Combined Authorities and material participation: The capacity of Green Belt to engage political publics in England

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to consider the passions aroused by Green Belts in their urban containment function as a political accomplishment that has the capacity to orient publics around new spaces of governance. The paper addresses what it identifies as a problem of relevance in the new Combined Authorities in England where public identity and belonging may be more firmly rooted in other places and settings. It draws on the literature on material participation to locate the capacity to foster public belonging in objects, things and settings, and considers the environmental planning designation of Green Belt as an assemblage of the human and non-human which has the power to connect and contain. In a case study of plans for Green Belt reduction in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the paper evidences the power of the non-human to mobilise public engagement and to foster territorial identity. The paper concludes by setting out an approach to public participation that foregrounds the importance of material interests and affective relations with objects and things in the formation of political communities.