My capstone work stems from my focus in engaging with the materiality of the everyday. In my capstone, I engage the planning process through the lens of affect theory, and in this, begin to question how planners relate to, and consider, the everyday as a site of meaning within the planning process.
This capstone work began with my CHID senior thesis. In this thesis, I asked how bring affect theory into conversation with the planning process begins to nuance current conceptions of what it means to plan, and the power that comes with planning decisions. I did this in the context of the Yesler Terrace redevelopment. In working specifically with projects directly from residents at Yesler Terrace, I asked how affect theory can help us understand the impact that planning decisions have on everyday life more meaningfully.
In this thesis work, I saw a dichotomy emerge. I saw this dichotomy in the sense that projects from artists, activist, and residents seemed to be fundamentally situated within the affective dimension, whereas planning practice did not. I saw in my work at Yesler that this dichotomy is significant, it creates a climate in which planners and people operate in opposition of one another, and in which processes that shape the urban environment are disconnected from those for whom they affect. Yesler Terrace is an affordable housing site and community on the southern-most end of the First Hill neighborhood of Seattle, bordering Little Saigon and the Chinatown-International District. In 2006, the Seattle Housing Authority began plans to redevelop Yesler Terrace. These plans include demolishing the former 561 units, and rebuilding, according to current plans, 5,000 mixed income units. As of 2012, Yesler has been demolished, and today, new homes are beginning to be built.
With this in mind, my senior capstone for CEP centers around this. In my research, I ask how affect theory can begin to explain why this gap exists, and can begin to deconstruct this dichotomy. This project isn’t a direct comparison between planning process, and projects that I believe are founded in the affective dimension, because by nature these processes and projects are completely different. I’m more interested, here, in looking at the projects that I believe are founded in the affective dimension, and seeing what they can lend to the planning process, and seeing how they can deepen and nuance engagements within the planning process in the hopes that this dichotomy discussed can be deconstructed.
This work has been hugely formative - I have loved the process of finding my own research focus, and engaging in my own theorizing. I have found a love for research of this sort, and hope to continue with this work moving forward.
In many ways, though, this work has also shaped my perspective on planning practice moving forward. Through this work I have engaged directly with this dichotomy, and have seen how planning practice in many ways reproduces systems of oppression, control, and marginalization. I believe in affect theory as a lens for understanding how meaning circulates within our everyday, and I question in some ways whether planning will ever be able to engage with the depth of meaning that affect allows for. This doesn’t mark an end point, though, I am committed to continuing this work, and for continuing to deconstruct and reimagine what it means to plan.
Read my capstone work by clicking on the links below.