Elusive Promises (Paperback)

Simone Abram

ISBN 10: 1785332139 / ISBN 13: 9781785332135

Published by Berghahn Books, Oxford, 2016

About this Item

Paperback. Planning in contemporary democratic states is often understood as a range of activities, from housing to urban design, regional development to economic planning. This volume sees planning differentlyas the negotiation of possibilities that time offers space. It explores what kind of promise planning offers, how such a promise is made, and what happens to it through time. The authors, all leading anthropologists, examine the time and space, creativity and agency, authority and responsibility, and conflicting desires that plans attempt to control. They show how the many people involved with planning deal with the discrepancies between what is promised and what is done. The comparative essays offer insight into the expected and unexpected outcomes of planning (from visionary utopias to bureaucratic dystopia or something in-between), how the future is envisioned at the outset, and what actual work is done and how it affects peoples lives. Focuses on the idea of the promise as a way to understand planning through time.Ethnographic accounts from highly-regarded anthropologists on planning.Comparative study of planning. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781785332135

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Elusive Promises (Paperback)
• Publisher: Berghahn Books, Oxford
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1785332139
• ISBN 13: 9781785332135
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Planning in contemporary democratic states is often understood as a range of activities, from housing to urban design, regional development to economic planning. This volume sees planning differently―as the negotiation of possibilities that time offers space. It explores what kind of promise planning offers, how such a promise is made, and what happens to it through time. The authors, all leading anthropologists, examine the time and space, creativity and agency, authority and responsibility, and conflicting desires that plans attempt to control. They show how the many people involved with planning deal with the discrepancies between what is promised and what is done. The comparative essays offer insight into the expected and unexpected outcomes of planning (from visionary utopias to bureaucratic dystopia or something in-between), how the future is envisioned at the outset, and what actual work is done and how it affects people’s lives.

About the Authors

Simone Abram is Reader at both Durham University and Leeds Met University, and has worked in interdisciplinary planning departments at Sheffield and Cardiff Universities. Her publications include Culture and Planning (Ashgate, 2011), Rationalities of Planning (with Jonathan Murdoch, Ashgate, 2002), and Anthropological Perspectives on Local Development (co-edited with Jacqueline Waldren, Routledge, 1998).

Gisa Weszkalnys is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the London School of Economics. Her book, Berlin, Alexanderplatz: Transforming Place in a Unified Germany (Berghahn Books, 2010) tackles the intricate politics of place in contemporary Berlin. She is currently working on a manuscript focusing on the temporality and materiality of oil exploitation, specifically in West Africa.