PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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influence is reflected in several recent articles in scientific journals relating to
environmental studies, planning, geography, and even anthropology (Campbell 1996;
Nygren 1998; Fischer and Hajer 1999; Lumley 1999; Ruzza 2000; Harper 2001). There
is now also an emerging literature on sustainability discourses in the specific area of
transport policy. 3
More generally, in the wake of Foucault and other post-positivist
critics, scholars of all disciplines have found it necessary to focus much more closely on
the various discourses that both researchers and practitioners employ. Struggles over
transport-infrastructure decision-making particularly clearly illustrate the use of different
discourses and their consequences (see e.g. Flyvbjerg 1998; Sager 1999; Langmyhr 2000)
Hajer (1995:43) warns that “discourse analysis has come to mean many different
things in as many different places.” The Oxford English Dictionary (OED, 2 nd Edition,
1989) defines the now prevailing sense of the word “discourse” as “a spoken or written
treatment of a subject, in which it is handled or discussed at length.” The OED further
defines “discourse analysis” as a special combined word pertaining to “a method of
analyzing the structure of texts or utterances longer than one sentence, taking into
account both their linguistic content and their socio-linguistic context” or to “[an]
analysis performed using this method.” 4
This is perhaps the most minimal definition of
discourse analysis. As we will see in later chapters, both more text-oriented analyses
searching for linguistic content (Chapter 5) and more thematic analyses searching for
3 Although the authors of these scattered articles have not yet entered into a full-fledged debate with each
other, this is foreseeable for the future. The journal European Planning Studies has been especially
prominent in advancing the debate by publishing four key articles on the topic over the course of the year
2000 alone (Sager 1999; Baeten 2000; Langmyhr 2000; Richardson and Jensen 2000). Other recent
contributions have been provided by Willson (2001), Langmyhr (2001), and Vigar (2000; Vigar 2001).
When analyzing automobility, rather than sustainability, Beckmann (2001a) even posits the emergence of a
new "sociology of transport and mobility." See Chapter 4 for additional details on these authors.
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