the journey of their own “exposition, influences and interpretation” of what it means to seek to practice from the inter-cultural space, listening to marginalized voices and to incorporate an attitude that allows one to do these things with progressive degrees of success.
This concise work will primarily focus on a chapter that Sandercock wrote in the book “Towards Cosmopolis” (1998) entitled “Voices from the Borderlands: The Theory That Difference Makes”. An analysis of some key points in author’s journey recounted in this chapter will be carried out with reference to examples and key texts, concepts and arguments that surround the subject of “inter-cultural”. The reason for this focus is that due to the reflective nature of Sandercock’s chapter, the text provides an insight into her experiences and (un)learning relayed first-hand, some of which is in first person dialog.
In this reflective style, I will also employ first-person dialog. This is done to put in action the recognition that talking with an ‘I’ ties the work more specifically to the author’s (mine) own personal predilections, and that is precisely the intention here. While backed up by different texts and relationalities, this is an account that is interpreted through my own experience of learning and unlearning.
Reflexive Breakthrough
“I was stunned. To say that I was unprepared for such a reaction would be a monumental understatement. I was temporarily speechless, as was the rest of the class. I was also blind; that is, I was unable to see that there were different ways of ‘reading’ the programme.” (Sandercock, 1998, pp. 108)
Sandercock (1998) starts the chapter with a narration of one of her own experiences where she is positioned in a tense cultural situation. This encounter with the inter-cultural causes her to realize that there are different ways in which we interpret things, and that the dominant way is not universal.
This realization is, perhaps, one of the most powerful steps in realizing the mechanisms involved in being inter-cultural. When paired with the reflexive attitude that Sandercock adopts by realizing that her positionality influenced assumptions, frameworks and representations of other cultural realities (Kapoor, 2004) she makes active steps towards ‘de-colonizing the mind’ (Hira, 2012; Grosfoguel, 2007). Through an engagement with the inter-cultural, she accepts the validity in the variety of realities that exist – and then seeks some of them out. Sandercock looks towards several “voices from the borderlands” (Sandercock, 1998, pp. 110) in order to listen to what is going ‘wrong’ with the dominant paradigms that govern theory and practice and how we may start moving past them.
As Anzaldúa brought forward in her book Borderlands (1987), “dominant paradigms predefined concepts that exist as unquestionable, unchallengeable, are transmitted to us through the culture. Culture is made by those in power – men.” (pp. 38)
Due to these dominant western, colonial ways of knowledge creation, Sandercock journeys into the unlearning of the “unquestionable” neutrality within knowledge creation that rests on ‘objective’ logic and reason assumed by the dominant culture. These concepts in western practices especially have been enacted as point-zero concepts that assume “the point of view that represents itself as being without a point of view” (Grosfoguel, 2007), or what Donna Haraway (1988) calls “the god trick”. Escobar (2016) also talks about this phenomenon through the concept of the One-World World (OWW) adopted from Law (2011; 2015), which represents the "Global North" and the worldview it holds that excludes other world views. These concepts are also commonly known as absolute objectivity.
I interpret these above assumptions as problematic because while in the west it has been customary to eliminate the geopolitical position of the knowledge created (Quijano, 1989; Quijano, 2007), when viewing knowledge created by the colonized or the subaltern, geopolitical positioning has been a method against universality of this knowledge, a privilege held for the colonial/imperial.
In fact, Law (2011; 2015) argues that “[the] one-world metaphysics are catastrophic in post-colonial encounters. They reduce difference. They evacuate reality from non-dominant reals.”
Sandercock (1998) starts to deconstruct these continuities of colonial relationality (Kothari, 2006) in planning. Knowledge, in Sandercock’s engagement with the inter-cultural, is brought down from being abstract truth, revealing that it is always tied to the experience(s) in which it is embedded.
By seeing world in this way, it ties the person creating knowledge to their embodied “subject positioning” (Nadarajah, 2007). This “subject positioning” not only makes knowledge specific, but due to the range of experiences and cultures in the world, it inevitably brings to the table a wide range of epistemic, cultural and experiential difference.
Diversifying
By prompting discussions on bringing together different ways of seeing, Sandercock (1998) explores how difference can be incorporated in planning theory. At the time, planning theory was changing, but still mostly a homogeneous landscaped dominated by the white male, operating from the “supposed ‘impartiality’” stance (Sandercock, 1998, pp. 109). Even later in 2017, in an interview Sandercock stated that “the professional practice still sees planning as culturally neutral” (Sandercock and Piazzoni, 2017, pp. 281).
The concept of ‘difference’ is extensively explored by Sandercock. From diverse sources from outside her field, knowledge about a new way of operating through difference is gathered by incorporating “the voices from the borderlands” (Sandercock, 1998, pp. 110). This engagement is done unlike the author’s first instance in the chapter where she presented voices from the marginalized that were ‘managed’ by a white male; perpetuating the idea that the ‘other’ is the issue, rather than racism, colonialist mentality and its embedded power relations.
Sandercock (1998) includes in her work an exploration of how and why the profession needs to change by bringing in work by people like Gloria Anzaldúa and Guillermo Gómez-Peña. I would say this is valuable for a few reasons. First, all these individuals and their work search for a “a new consciousness” (Anzaldúa, 1988) for our participation in being, interpreting and creating knowledge in our world that can incorporate difference. Secondly, in order to find ways to include marginalized voices and voices of difference, Sandercock goes to that source itself.
"The difference that is defined by (those in) power always means absolute otherness. It is an essentializing difference which expresses a fear of making permeable the categorial border between oneself and others. " (Sandercock, 1998, pp. 123)
This point is significant here because incorporating an inter-cultural difference, or as Young (1990) identifies, a progressive politics of difference, there needs to be a fundamental analysis of social organization and the existing power-relations. By uncovering and changing mechanisms of duality and colonialism, by recognizing and drawing on difference where a positive meaning is asserted by the oppressed, the power in naming difference is transformed into specificity (rather than abstraction), variation and heterogeneity (Sandercock, 1998).
Multiplicity
“The work of mestiza consciousness is to break down the subject-object duality that keeps her a prisoner and to show in the flesh and through the images in her work how duality is transcended.” (Anzaldúa 1987, pp. 79-80)
The difference that is brought to the forefront of Sandercock’s engagement with the inter-cultural is opened into the transcendence of duality. What stood out to me in this exploration of difference is the recognition that people such as Anzaldúa are not saying that one different particular way should be the one to dominate, but through this difference they bring in the idea of allowing and building for multiplicity. Difference itself is not something that is to be homogenized; it is an open-ended non-solution that leads us to more context-driven equitable responses to world issues.
Sandercock's journey into multiplicity refers extensively to Anzaldúa's arguments; for having a plural personality that is tolerant to ambiguity or being open-ended. One need not fit in another, different, rigid definition.
As Nadarajah says, binarisms are a booby-trap, and “our radical move is to turn, and to return, insistently to the crossroads” (2016, pg.71). By choosing to break-down that which keeps us prisoner – the choosing between parts of ourselves and our communities in an 'either/or' construct – so we be(come) through multiplicity. Sandercock proposes that so can our world, cities and communities once we move beyond the duality that in the end keeps us all captive to certain degrees.
This multiplicity, also known as the pluriverse, is an innate part of the inter-cultural that we can observe in a number of works. Sandercock’s journey in listening to voices from the margins, presenting difference and ways to multiplicity is echoed in the works of Escobar.
Escobar (2016) talks about Epistemologies of the South as "inspiration of pluriverse: a world where many worlds fit"(pp. 12), and how the knowledge they provide is much deeper for the context of social transformation than what usually originates from academia. Just as Sandercock identifies, Escobar highlights that the ‘Epistemologies of the South’ encompass local struggles that "attempt to re/establish some degree of symmetry to the partial connections that the mangrove-worlds maintain with the One-World-World” (Escobar, 2016, pp. 19). Embedded in these attempts by the voices of difference, the subaltern, the marginalized, the ‘Epistemologies of the South’, is the potential for enacting the ‘pluriverse’.
Allowing for multiplicity and different world views is how we begin to move towards treating cultures with respect and equity. As Anzaldúa’s (re)framing presents, it’s not about choosing one or creating a "global" universe. The solutions are to open up, question, restructure and contextualize our worldview so that it makes space for the legitimacy, validity and equity of other ones.
Into the field of Planning
Through her reflexive journey with and within the inter-cultural, Sandercock (1988) arrives to adopting the term: ‘epistemology of multiplicity’ (Gómez-Peña, 1996) and applies it by exploring what it would mean to her field of planning:
“In planning, such an epistemology validates experiential, embodied, contextualized knowledge as well as abstract, disembodied systems of reasoning.” (Sandercock, 1998, pp. 121)
This brings forth the discussion to be applied to Sandercock’s field, where she identifies an emphasis on “listening and interpreting, developing skills that are sensitive to and able to pick up on everyday ways of knowing. It suggests an entirely different practice in which communicative skills, openness, empath and sensitivity are crucial; in which we respect class, gender, and ethnic differences in ways of knowing, and actively try to learn and practice those ways in order to foster a more inclusive and democratic planning.” (Sandercock, 1998, pp. 121)
Consequently to her inter-cultural beginnings, Sandercock goes on to apply this reframing into planning, theorizing in language and terminology that is accessible to planners and practitioners (Sandercock and Piazzoni, 2017) rather than writing only for academics. In one paper, Sandercock (2003) argues for the power of narratives and stories as a tool for seeing and listening to the different experiences people have of cities – especially multi-ethnic and multi-cultural ones – that might exist, and to question the dominant ‘official’ stories that might surround a particular city or neighborhood. In another article (2006), she questions how planning might embody spirituality it its practice: despite planning of cities and environments in which we live in shaping our lives so personally, the practice still remains sterile (Sandercock, 2006).
Sandercock also co-edited a book which explores experiments on using “multimedia as a means of social research, a form of meaning making, a tool in community engagement and community development and as a catalyst for policy change.” (Sandercock, 2010, pp. vii). This regard to community engagement, policy change and a focus on how multimedia can be used by activists, NGOs, immigrant and indigenous communities, planning scholars and educators; it all points towards building tools for multiplicity, allowing a consideration of difference in the practical field of planning and finding ways in which different marginalized voices can be heard and empowered to speak up. More than anything, in Sandercock’s work there is a recognition that we need the voices of difference to speak up.
Conclusion
“These analytical approaches were not able to capture the pluriverses of irreducible inhabitants characterized by relations, expectations, feelings, reminiscences, bodies, voices and stories which are stratified in living urbanities. Cartographies meticulously succeed in representing the silenced shapes of an objectified city, but they ignore life through space. They don’t consider what is invisible, what loves hiding and elusively pulsates in the interstices of maps and of the morphological design of the city. Beyond what is already told and done. Beyond plans and cartographies.” (Sandercock, 2010, pp. x)
Sandercock’s engagement with the inter-cultural seems to have started in the midst of rigid analytical approaches that did not seem enough to capture the world, and a willingness to see that one could not see. Sandercock did not dismiss this feeling, and through rigorous research and theorizing on ways to the pluriverse in life and planning, she forged on, making space, listening, creating tools to engage, continuously developing and helping others see. This is a lot of what engagement with the inter-cultural is about; it is not a fixed solution, it’s about recognizing, developing and enacting ways of changing ourselves to make the world equitable in what we do individually and collectively.
Figure 1 Source: Towards cosmopolis: planning for multicultural cities, Sandercock L. (1998)
References:
Escobar, A. (2016) 'Thinking-feeling with the Earth: Territorial Struggles and the Ontological Dimension of the Epistemologies of the South', Revista de antropología iberoamericana, 11(1), pp. 11-32.
Gómez-Peña, G. (1996) The new world border : prophecies, poems, and loqueras for the end of the century. San Francisco: City Lights.
Grosfoguel, R. (2007) 'The epistemic decolonial turn: Beyond political-economy paradigms', Cultural studies (London, England), 21(2-3), pp. 211-223.
Haraway, D. (1988) 'Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective', Feminist Studies, 14(3), pp. 575–99.
Hira, S. (2012) 'Decolonizing the mind: the case of the Netherlands', Human architecture, 10(1), pp. 53.
Kapoor, I. (2004) 'Hyper-self-reflexive development? Spivak on representing the Third World 'Other'', Third world quarterly, 25(4), pp. 627-647.
Kothari, U. (2006) 'Critiquing ‘race’ and racism in development discourse and practice', Progress in development studies, 6(1), pp. 1-7.
Law, J. 2011. What's wrong with a one-world world? Centre for the Humanities, Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut.
Law, J. (2015) 'What's wrong with a one-world world?', Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, 16(1), pp. 126-139.
Nadarajah, Y. (2007) 'The outsider within: Commencing fieldwork in the Kuala Lumpur/ Petaling Jaya corridor, Malaysia', International Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies, 3(2), pp. 109-132.
Nadarajah, Y. (2016) 'Doing Fieldwork in Disaster Areas – Nurturing the Embodied for Analytical Insight', Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, 2(1), pp. 28-56.
Quijano, A. (1989) 'Colonialidad y modernidad/racionalidad', in Bonilla, H. (ed.) Los conquistados: 1492 y la población indígena de las Americas. Quito, Ecuador: Tercer Mundo Editores.
Quijano, A. (2007) 'Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality', Cultural Studies, 21(3), pp. 168-178.
Sandercock, L. (1998) Towards cosmopolis : planning for multicultural cities. Chichester, England ;: John Wiley.
Sandercock, L. (2003) 'Out of the Closet: The Importance of Stories and Storytelling in Planning Practice', Planning theory & practice, 4(1), pp. 11-28.
Sandercock, L. (2006) 'Spirituality and the Urban Professions: The Paradox at the Heart of Planning', Planning theory & practice, 7(1), pp. 65-97.
Sandercock, L. 2010. From the Campfire to the Computer: An Epistemology of Multiplicity and the Story Turn in Planning. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.
Sandercock, L. and Attili, G. (2014) 'Changing the Lens: Film as Action Research and Therapeutic Planning Practice', Journal of planning education and research, 34(1), pp. 19-29.
Sandercock, L. and Piazzoni, M. F. (2017) 'Interview with Leonie Sandercock', Critical Planning, 23.
Young, I. M. 1990. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton University Press.
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