Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Making and Unmaking “places”

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Poststructural Policy Analysis

  • 12k Accesses

Abstract

The challenge in this chapter is to rethink commonly assumed geographical “entities” or “places”. Such “entities” play a pivotal role in how governing takes place and are most often treated by policy makers as taken-for-granted physical sites or locations. The chapter shows how poststructural policy analysis, illustrated in applications of WPR, encourages policy workers/analysts to consider “places” as political creations. Specifically, it illustrates how, through the lens of problematization and a focus on practices, it becomes possible to interrogate the underlying precepts and assumptions that are necessary to the constitution of named “places”. The following questions guide the account: What does it mean to challenge the existence of “places” as fixed and stable “entities”? What is accomplished through this form of analysis? What strategies are available to problematize named “places”? What are the implications of a poststructural perspective for research on assumed “places”, such as “nation-states”, “cities”, and “public places”?

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
eBook
USD 16.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Applications of WPR in EU Vocational Education Training (Cort 2008) and in the Erasmus Mundus Master‘s Program (Papatsiba 2014) confirm the operation of an underlying economic rationality in European policy processes.

  2. 2.

    See Doel (2000) on approaching “space” (and we would add “place”) as a verb instead of as a noun, treating it as an action or event. See also McDowell and Wonders (2009–2010) on “mobile border performances”.

Bibliography

  • Ashley, R.K. (1988). Untying the sovereign state: A double reading of the anarchy problematique. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 17 (2), 227–262.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bacchi, C. (1996). The politics of affirmative action: “Women”, equality and category politics. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bacchi, C. (2009). Analysing policy: What’s the problem represented to be? Frenchs Forest: Pearson Education.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bacchi, C., & Rönnblom, M. (2014). Feminist discursive institutionalism—A poststructural alternative. NORA – Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, DOI: 10.1080/08038740.2013.864701.

    Google Scholar 

  • Calvo, D. (2013). What is the problem of gender? Mainstreaming gender in migration and development in the European Union, PhD Thesis, Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Casey, R., Goudie, R., Reeve, K. (2007). Resistance and identity: Homeless women’s use of public spaces. People, Place & Policy Online, 1 (2), 90–97. DOI: 10.3351/ppp.0001.0002.0005.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cort, P. (2008). VET policy formation and discourse in the EU: A mobile work force for a European labour market. In C.H. Jørgensen, & V. Aarkrog (Eds.), Divergence and convergence in education and work: Studies in vocational and continuing education. Bern: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Council of the European Union (1999). Schengen acquis, 1999/435/EC and 1999/436/EC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doel, M. (2000). Un-glunking geography: Spatial science after Dr Seuss and Gilles Deleuze. In M. Crang, & N. Thrift (Eds.), Thinking space. London and New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doherty, J., Busch-Geertsema, V., Karpuskiene, V., Korhonen, J., O’Sullivan, E., Sahlin, I., Tosse, A., Petrillo, A., Wygna, J. (2008). Homelessness and exclusion: Regulating public space in European cities. Surveillance & Society, 5 (3), 290–314.

    Google Scholar 

  • Escobar, A. (2011). Encountering development: The making and unmaking of the third world. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fenna, A. (2004). Australian public policy, 2nd edition. Frenchs Forest: Pearson Education Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fernandez, B. (2012). Transformative policy for poor women: A new feminist framework. Surrey: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Finlayson, A., & Martin, J. (2006). Poststructructuralism. In C. Hay, M. Lister, D. Marsh (Eds.), The state, theories and issues. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1991c) [1978]. Governmentality. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1994a) [1981]. So is it important to think? In J.D. Faubion, (Ed.), Power: Essential works of Foucault 1954–1984, vol. 3, Hurley, R. and others (trans.). London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (2000) [1982]. The subject and power. In J.D. Faubion (Ed.), Power: Essential works of Foucault 1954–1984, vol. 3, Hurley, R. and others (trans.). New York: The New Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodwin, S. (2011). Analysing policy as discourse: Methodological advances in policy analysis. In L. Markauskaite, P. Freebody, J. Irwin (Eds.), Methodological choice and design: Scholarship, policy and practice in social and educational research. London, New York: Springer, Dordrecht, Heidelberg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gordon, C. (1991). Governmental rationality: An introduction. In G. Burchell, C. Gordon, P. Miller (Eds.), The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Government of South Australia (2012). Primary industries and regions South Australia (PIRSA) Strategic Directions 2012–2015. Adelaide: Government of South Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gugerli, D. (1998). Politics on the topographer’s table: The Helvetic triangulation of cartography, politics, and representation. In T. Lenoir (Ed.), Inscribing science: Scientific texts and the materiality of communication. California: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hindess, B. (2000). Citizenship in the international management of populations. American Behavioral Scientist, 43 (9), 1486–1497.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holmgren, S. (2015). Governing forests in a changing climate: Exploring patterns of thought at the climate change-forest policy intersection, PhD Thesis, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holmgren, S., & Arora-Jonsson, S. (2015). The Forest Kingdom – with what values for the world? Climate change and gender equality in a contested forest policy context, Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research, 30 (3), 235–245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kelly, S.J. (2015). Governing civil society: How literacy, education and security were brought together, PhD thesis, Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kuehls, T. (1996). Beyond sovereign territory: The space of ecopolitics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • MacLeod, G., & Jones, M. (2011). Renewing urban politics. Urban Studies, 48 (12), 2443–2472.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marshall, N. (2012a). Disability, inclusive development and the World Bank: The construction and problematisation of disability in international development policy, PhD thesis, Faculty of Social Sciences and Law, University of Bristol.

    Google Scholar 

  • Massey, D. (1994). Space, place and gender. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Massey, D. (2005). For space. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDowell, M.G., & Wonders, N.A. (2009–2010). Keeping migrants in their place: Technologies of control and racialized public space in Arizona. Social Justice, 36 (2), 54–72.

    Google Scholar 

  • Middendorp, C. (2002). Homelessness and public space: Unwelcome visitors. Parity, 15 (1), 18.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mol, A. (2002). The body multiple: Ontology in medical practice. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mouffe, C. (2005). On the political. London and New York: Verso.

    Google Scholar 

  • Northern Territory of Australia (2014). Northern Territory Second Reading Speeches, Police Administration Amendment Bill 2014, http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nt/bill_srs/paab2014317/srs.html. Accessed 2 January 2016.

  • Papatsiba, V. (2014). Policy goals of European integration and competitiveness in academic collaborations: An examination of Joint Master’s and Erasmus Mundus Programmes. Higher Education Policy, 27 (1), 43–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Partridge, E. (2014). Words and silences: The discursive politics of problem representation in the Northern Territory Intervention, PhD thesis, University of New South Wales, Sydney.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pringle, R., & Watson, S. (1992). “Women’s interests” and the post-structuralist state. In M. Barrett, & A. Phillips (Eds.), Destabilizing theory: Contemporary feminist debates. California: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Razack, S. (2002). Race, space, and the law: Unmapping a white settler society. Toronto: Between the Lines Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rönnblom, M., & Sandberg, L. (2015). Imagining the ideal city, planning the gender-equal city, Paper presented at the RC21 International Conference on “The Ideal City: between myth and reality”, Urbino (Italy), 27–29 August, http://www.rc21.org/en/conferences/urbino2015/. Accessed 20 November 2014.

  • Sandberg, L., & Rönnblom, M. (2014). “I don’t think we’ll ever be finished with this”: Fear and safety in policy and practice. Urban Studies, 1–16. DOI: 10.1177/0042098014550453.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shapiro, M.J. (1992). Reading the postmodern polity: Political theory as textual practice. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tietäväinen, A., Pyykkönene, M., Kaisto, J. (2008). Globalization and power – governmentalization of Europe? An interview with William Walters. Foucault Studies, 5, 63–73.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Houtum, H. (2005). The geopolitics of borders and boundaries. Geopolitics, 10, 672–679.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vasagar, J. (2012). Privately owned public space: Where are they and who owns them? The Guardian, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Veyne, P. (1997). Foucault revolutionizes history. In A.I. Davidson (Ed.), Foucault and his Interlocutors, Porter, C. (trans.), Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • VLRC (Victorian Law Reform Commission) (2010). Surveillance in public places, Final Report 18. Melbourne: Victorian Law Reform Commission.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walker, R.B.J. (1993). Inside/outside: International relations as political theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walters, W. (2002a). The power of inscription: Beyond social construction and deconstruction in European integration studies. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 31 (3), 83–108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walters, W. (2002b). Mapping Schengenland: Denaturalizing the border. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 20, 561–580.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walters, W. (2004). Secure borders, safe haven, domopolitics. Citizenship Studies, 8, 237–260.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walters, W. (2009). Europe’s borders. In C. Rumford (Ed.), The Sage handbook of European Studies. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, D., Rose, J., Colvin, E. (2010). Marginalised young people, surveillance & public space: A research report. Melbourne: Youth Affairs Council of Victoria and the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiseman, N. (2012). “Food” for thought: A post-structural analysis of “food” and the implications for agriculture in urban and peri-urban regions, Masters of Planning Dissertation, Geography, Environment and Population, School of Social Sciences, University of Adelaide.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zufferey, C. (2014). Questioning representations of homelessness in the Australian print media. Australian Social Work, 67 (4), 525–536.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Politics, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

    Carol Bacchi

  2. Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Susan Goodwin

Authors
  1. Carol Bacchi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Susan Goodwin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 2016 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Bacchi, C., Goodwin, S. (2016). Making and Unmaking “places”. In: Poststructural Policy Analysis. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52546-8_7

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation