Governing through design: the politics of participation in neoliberal cities

ABSTRACT

This article critically analyses an empirical case of how design mediates governing power in situated contexts. Using the Foucauldian concept of governmentality, the article examines the specific role of co-design to enable governance through the strategic use of design techniques and artefacts. Drawing on ethnographic research undertaken during the participatory urban redevelopment of Waterloo, Sydney, the article unpacks four concrete mechanism of governance through design: (1) the building of a seemingly coherent, stable and shared visions of Waterloo’s future; (2) the regulation of local knowledge production and political imagination; (3) the rendering of community technical through calculation techniques, standardisation, and the objectification of subjects; (4) the performance of diversity of choice while smoothing out differences. In conclusion, the article argues that, in Waterloo, the shift from top-down modes of urban governance to decentralised multi-stakeholders did not imply the reduction of state power but only supposed the rearrangement of governing power in the face of neoliberal urbanism.

KEYWORDS:

• Governmentality
• institutioning
• urban design
• neoliberal urbanism

Acknowledgments

I thank the Waterloo community for hosting my fieldwork, and I pay my respect to the traditional custodians of the lands I work on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I also thank my supervisors Greg Downey (Macquarie University), Joan Josep Pujada (Universidad Rovira i Virgili), and Jesús Sanz (Complutense University) for their support and guidance during this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Ethical clearance was provided to undertake this fieldwork by the Arts Subcommittee of Macquarie University with approval number 52019356612707.

2. I use throughout the text pseudonyms.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the Macquarie University Cotutelle Research Excellence Scholarship and a Macquarie University Fieldwork Research Grant.