INTRODUCTION

Although theoretical conceptions of insurgent planning radically question dominant planning practices, the literature is less clear about the methods to be employed for insurgent results. Furthermore, with its idealized ideas as to what insurgent planning ought to be, most planning theory inadequately prepares planners for the actual practice of insurgent planning. In reality, radical planners will most probably not be able to follow a fixed normative plan but will continuously have to navigate between the strategic and selective practices of others, tracing mechanisms of exclusion while collectively constructing possibilities for action.

In this chapter, we examine the strategies that planners use to achieve insurgent results. Moreover, we try to better understand how the constant interactions between radical planners and dominant planning forces influence their chances to act as insurgent planners, and how they might try to overcome those barriers. To do so, we reflect on the day-to-day practices of Endeavour, an Antwerp-based office for socio-spatial research with clear insurgent ambitions.

The practices of Endeavour show that, when attempting to grasp how radical planners try to achieve insurgent results, it helps to work with multiple understandings of what democratic politics entails. When questioning dominant planning practices, radical planners sometimes work with collaborative strategies, having a mainly deliberative form of democratic politics in mind. On other occasions, they will need more agonistic or disruptive strategies to achieve their insurgent ambitions. Insurgent planners, in other words, make use of different understandings of democratic politics, sometimes simultaneously applying multiple notions of democracy.

CONTEXT

In 2013 residents of the Dam neighbourhood in Antwerp (Belgium) contacted three young architects and urban planners. The city government had revealed its intention to redevelop an important site in the neighbourhood, and the citizens there feared that their voice would be neglected if there was no professional advocacy. This call for help triggered the young planning professionals to finally realize what they had been contemplating for quite some time, namely setting up the Endeavour planning office.

Endeavour describes its mission as being “to radically rethink the way space is produced and organised”, to react to “increasingly complex demographic, ecological and social challenges” and to “actively include citizens and local stakeholders” (www.endeavours.eu). It engages with this ambition through what it calls “hacking the city”: