Land use planning, based in either traditional liberalist philosophy or the emerging pragmatist philosophy formalizes an anthropocentric, reductionist division within itself: between nature (land) and society (use), ignoring the socially constructed character of both terms. Representations of nature become political issues mediated through the planning system, with the various actants and their networks attempting to exert power over others in order to influence the outcome. Based on a theoretical understanding of, by deconstructing the different representations of nature/the environment and identifying (...) the discourses and narratives invoked by participants in land use planning decisions, we can better understand how nature continues to be exploited by humans in their own interests. (shrink)

Land use planning, based in either traditional liberalist philosophy or the emerging pragmatist philosophy formalizes an anthropocentric, reductionist division within itself: between nature and society, ignoring the socially constructed character of both terms. Representations of nature become political issues mediated through the planning system, with the various actants and their networks attempting to exert power over others in order to influence the outcome. Based on a theoretical understanding of, by deconstructing the different representations of nature/the environment and identifying the discourses (...) and narratives invoked by participants in land use planning decisions, we can better understand how nature continues to be exploited by humans in their own interests. (shrink)

Consensus conferences, also known as citizens’ panels—a collection of lay citizens akin to a jury but charged with deliberating on policy issues with a high technical content—are a potentially important way to conduct technology assessments, inform policy makers about public views of new technologies, and improve public understanding of and participation in technological decision making. The first citizens’ panel in the United States occurred in April 1997 on the issue of “Telecommunications and the Future of Democracy.” This article evaluates the (...) impact of this citizens’ panel. The standard criteria to evaluate the impact of analyses focus on the “actual impact” and on the “impact on general thinking.” To these standard criteria, this article introduces the evaluation of two impacts related to learning: impact on the training of knowledgeable personnel and the interaction with lay knowledge. The impact evaluation is based on a nearly comprehensive set of semistructured telephone interviews with the participants in the panel. (shrink)