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作者

来源

URBAN POLICY AND RESEARCH,Vol.39,Issue3,P.215-217

语言

英文

关键字

作者单位

University of Auckland, e.bahmanteymouri@auckland.ac.nz

摘要

Michael Robert Gunder passed away on 15 March 2021. He was sixty-eight years old. Michael was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Later, Michael and his parents moved to Vancouver, Canada, where he was raised and later went on to complete his Bachelor of Sociology and later Master of Urban Planning from the University of British Columbia.Michael started his planning career as a consultant for Cornerstone Planning Group Limited in Vancouver and later as a Consulting Associate with DPA Group Limited in Ottawa, Calgary, and Vancouver from 1982 to 1985. He became the Director and Managing Consultant of CAG Management Consultants in London in 1986 and then worked as Chief Economist Planner with the Department of Transportation and Planning for Norfolk County Council in England. Michael and his wife, Adriana, immigrated to New Zealand in 1993, and he worked as senior strategic/transportation planner for the North Shore City Council. Michael’s contribution to the New Zealand Planning Institution’s progress was also significant from 2000 to 2011. He then served in different positions, such as President of NZPI and Fellow of NZPI.Michael held a distinguished academic position for more than 40 years. He commenced his career in 1980 as a Teaching Assistant in the School of Community and Regional Planning at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and undertook a research analyst role at the School of Business Administration at Simon Fraser University between 1981 and 1982. In 1994, Michael was appointed as a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Planning at the University of Auckland. He was Head of the Department of Planning for two years between 1999 and 2001. He completed his PhD in Planning under the supervision of Dr Tom Fookes. Michael held different managerial roles, including, but not limited to, Deputy Head of the School of Architecture and Planning (Research and Post Graduate Study) in 2007 and Associate Head of School Postgraduate and Research (Planning) in 2010. He was promoted to Associate Professor at the School of Architecture and Planning.Michael’s contribution to the planning theory and practice and education of planning is without peer. Many planners and academics knew Michael as the former Managing Editor of the journal of Planning Theory between 2011 to 2015, where the planning theory sub-field underlying planning was developed. Throughout his productive academic life, he published more than 40 publications, including books, book chapters, and journal articles that made Michael recognised globally as one of the world’s leading planning theorists. His commitment to the development of an in-depth understanding of the planning practices is well illuminated in his books, including “Planning in Ten Words or Less” (Gunder and Hillier, 2009), co-authored with Professor Jean Hillier, and “The Routledge Handbook of Planning Theory”, in collaboration with Professor Ali Madanipour and Professor Vanessa Watson in 2017 (Gunder et al. 2017). Before his death, he was working with Professor Kristina Grange and Associate Professor Tanja Winkler to finish editing another scholarly work in planning theory, “The Handbook on Planning and Power” to be published in 2021.Michael Gunder introduced a wide range of philosophical approaches and concepts through his teaching and research, which have significantly impacted academia and profession of planning. Although Michael was known for developing and deployment of the Lacanian approach in planning, he was not content to merely focus and adhere to a particular approach and specific concepts and topics. Still, he continued to refine and revise his thinking and research with alternate points of view and to analyse planning issues from different approaches. He applied different theories in his research and publications such as Rancièrian (Grange and Gunder 2019), Derridean (Allmendinger and Gunder 2005, Gunder and Hillier 2007), among many others. Based on post-structural perspectives, particularly the Lacanian approach, Michael provided a different theoretical framework that better understands the multifaceted economic, social, and political relations in urban areas and regions. His works suggested a helpful insight into the complexity of urban issues that planning practitioners deal with regularly.Michael’s initial works were primarily influenced by Martin Heidegger’s works, particularly the concept of ’efficiency’ to investigate planning practice. Gunder (1996, p. 199) questioned the future of planning in this environment and argued that “one important task for [planning] practitioners must be that of the protection, facilitation, and empowerment of diverse communities through civic debate, either within or outside of institutional structures”. Michael was concerned about planning education and the future of the discipline. In collaboration with Tom Fookes, Michael suggested changing planning education to prepare planners in facing new challenges in the 21st century that was a response to an increasing academic anti-planning critique that emerged internationally over the 80s and 90s (Gunder and Fookes 1997). His works in planning theory should be given special attention because through applying the Lacanian approach in the discipline of planning, Michael suggested a better understanding of the subjectivity of planner’s job; also, he proposed an ethical framework for planning practices (Gunder and Hillier 2004). The central issue of Michael’s theoretical framework is a focus on the concepts of fantasy and desire and their impacts on societal relations and, consequently planning policies and practices. He applied Lacanian enjoyment, certainty, and lack in relationships with desire and fantasy to analyse planning policies and plans (Gunder 2010). Michael Gunder (2015) criticised the neoliberalisation of the discipline and explained how planning’s legitimacy is rooted in statistics, authorities, and hegemonic discourse; he (2016) argued that the Lacanian concept of fantasy clarifies how this hegemonic discourse uses fantasy to cover over its fissures. Gunder (2016) put forward a method of criticism of the hegemonic principles of neoliberal planning, specifically in the subjective level of planning practices, to create an awareness of their profession for planners.Michael was an astonishing, hard-working and influential planning theorist, and his death is a great loss for planning discipline. Yet, his extensive academic works and substantial intellectual heritage keep his legacy alive in planning theory, education and practice.ReferencesAllmendinger, P. and Gunder, M., 2005. Applying Lacanian insight and a dash of Derridean deconstruction to planning’s ‘dark side’. Planning theory, 4 (1), 87–112. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/1473095205051444 [Crossref], [Google Scholar]Grange, K. and Gunder, M., 2019. The urban domination of the planet: a Rancièrian critique. Planning theory, 18 (4), 389–409. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/1473095218811856 [Crossref], [Google Scholar]Gunder, M., 1996. Urban policy formulation under efficiency: The case of Auckland City Council's Britomart development. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Google Scholar]Gunder, M., 2010. Planning as the ideology of (Neo-Liberal) Space. Planning theory, 9 (4), 298–314. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/1473095210368878 [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]Gunder, M., 2015. The role of fantasy in public policy formation. In: R. Beunen, K. Van Assche, and M. Duineveld, eds. Evolutionary governance theory: theory and applications. Dordrecht: Springer, 143–154. [Google Scholar]Gunder, M., 2016. Planning’s “Failure” to ensure efficient market delivery. European planning studies, 24 (1), 21–38. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2015.1067291 [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]Gunder, M. and Fookes, T., 1997. In defence of planning praxis, knowledge and the profession: planning education and institutions for the new century. Planning practice & research, 12 (2), 133–146. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/02697459716608 [Taylor & Francis Online], [Google Scholar]Gunder, M. and Hillier, J., 2004. Conforming to the expectations of the profession: a Lacanian perspective on planning practice, norms and values. Planning theory & practice, 5 (2), 217–235. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/14649350410001691763 [Taylor & Francis Online], [Google Scholar]Gunder, M. and Hillier, J., 2007. Problematising responsibility in planning theory and practice: on seeing the middle of the string? Progress in planning, 68 (2), 57–96. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.progress.2007.07.002 [Crossref], [Web of Science ®], [Google Scholar]Gunder, M. and Hillier, J., 2009. Planning in ten words or less: a Lacanian entanglement with spatial planning. New York: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. [Google Scholar]Gunder, M., Madanipour, A., and Watson, V., Eds., 2017. The Routledge handbook of planning theory. New York: Routledge. [Crossref], [Google Scholar]