Discourse, institutional identities and intractable planning disputes: The case of Interstate I-710

Abstract

This article argues that parties to planning disputes assume policy positions in concordance with institutional identities that are informed by reigning planning discourses. Building on the work of Kenneth Burke and its advancement through the perspective of positionality in socio-linguistics, a case study of the dispute around the completion of highway I-710 through South Pasadena, California, is used to illustrate how the potential for intractability increases when discourses are mutually reinforcing of a particular positionality. However, avenues to reconciliation can be found in exploiting constructive dispositions suggested by particular discourses in contingent discursive settings. The article ends by reinforcing that policy-makers pay increased attention to the discursive context of planning disputes.