Planning Theory 2014, Vol. 13(1) 65–81 © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1473095213484144 plt.sagepub.com Corresponding author: Philip Harrison, School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, P. Bag X3 WITS, Johannesburg, 2050, South Africa. Email: philip.harrison@wits.ac.za Making planning theory real Philip Harrison University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Abstract This article argues that contemporary planning theory is underpinned by an anti-realist ontology that has eroded its capacity to engage meaningfully with the materiality of space. The article draws on the experience of the author as a planner in a large city in the global South to illustrate the limits of planning theory. It argues that the ‘southwards turn’ in planning theory has expanded the reach of planning theory but that more is needed. The article then considers the possibility that a new body of philosophical thought known as ‘speculative realism’ may provide an antidote to this anti-realism and support sustained engagement with the objects of planning’s concern. Keywords Anti-realism, global south, materiality, ontology, planning, speculative realism Introduction Over the past two decades or so, leading planning theorists have called for a renewed engagement with the materiality of the city. Beauregard (1990) lamented ‘the general drift from the city as the core object’ as ‘theorists delved more and more into abstract processes isolated from social condition’ (p. 211); Yiftachel (2006) wrote of contempo- rary planning serving to ‘disengage the field’s centre of gravity from its core task of understanding and critiquing the impact of urban policies, as a platform for transforma- tive intervention’ (p. 212) while Roy (2009a) referred to ‘a vast swath of planning theory that is simply not concerned with space as materiality’ (p. 9). These are powerful voices, and their entreaties resonate with the concerns of many academic and practicing planners, but planning theories have, with a few important exceptions, failed to respond in any consequential way. Fainstein’s (2005) study, for example, was a serious attempt to develop a substantive model of a ‘just city’, while Beauregard’s (2012) study – entitled ‘Planning and Things’ – is a self-conscious attempt to place physical materiality once again at the centre of planning. A recent stream of work positioned from a vantage point in the global South may offer the prospect of a 484144PLT 13 1 10.1177/1473095213484144Planning TheoryHarrison 2013 Article by guest on March 9, 2016 plt.sagepub.com Downloaded from