Expert, Social engineer, Critical Expert or Smuggler?

AESOP's BEST PUBLISHED PAPER AWARD 2015 goes to Mee Kam Ng for the paper: Intellectuals and the Production of Space in the Urban Renewal Process in Hong Kong and Taipei published in Planning Theory and Practice, 2014, 15(1) 77-92.

I came across it last week while I was doing a bit of research.

The abstract grabbed my attention:

Through two concrete urban renewal cases in Asia, this paper develops a schema of “social engineers-smugglers-experts-critical experts” to differentiate the roles of system-maintaining and system-transforming intellectuals in the production of space. While pro-establishment “social engineers” and “experts” use their “epistemic authority” to produce top-down renewal plans to promote exchange values, “critical experts” outside the government and “smugglers” within the bureaucracy play significant roles in “de-coding” the use values of people’s lived spaces. The cases highlight the important roles of system-transforming intellectuals in reproblematizing urban renewal issues and experimenting with alternative policies and plans to restructure space that sustains community building.

A bit of a mouthful - but it's Christmas, it's tasty, chew well. You can always spit it out. But you might just swallow it. Another extract:

The two case studies to be discussed in this paper highlight the roles of “intellectuals” in the course of spatial restructuring in the two cities. In Taipei, if it were not for the advocacy of students and professors from the National Taiwan University (NTU), the Organization of Urban Res (OURs) (a civil society organization), and the “progressive bureaucrats” in the newly established Cultural Affairs Bureau (CAB), the squatter settlements in Treasure Hill would have been demolished to make way for a park. Similarly in Hong Kong, were it not for the educated social activists and “artivists” in the community and “enlightened” individuals within the Urban Renewal Authority (URA), the 150-year old market streets in Graham and Peel Street would have disappeared with the redevelopment of the surrounding buildings. This paper aims to examine the roles of these “intellectuals” in the production of space in these two cases.

The author presents this straight-forward tabulation:



Here is an extract from the conclusion:

The two stories accentuate the importance of the system-transforming intellectuals in exercising their conscience and capacity to utilize and synthesize personified knowledge. In both cases, the local communities did not really object to the government-led abstract plans. Hence, the intellectuals could easily side with those in power, rationalizing their decisions to erase the two communities. However, the system-transforming “critical experts” in both cities, following the time-honoured tradition of Chinese intellectuals, chose to speak truth to their counterparts in the established system to conserve something that they believed to be important for the future of the two cities. These “critical experts” are of crucial importance in highlighting the essence and meaning of the two settlements, allowing their lived spaces to be appreciated by the wider community and hence succeeding in “re-problematizing” and “re-writing” the storylines. Coupled with “smugglers” within the bureaucracy, different cityscapes were produced. 

However, there is no place for complacency in the two cases. Whether the Graham and Peel Street Market in Hong Kong will survive the phased redevelopment is still unknown and, in the face of competition with global cities, especially those on the China mainland, neo-liberalism has overtaken idealism as one of the main policy concerns in Taipei (Huang and Hsu, 2011). Nevertheless, the two stories appeal to “intellectuals” especially those in Asia, emphasizing the importance of their continuous vigilance in counteracting renewal plans made in the thick of neoliberal rhetoric to promote economic growth and city competitiveness. This can be done through thorough understanding, analysing and documenting the use values of people’s lived spaces and reviewing the inadequacies of top-down plans made by “social engineers” – so that, given the opportunities and the inside activism of “smugglers”, alternative renewal plans and processes can be formulated, experimented with and revised continuously, to speak to the daily needs of local communities – creating soul-nourishing spaces and urban forms.

Because it has won the AESOP award the paper has been made publicly available.
You can download it here. What sort of intellectual are you in the work that you do?