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On embracing an immanent ethics in urban planning: Pursuing our Body-without-Organs

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Planning Theory

Published online on

Abstract

This article draws attention to urban planning’s apparent reluctance to engage with the ethical and political dimensions of Deleuze and Guattari’s thought. It puts forward the hypothesis that planning, as a discipline, is fundamentally inhospitable to the idea of autonomy, and it raises the question of whether planning can survive a radical engagement with an immanent ethics. In other words, if planning questions its close ties with the state and its assumptions about people’s capacity to live together, if it opens itself up to lines of flight, is deterritorialized, becomes imperceptible, is it still urban planning? Six proposals for an urban planning that embraces Deleuzoguattarian ethics are presented.