Planetary Planning Podcast

In this episode, we speak with Isabelle Doucet, Professor of theory and history of architecture at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. She here reflects on multi-species perspectives and social and environmental justice. I, Kim, met her at the IRS Academy in Berlin last spring, and am very glad I subsequently asked her to come on the podcast. This episode is a fascinating exploration into a very multi-disciplinary take on architecture, design and how to consider the “other” while de-centering the frequently white, male and human dominant perspectives we are faced with around the world today.

Isabelle cites a wealth of authors that we cite / link to below and heartily invite our listeners to have a look into. The list includes Anna Tsing, Donna Haraway and Rosi Braidotti, among many others. She also provides examples of architectural visions and experiences that truly consider multi-species realities in surprisingly realistic ways.

Throughout the journey of this conversation, Isabelle speaks of how a multi-species perspective “forces us to think the world through connections and entanglements”, and to move beyond human exceptionalism. She highlights how important storytelling is for “de-centering” the designer, and how central economics can be for the potential for change in these regards: challenging contemporary practices in relation to land and the accumulation of value through built structures for example. Finally we also broach the subject of participation and how including various perspectives is a theme that equally surfaces in architecture and planning, and yet remains a challenge, even more so when attempting to move beyond the human.

Take-aways for planners, by Isabelle Doucet:

* Ask the question of who benefits, but also of who is damaged? In both architecture and planning there seems to be strong positivity about the make-ability of the world, but this often neglects the (conscious or unconscious) damages that this “making” can also inflict.

* Planning has an amazing opportunity as a broad field to bring together environmental, social and spatial justice and questions of the owning, (re)claiming, and accessibility of land.

References:

Isabelle Doucet, Interspecies Encounters: Design (Hi)stories, Practices of Care, and Challenges. In K. Förster (Ed.), Environmental Histories of Architecture. Canadian Centre for Architecture. https://www.librarystack.org/environmental-histories-of-architecture/

Isabelle Doucet, Anticipating Fabulous Futures, E-Flux Journal (Overgrowth Series), September 2019. https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/overgrowth/284918/anticipating-fabulous-futures/

Isabelle Doucet, Architectural Storytelling: A Space Between Critical Practice and Fragile Environments. In: Hélène Frichot, Adrià Carbonell, Hannes Frykholm, Sepideh Karami, eds., Infrastructural Love. Caring for Our Architectural Support Systems (Birkhäuser 2022).

Akwugo Emejulu, Fugitive Feminism (Silver Press 2022) https://www.silverpress.org/products/fugitive-feminism?srsltid=AfmBOop5h2awzKQaWV6BMf_NjKzji3U8u05vG2nAzAa28jivQrakP0Lv

Astrida Neimanis, Cecilia Åsberg, & Johan Hedrén, Four Problems, Four Directions for Environmental Humanities: Toward Critical Posthumanities for the Anthropocene. Ethics and the Environment, 20(1), 2015, 67–97. https://doi.org/10.2979/ethicsenviro.20.1.67

May-Britt Öhman, “Settler Colonialism in Ungreen, Climate-Unfriendly Disguise & As a Tool for Genocide” in: Climate: Our Right to Breathe, eds. Chu, Down, Mabaso et al. (L’Internationale And K verlag, 2022) (Book chapter. Access: https://internationaleonline.org/site/assets/files/8140/lio_climate_2022.pdf)

Thom Van Dooren and Deborah Bird Rose, Lively Ethography: Storying Animist Worlds, Environmental Humanities 8, no. 1 (May 2016): 77–94. https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-3527731

Additional authors mentioned:

* Donna J. Haraway

* Anna L. Tsing

* Deborah Bird Rose

* Thom van Dooren

* Vinciane Despret

* Isabelle Stengers

* Rosi Braidotti

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planetaryplanning.substack.com

*note: we apologize for a relatively bad sound quality. We suggest the use of the accompanying transcript to better be able to follow. We hope you can thus nevertheless enjoy this insightful conversation!*

During this episode, Jan Visser shares his views on “scientific” and caring mindsets, about which he has learned much through his various transdisciplinary experiences. We begin with a definition of theoretical physics, and first try to understand how this connects to processes of learning and caring. Through this process, we have a fascinating conversation about how dispositions for thinking “scientifically” and in caring ways might emerge. Jan shares several conditions for “Building the Scientific Mind”, which he has developed over many years at transdisciplinary colloquia around the world, which are shown in an overview in the following image:

We follow Jan’s journey of discovery towards these ideas, which in itself is fascinating because it shows how deep involvement with one quite specific discipline - theoretical physics - can be brought into important dialogues with many other disciplines, while also being the root for seeking knowledge and understanding about how people learn, and what kind of learning might be more in tune with a healthy planet.

Jan argues that care, not being rule-based nor a product, is rather a disposition (just like the “scientific mind”), which must be developed, and certain conditions that can be more or less helpful for this. He has learned that care depends on how we perceive relationships within specific diads (one with one other) and argues that care requires some level of knowledge about one-another, from both sides, including between the earth and human beings. To build such knowledge and understanding that can encourage care, however, Jan highlights that learning, in schools and throughout life, needs to be about more than the things that are immediately useful for the daily lives of individuals. As he puts it, “it’s important to recognise that our planet is a living planet, and not just a physical planet with life on top of it, but life is an intricate part of that physical structure that our planet has become.” In this sense, theoretical physics and planetary planning seem to come quite close together.

Take-aways for planners, by Jan Visser:

* Do not plan in a way that it forces people in a certain direction, because then any change they undergo will not be owned by the people who adopt it.

* Instead, create conditions that facilitate the adoption of different behaviours individuals are happy with and about and that contribute to constructive interaction with a changing environment.

Links mentioned in the episode, and further reading:

* The transdiciplinary Learning Development Institute, set up by Jan Visser

* Retrospective on Building the Scientific Mind series of colloquia

* Building the Scientific Mind interviews on YouTube

* Book “Seeking Understanding”: Visser, J., & Visser, M. (Eds.) (2020). Seeking understanding: The lifelong pursuit to build the scientific mind. Leiden and Boston: Brill | Sense.

* Paper on “Care for the Earth, Ourselves, and Others”

* Paper on Learning and the Scientific Mind, called “Two Things Commanding Attention”

* Book on Learning: Visser, J., & Visser-Valfrey, M. (Eds.) (2008). Learners in a changing learning landscape: Reflections from a dialogue on new roles and expectations. Dordrecht: Springer.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planetaryplanning.substack.com

In this episode, we speak with Matti Kuittinen, Professor of Sustainable Construction at Aalto University in Finland. We begin with an exploration of the role of construction industries as well as the planning of construction and land-use in the breaching of several planetary boundaries - taking the opportunity to dive a little deeper into what those boundaries are, as well. Matti reveals how construction is one of the biggest contributors to many of the problems caused by humans for the environment and non-humans (and humans themselves, too), including for biodiversity. He also highlights this with recourse to the interconnection between areas related to land-use, including the role of future food-practices around the world.

But this also leads us to discuss ways that construction could be a key for more planetary thinking and acting, or what could be called “planetary aware construction”. Matti discusses several already-existing examples of such forms of construction, including finding solutions where the need for built space is solved without the need for new construction.

Matti then highlights that construction that is mindful of other species should take them into account as if they were our neighbours. Construction will perhaps necessarily include some kind of destruction, but perhaps it could be less intensive, and more considerate of others. Especially given our responsibility as human beings towards species that are much less able to defend their own needs.

As we explore this and more, it becomes clear that - be it in the area of construction or any other - a return to more respect and care for the more-than-human is key for a planetary approach. And, Matti points out, perhaps a way to reach this would be to find joy in the responsibility that humans have for the wonder of life on the planet as a whole.

Take-aways for planners, by Matti Kuittinen:

* Prioritize regeneration, so that anything done in planning or construction improves living conditions and wellbeing of all life.

* Place more emphasis on resilience. We don’t know what the future will look like exactly, but we know we will need to be resilient to face the challenges that will already inevitably occur.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planetaryplanning.substack.com

In this episode, we speak with Ralf Syring, expert in decolonial and solidarity work and later so-called “international development” in the African and Central American continents. He studied theology, sociology and medicine, and is an avid reader of fiction and non-fiction on the most diverse subjects - all of which have helped to inform the conversation we share here.

The episode takes us through the topics of what development does, can or should mean, and to whom; to what the role of time-limited “projects” is in this; and to the role of specific contexts - be they about language or something else; and bringing us ultimately to the great importance of a contextually specific approach to anything we wish to act on. This decidedly does not mean that everything is relative or that nothing can be more widely valid than one specific context, as Ralf points out from the beginning, but when we want to make a change somewhere, we had better know that place, those people, that language, and not least that more-than-human context.

Take-aways for planners, by Ralf Syring:

* Make sure to consider context well before you act - in terms of history, linguistics, definitions and wishes of development, the role of your identity in relation to those you work with, and many more themes (think critically and reflectively).

* Be careful not to make “planetary planning” about making one plan for the entire planet! (answer from the hosts: we certainly hope planetary planning will always be about diverse and various solutions, not about masterplans and blueprints!)

References from the episode:

Kingsolver, Barbara (1998) The Poisonwood Bible. New York (Harper Collins).

Campbell, Catherine (2003) Letting Them Die. Why HIV/AIDS Prevention Programmes Fail. Oxford (African Issues, James Currey, the International African Institute), Bloomington (Indiana University Press)

Syring, Ralf (2019) Seeking to Find out Why Things Happen. Variations on a Theme of Diallo Sampa’s Grandfather. In: Jan Visser, Muriel Visser (ed.): Seeking Understanding. The Lifelong Pursuit to Build the Scientific Mind. Leiden (Brill)

Syring, Ralf (2005) The Mine, Dignity, and a Hospital's Protection against Raids. In: Lukas Einsele: One Step Beyond – The Mine Revisited. Berlin (Hatje Cantz)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planetaryplanning.substack.com

This brief introduction is to welcome you all back to the podcast after the summer break, and to very briefly introduce the podcast to any newcomers. A longer introduction can be found in the first episode, and we welcome everyone to go back and listen to any previous episodes, as they continue to be relevant! Immediately after this introduction, you’ll also find the next episode, with Ralf Syring, published.

Stay tuned for new episodes every month! We are open to suggestions for new speakers and/or topics, so do leave us a message if you’ve thought of something we should cover. We look forward to hearing back from you!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planetaryplanning.substack.com

In this last episode before our summer break, Susa and Kim explore various more-than-human voices in Coimbra (Portugal), Berlin (Germany), and Matosinhos (Portugal). By doing so, we touch on various types of symbiosis between humans and more-than-humans in cities, and when they are more or less toxic. We also reflect on whether more-than-humans are always coming from “nature”, or whether they might also include machines, for example.

As always, we welcome your input on how such episodes might be done in future, and hope you have enjoyed our attempt to give voice to and explore possible meanings of more-than-human voices around us.

We will be back with our next episode in September! Until then, we leave some ideas for how you might engage with more-than-humanness over your summer! :)

Take-aways for planners (and others!):

* Revisiting relations between humans and more-than-humans so that nature isn’t perhaps so aligned with trash or “leftovers”

* Emphasizing a sense of mutual care with birds (and other more-than-humans)

* Thinking about how much priority we are giving to which more-than-human and human side, i.e. “nature”, human, machine

* Recognizing the huge diversity of more-than-humanness even within urban environments, perhaps challenging the urban-rural binary

* Go listen for more-than-humanness, also in urban environments, seeking to hear and experience beyond our usual human senses, and allow this to challenge the directionalities we chose to prioritize in daily life

References from the episode:

Bridle, J. (2023). Ways of being: Animals, plants, machines: the search for a planetary intelligence. Penguin Books.

Hagens, Nate (2024) Daniel Schmachtenberger: "Moving from Naive to Authentic Progress: A Vision for Betterment”. The Great Simplification Podcast. 5.6.2024. https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/126-daniel-schmachtenberger-7

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planetaryplanning.substack.com

In this episode, we speak with Emīlija Vaselova, Doctoral researcher in Multispecies Design at Aalto University, Finland, about her fascinating experiences in designing with Nature, in the truest sense of the word. She has worked for many years at expanding the definition of a “stakeholder” to include more-than-humans, in desin and planning practice and research, even while not losing sight of the importance of inclusion of diverse human groups. This includes the process of identifying which more-than-humans are stakeholders in diverse design processes, as well as practical explorations of how, once identified, they might be included.

Emilija has explored multiple ways of incorporating various shapes Nature can take, from weather processes (such as snow), to mushroom ecosystems to winter and other seasons, and much more. She explains the difference between including various individual “organisms” (e.g. one specific dog) versus single species collectives (e.g. a single bee versus a bee hive), or even multi-species collectives (e.g. lichens en trees, etc.), which for some (most?) species is crucial, as they require more than one of themselves and/or other beings to live (well). This to provide only one of many fascinating examples of the themes explored in this episode.

Emīlija shares that in her experience, even if such more-than-human inclusion is still rudimentary, an aspect of “added care” does make a difference in making sure that more-than-humans are at least somewhat considered in decision-making. She highlights how both experiential and more abstract knowledge about the natural environment can be crucial for gaining a better sense of the interconnectedness and needs concerned in human and more-than-human relations. And she asks anyone to ask themselves: does this project or this decision involve any more-than-human stakeholder? Even if a more-than-human stakeholder is not immediately apparent, which might be there in hidden ways, after all, while emphasising the fun, curious side of this exploration.

Take-aways for planners, by Emīlija Vaselova:

* Explicitly acknowledge that we need nature, now, in 10 years, in 100 years.

* Acknowledge that we shape the future with the actions we take today, including the spaces all species will live in, and the way humans and all species view these spaces and how they/we coexist.

* Have curiosity about how the processes could be different already today, and test it today, or tomorrow, or next week.

* Support nature so that in turn it can support us.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planetaryplanning.substack.com

In this - double-themed and thus somewhat longer - episode, we speak with Philippe van Parijs, Belgian political philosopher and political economist. We discuss both basic income and linguistic justice, neither of which might immediately seem logical themes for this podcast, especially compared to the themes discussed so far. However, we want to challenge our listeners to see the connections, because seeking ways of binding together exciting ideas for the future and relating them to how this would impact a “planetary” approach, is precisely what drives this podcast. This conversation really highlights how radical a change in all aspects of life - for humans and more-than-humans would likely emerge, from the apparently “simple” implementation of a basic income. For instance, although individual basic income might seem to further highlight individualism and individual, human-centered living, thinking about it in very practical terms makes one realize that it would actually more likely incentivise more community-oriented living. At the same time, Philippe also highlights that some changes might be less radical than we might hope or expect - for example, he suggests that people would still probably specialize in a specific field of work or discipline of thought. We also speak of how basic income leaves more space and incentive for life-long learning, for instance.

As we move to the theme of linguistic justice, we discuss the impact this could have on people’s choice to stay in given locations, as their realities would be much more contected to a locality, bound together with a language, and moving to another locality would (more than now) mean that one would need to learn a potentially very different language. Might this also be another incentive for humans to reconnect with localities? Even when they do choose to move, perhaps this movement would be less removed from the realities of the locality - after all, culture, nature, and language are arguably deeply intertwined…

Take-aways for planners, by Philippe van Parijs:

* Planning is most crucial in its function as a form of intelligent interdisciplinary foresight.

* As such, planning will unavoidably lead to coercive measures, but these are necessary in a context where human action so often results in highly negative consequences for non-humans.

* Despite its coercive side, planning should always maintain the promise of a utopia of maximum freedom for people, and this will most likely require some form of Universal Basic Income.

References from the episode:

Philippe van Parijs’ Université Catholique de Louvin page

Philippe van Parijs’ Wikipedia page

Parijs, P. van, & Vanderborght, Y. (2019). Basic income: A radical proposal for a free society and a sane economy (First Harvard University Press paperback edition). Harvard University Press.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planetaryplanning.substack.com

This episode is the first in a series of more-than-human interviews Susa and I have planned for this podcast. Every third episode will be one of these. In these episodes, we do our best to give a little space for a more-than-human to “speak”, and discuss a little about the context and about what messages we can read into this. We try to listen, but of course our own human capacities and patterns of thought influence what we are able to hear and interpret here. This is why the episodes also include soundscapes without speech. We hope that our listeners might be inspired by this to think of various ways these soundscapes may be interpreted.

In this particular episode, we host “Finnish Winter”, with the help of Susa, who lives in Finland and regularly experiences this winter. The soundscapes for this episode were recorded in April 2024, and this Winter was already turning towards Spring, although the amount of snow was still quite high. Birds that normally eschew the coldest winter months in Finland can be heard returning. These sounds trigger Susa and Kim to reflect on the pleasantness of natural soundscapes, on Finnish seasonalities, on the importance of seasonality more broadly, on how seasonality is being affected by climate change, and much more. Of course, all with an eye for implications for “Planning”, that is, imagining futures and how to reach (or avoid) them…

We hope you enjoy the episode!

We refer to one book in the episode, here is the reference:

Graeber, D., & Wengrow, D. (2021). The dawn of everything: A new history of humanity. Penguin Random House UK.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planetaryplanning.substack.com

In this episode, we explore the topic of more-than-human planning with Jonathan Metzger, Professor at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Jonathan is a truly transdisciplinary scholar, connecting Planning Studies, Human Geography, STS (Science- and Technology Studies) and Organizational Studies. He studies various angles of decision-making concerning complex environmental issues – generally with a focus on urban and regional planning, policy and politics. More than for these reasons, though, we invited him for the podcast because he is one of the few “planners” we are aware of, who has actively sought to connect more-than-human perspectives with planning decision making. He has published, for example, about planning’s relationship with Moose, and with Mosquitoes (together with Jean Hillier).

In this episode, Jonathan gives us examples as well as triggers more abstract thinking about how no planning process (or any process) is neutral or equally “postive” in terms of affecting or benefiting various groups - be they human or more-than-human. Choices are made, and losses experienced, but too frequently there is not even any awareness of much of that. And this is something that can change, and might be an important step towards creating a different discussion also among and between those who are able to speak up in defense of themselves and other species.

Take-aways for planners, by Jonathan Metzger:

* Avoid common pitfalls by better connecting the existing theory and practice on more-than-human planning! Check out the wealth of what is already out there, and bring it together.

References from the episode:

Metzger, J. (2014). The moose are protesting: the more-than-human politics of transport infrastructure development. In Planning against the Political (pp. 191-213). Routledge.

Metzger, J. (2019). A more-than-human approach to environmental planning. In The Routledge companion to environmental planning (pp. 190-199). Routledge.

Hillier, J., & Metzger, J. (2021). Towns within Towns: From Incompossibility to Inclusive Disjunction in Urban Spatial Planning. Deleuze and Guattari Studies, 15(1), 40–64. https://doi.org/10.3366/dlgs.2021.0428

Metzger, J. (2023). The Cosmopolitics of Urban Planning in a More-than-Human World. In The Routledge International Handbook of More-than-Human Studies (pp. 348-358). Routledge.

Other authors mentioned in the episode, with links to their work:

Noel Castree

Sarah Whatmore

Donna Haraway

Patsy Healey

Isabelle Stengers

Robin Wall-Kimmerer

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Heather Campbell

Claire Coldbrook

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planetaryplanning.substack.com

In this episode, we explore Solarpunk imaginaries, and how they can inspire planetary planning, with Dr. Phoebe Wagner - writer, editor, and academic working at the intersection of climate change and speculative fiction. Their academic research explores how the predictive futures unintentionally imagined in speculative fiction can inspire new systems of adaptation and transformation during the climate crisis. Their Almanac for the Anthropocene, compiled together with Brontë Christopher Wieland in 2022 (see reference below), inspired Kim and Susa to approach Wagner and explore how solarpunk can provide inspiration for and quite concrete imaginaries for a planetary planning. The episode includes excerpts from their novella When We Hold Each Other Up (2023), and glimpses into the wonderful anthologies they have compiled. Wagner’s current projects focus on completing a short story collection themed around environmentalism, skateboarding, and activism, and dark academic novel focusing on disrupting white supremacy and settler colonialism in higher ed. She is also an active participant in the speculative fiction community, holding membership to the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, regularly presenting at the World Science Fiction Convention, and blogging about speculative literature at the Hugo award finalist Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together.

In the episode, we explore ways that fiction and stories that make very specific contributions to imaginaries of what a solarpunk future could look like, while at the same time allowing for a very wide range of possibilities, imagined by authors around the globe. While our invited speaker is based in the USA and their imaginaries are mainly based there, they also acknowledge the importance of the international community around Solarpunk.

In many ways, this is an episode about hope within a context of nevertheless acknowledging the dire consequences climate change is leading to and is likely to continue to lead to. It is about livelihoods adapting to these realities without relinquishing that change at a larger scale is necessary. It is about care for the environment in a time and context in which this is not the “norm” for most people. We explore how much perhaps significant change depends on rethinking human dependence on consumerism and innovation, and how we are drawn to something “shiny and new” as solutions. How can we think and act more long-term, and how can we rethink justice across human groups as well as across other species as well.

Take-aways for planners, by Phoebe Wagner:

* Make time for stories, and read widely!

* Seek out conversations with different communities, beyond your usual ones, beyond your comfort zone, to explore the themes of time, planning, and community involvement (even if it sometimes doesn’t have an immediate bearing on a given project or initiative)

Some references from the episode:

Wagner, P., & Wieland, B. C. (Eds.). (2022). Almanac for the anthropocene: A compendium of solarpunk futures (First edition). West Virginia University Press.

Wagner, P. (2023) When We Hold Each Other Up. Android Press.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planetaryplanning.substack.com

During this episode, Susa and Kim present the Planetary Planning Podcast, and their own motivations for entering into this exciting endeavour. We are thrilled to launch the Podcast with this introduction!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit planetaryplanning.substack.com