The language game of South African urban and regional planning:a cognitive mapping from the past into the future

[摘要] In this thesis, in which urban and regional planning in South Africa was treated as a complexlanguage game with a past of over one and a half century, it was argued that radical changesin the context in which this game is played, necessitate in-depth inquiries into its future. Inaddition to this, it was premised that a thorough understanding of the past is imperative forany probe into the future. Consequently the first part of the thesis was devoted to a cognitivemapping of the game's past, mainly by using the printed discourse of its players. The resultof this endeavour was a composite map indicating where, how, by whom and according towhich and whose rules the game had been played and how and why each of these hadchanged over time. In the second part of the thesis, in which three maps were produced, thefocus shifted to the game's future. In the first of these three maps the context in which thegame is played, the impact of this particular context on the game and vice versa, as well asthe trends and tendencies impacting on this context, were mapped. By extrapolating thesetrends and tendencies it was possible to construct a range of possible and probable futures,which was done in the second map. Together with the composite map of the game's past,these two maps were then used to determine whether the game has a future, and if so, howthis future could become a reality. In this inquiry it was concluded that there is a definitefuture for the game, the realisation of which, it was argued, requires the following from theplayers, viz (1) dislodging the game from its roots which are grounded in a form ofmodernism which treats modernity as a routine and giving it a critical modernist persuasionin which modernity is seen as an adventure, (2) regaining the fervour for the game whichdrove the pioneers of the game at its birth and (3) ensuring that there is a need and use forthe niches/fields in which the game is played, that new niches/fields are created and thatexisting niches/fields created by others, are filled/entered by players of the planning game.While the study was primarily intended to make a contribution to the debate on the futureof the language game of South African urban and regional planning, the maps of the game'spast also contribute to the sparse literature on the history of the game, especially its foundingyears, which have to date, been virtually uncharted.

[发布机构] University of Pretoria