Can you succinctly and clearly define what planning and many of its guiding principles —such as the public good, sustainability, or even market forces— actually mean? For many of us, this is difficult to accomplish. Lacan provides an explanation for this challenge based on his theorizing about human subjectivity— how we acquire the identifications that constitute ourselves as planners. The article will deploy Lacan’s explanatory power for understanding how the professional identities of planners and the central ideas constituting the planning discipline are interrelated. Particularly, Lacan’s theoretical model of the four discourses will be used to explore planning education and how aspiring planners acquire and internalize the discipline’s often-diffuse sets of traditions, beliefs, knowledges, and values.
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