Dilemmas of policy and planning
Dr Kathryn Gibson
12 points
* 3 hours per week
* First semester
* Clayton
*
Prerequisites: Major sequence in geography or permission of head of
department
Objectives Students successfully completing this subject should have learnt to apply the skills of critical discourse analysis to policies implemented in Australia in the postwar period, to have gained a familiarity with contemporary economic, social and environmental pressures upon regional development and planning, and to have acquired a range of field-based research skills.
Synopsis Many of the dilemmas associated with policy making and planning arise from the conflicting or changing understandings of keywords that structure attempts to intervene in and direct or manage the `development process'. This subject will critically analyse the genealogy of four keywords within Australian policy discourse - region, dependence, sustainability and class. It will explore the ways the following definitional tensions have informed policy agendas and planning interventions - environmental determinist versus social constructionist definitions of the region; economic meanings of dependence versus independence and the shifting attribution of these terms to industries, regions and social groups; ecological versus economic meanings of sustainability; and categorical versus processual meanings of class. Using case studies of selected non-metropolitan regions in Australia, actual dilemmas of policy and planning practice will be explored. Students will be encouraged to investigate initiatives in alternative development strategies that draw upon new definitions of the keywords under investigation. The subject entails a compulsory two-day field trip to the La Trobe Valley.
Assessment Written (6000 words): 70%
* Tutorial 10%
* Practical
work 20%
Recommended texts
Block F Post-industrial possibilities: A critique of economic discourse University of California Press, 1990
Foucault M The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality with two lectures by and an interview with Michael Foucault (ed.) G Burchell, C Gordon and P Miller, University of Chicago Press, 1991
Massey D Space, place and gender University of Minnesota Press, 1994
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