Planning as practice of knowing

Abstract

It is often suggested that a defining feature of planning is its interventionist nature which requires connecting knowledge to action. With the upsurge of evidence-based planning, much is rehearsed about the utilitarian necessity of making such connection. What is less widely discussed is the epistemological nuances and challenges of knowledge–action relationship. This essay aims to contribute to the latter by conceptualising planning as practice of knowing. This is to shift the focus from knowledge as something that planners have to knowing as something that planners do. I would argue that, rather than thinking about knowledge as having an instrumental place in planning, it is more useful to think about planning as practice of knowing that involves knowing what, knowing how, knowing to what end and doing. Seen in this way, practice of knowing is a dynamic process that is situated and provisional, collective and distributed, purposive and pragmatic, and mediated and contested.