Briefly discussing David Harvey‘s A Brief History of Neoliberalism against the backdrop of Richard Heinberg‘s The End of Growth The Hypocrisy of Neoliberalism Neoliberalism proposes “market exchange as an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for human action”. In tracing the politico-economic history of this doctrine, Harvey attests that the ubiquity of neoliberalism as…
Literature on feminism in planning sequentially proceeds from talking about the lack of female presence in planning (be it in terms of women being the subjects of plans, or agents and stakeholders in the actions and processes that go into making and executing plans), the resulting process of integration of feminist ideologies into the field, and…
“The US and other industrialized countries have committed themselves to giving 0.7% of their GDP in foreign aid. The United States is giving 0.15%…the amount of money we are giving Africa is [equivalent to] that of 10 days fighting in Iraq…much of the 0.15% is part of a geopolitical strategy and that includes…
The discourse on poverty alleviation naturally meanders into charity and philanthropy. Two types of charitable behaviour- philanthropy and microphilanthropy- have stemmed from a lot of development rhetoric calling to action the First World countries and communities on their “responsibility” towards the “less developed”, the “poor” in the Global South, and have the mushroomed into…
“The Tempest” This is no Ode to Shakespeare, who’s writing I do not find fascinating, save for the use of such words that I have found a great liking for. I seem to be fascinated with insurgent planning, and that probably stems from this new-found realization that a sentiment as tumultuous as insurgency can find…
There is a tangible link between people and places. Planners must go beyond municipal politics and ground planning into actual social movements/struggles for social identity and/or rights. The constant redefinition of “citizenship”- and thus the “values” considered relevant by them- occurs via such social movements, so “insurgencies” are necessary accommodations in planning practice. The earlier post spoke about the idea that…
The series of posts from me this fortnight are progressively exploring certain questions: In the field of international/transnational development, why focus on planning? Well, excluding our proclivity to the profession by way of being students of planning, my opinion is that the planning profession operates at a scale that makes it uniquely positioned to be exposed to competing…
Much of the general validation for development work comes from a sense of everyone having access to basic amenities. Everyone. Access. Basics. A more austere wording for this type of sensibility would be…equity. I have an affection for this word, I admit; likely because I have an affection for a balanced world in every…
While our discussions in transational planning hover around several themes relevant to international development, and emerge from development literature and related pop culture-like references, as planners we focus on planning. This post explores the specific importance of the planning focus. This is done in context to the National Capital Territory (NCT) (New Delhi and surrounding cities) in…
There’s just no escaping gender talk! I told myself I had my plate full with the many aspects of transnational planning without taking on gender issues in planning. But I’ve been colliding into it constantly since the last 3 weeks, so it figures that by now I have more than two cents to contribute.…
Transnational Planning 