Nancy Odendaal of the AAPS on the planning profession and education.

ABSTRACT OF PAPER TO BE DISCUSSED 

Debates in planning education reveal a tension between universal planning education and an approach that is specific to context. The former promotes standardisation of skills that enable graduates to be mobile whilst overcoming the usual dichotomies of North/South or developed/developing countries. Contextually embedded approaches arguably facilitate a more meaningful response to local issues, assuming more appropriate local intervention. The Association of African Planning Schools (AAPS), a peer-to-peer network of 35 universities that teach urban planning degrees, is currently working towards the revitalising of planning education in Africa by examining this tension in order to reform planning school curricula, increase research output amongst African planning scholars and strengthen academic networks. To this end, case research was identified as a means towards building a body of work by African planning academics that departs from the usual interpretations dominated by Northern scholarship. Case research has value in teaching and research. As a teaching tool it allows for an interactive exchange that allows for authentic problem-solving. In research it facilitates in-depth enquiry that draws on the everyday to inform a phronetic understanding of planning.

This paper reviews case work in planning literature from the last 10 years, published in 21 pre-selected journals. It examines the extent to which this methodology is represented in planning literature and where authorship resides. Selected papers were analysed to determine two dimensions. The first reveals the units of analyses: are authors interested in the individual planner, the planning process or actual projects/programmes? Secondly, what were the approaches used in the research: inductive (the creation of generalised statements and theoretical propositions from empirical enquiry), deductive (application and testing of existing theories through empirical enquiry)

For more details on the paper, please contact: Nancy Odendaal (nancy.odendaal@uct.ac.za); Professor Vanessa Watson (vanessa.watson@uct.ac.za) or James Duminy (jamesduminy@gmail.com)