Planetary Planning Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

In this episode, Edda Bild shares insights on human and more-than-human sounds, and which of these are considered more positively, versus which tend to be considered “noise”. Edda currently works as post-doctoral research associate at the Institute for Work and Health in Toronto, Canada, where she focuses on topics around occupational health and safety, like the newcomer experience in the workplace, small businesses and psychological health and safety. She also continues her work as a post-doctoral soundscape researcher and an ambassador of the Sounds in the City team at McGill University. She works on the hearing modality, the broader urban sensory experience, and its implications for urban practice, and has now shifted focus to encouraging sound awareness and education. She is passionate about knowledge transfer and turning research into meaningful interventions and practices.

In the episode, we discuss the difference between noise and sound, and which human and more-than-human sounds are more or less considered as noisy. Humans seem to tend to like hearing the sounds of other humans (though not all of their sounds), of birds chirping, and of various “urban waters”, while machines such as cars or construction are often considered only as noise (negative). However, as we discuss towards the end, there are also political policy decisions regarding for example which noises should be tolerated for public purposes even when they are not considered pleasant (e.g. public transportation versus private cars). Edda shares several examples of how sound matters in public spaces (including inside buildings and transportation), and how it is most commonly approached in planning: as noise, that is, as primarily problem. She shows how this makes sense, but that sound is also more complex than staying below 80 decibels to avoid noise, and that sound co-habitation must take many perspectives into account. She also shares some insights on the ways human sound has affected more-than-humans both in (urban) public spaces and under water (referring e.g. to the field of Bioacoustics, see reference below). We end on her take-aways for planners (see below) and on how the theme of sound, like most themes planners work with, have important political implications - e.g. in defining where which sounds are to be permitted, which beings protected from which noises, and so forth. Sound is political.

Take-aways for planners, by Edda Bild

* Place more emphasis on genuine communication: when you talk, make sure the messages are simple and / or straight-forward enough for the various audiences involved

* But do not only talk. Good communication is also about keeping an “open ear”. That is: make sure to listen, be considerate and attempt to understand various perspectives. (For some hints for how to “listen” to more-than-humans, see for instance the episode with Emilija Vaselova or the one with Jonathan Metzger)

* Sound is one more element on the list of many that planners need to look out for, but this is why collaborating cross-disciplinarily is key in planning.

References and resources

Bild, E., Steele, D., & Guastavino, C. (2024). Supporting the Living Laboratory: A Literature Review of Montreal Sound-Related Research. Journal of Planning Literature, 08854122241266816. https://doi.org/10.1177/08854122241266816

Corbin, A., & Corbin, A. (1986). The foul and the fragrant: Odor and the French social imagination. Harvard University Press.

Di Croce, N., & Bild, E. (2024). How do urban policies shape atmosphere? A multimethod inquiry of the sonic environment. Urban Research & Practice, 17(3), 416–437. https://doi.org/10.1080/17535069.2023.2232344

Mitchell, A. (2022) Bioacoustics: What nature’s sounds can tell us about the health of our world. Canadian Geographic.

Ross, A. (2024) What is Noise? The New Yorker.

Stamm, C., Bild, E., Tarlao, C. and Guastavino, C. (2024) ¿Por qué deberías preocuparte por lo sonoro? Instituto de Estudios Urbanos y Territoriales. Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile.

Steele, D., Bild, E., & Guastavino, C. (2023). Moving past the sound-noise dichotomy: How professionals of the built environment approach the sonic dimension. Cities, 132, 103974. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2022.103974

Thompson, E. A. (2008). The soundscape of modernity: Architectural acoustics and the culture of listening in America, 1900 - 1933 (1. paperback ed., [Nachdr.]). MIT Press.

Trudeau, C., Steele, D., & Guastavino, C. (2020). A Tale of Three Misters: The Effect of Water Features on Soundscape Assessments in a Montreal Public Space. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 570797. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.570797

Other podcasts discussing Sound (as a key theme or on occasional episodes):

* The Rest is Just Noise Podcast

* Sound Matters Podcast

* Crossing City Limits Podcast with episode with Edda on Quebec sound

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In this episode, Subina Shrestha, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Network for Equity in Sustainable Transition (CERC NEST) at the University of Toronto Scarborough in Canada, shares her insights about how the field of logistics is changing spaces, human relations, and more - and especially through the increasing dominance of more-than-human, or perhaps rather: less-than-human, digital technologies.

This episode sheds important light on digital more-than-human dynamics that a Planetary Future must take into account. In many societies, especially among the financially wealthiest countries around the world, it has become taken for granted that any object should be available to us within days or even hours, even when it is not something that is normally available in our immediate surroundings. At the same time, many other places, the people in those places, are working hard for an economy that is nowhere near them and that they see little to no benefit from. And then there are the people working in transporting those objects, be it over long distances or for the least mile.

As Subina shares with us, much of these logistics are dominated by a corporate objective of speed, efficiency and productivity. She argues that planning can and must play an important role in challenging those objectives in favour of more wellbeing-oriented values. This means that seeking a more-than-humanness in terms of technology and automation, as major corporations tend to do, should not be allowed to be achieved when these go to the detriment of human wellbeing - and perhaps also other more-than-human wellbeing, though we explore this less in this episode. Subina does also see the digital more-than-human world to offer many positive contributions, if one is careful to use them to that end, such as by enabling “platform cooperativism”.

In this episode we touch on “cyborg jobs”, workers’ rights and solidarity networks, agency of consumers and local municipalities, the dominance of large corporations in the current planning and execution of logistics, the increasing dominance of less-than-human digital technologies in this, and what planners can do.

Take-aways for planners, by Subina Shrestha:

* Think about logistics in terms of human wellbeing perspectives - including consumers as well as workers

* Focus on urban vitalism as the key objective in urban planning, meaning to aim to elevate wellbeing for everyone in the city

* Think well about how digital tools can be used well, and avoid using them to the detriment of the local population. When thinking of people-centered planning, this should also include workers in logistics. And be sure to ask: whose interests are technological innovations serving, in both research and practice?

References:

Haarstad, H., Rosales, R., & Shrestha, S. (2024). Freight logistics and the city. Urban Studies, 61(1), 3–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/00420980231177265

Mimes, C. (2021) Arriving Today. From Factory to Front Door -- Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy. Harper Business.

CityFreight project

And Antidote’s work, mentioned by Kim, for instance to find a way to support alternatives to Amazon, and to help consumers avoid Amazon.

In this episode, we speak with Ralf Syring, expert in decolonial and solidarity work and later so-called “international development” in the African and Central American continents. He studied theology, sociology and medicine, and is an avid reader of fiction and non-fiction on the most diverse subjects - all of which have helped to inform the conversation we share here.

The episode takes us through the topics of what development does, can or should mean, and to whom; to what the role of time-limited “projects” is in this; and to the role of specific contexts - be they about language or something else; and bringing us ultimately to the great importance of a contextually specific approach to anything we wish to act on. This decidedly does not mean that everything is relative or that nothing can be more widely valid than one specific context, as Ralf points out from the beginning, but when we want to make a change somewhere, we had better know that place, those people, that language, and not least that more-than-human context.

Take-aways for planners, by Ralf Syring:

* Make sure to consider context well before you act - in terms of history, linguistics, definitions and wishes of development, the role of your identity in relation to those you work with, and many more themes (think critically and reflectively).

* Be careful not to make “planetary planning” about making one plan for the entire planet! (answer from the hosts: we certainly hope planetary planning will always be about diverse and various solutions, not about masterplans and blueprints!)

References from the episode:

Kingsolver, Barbara (1998) The Poisonwood Bible. New York (Harper Collins).

Campbell, Catherine (2003) Letting Them Die. Why HIV/AIDS Prevention Programmes Fail. Oxford (African Issues, James Currey, the International African Institute), Bloomington (Indiana University Press)

Syring, Ralf (2019) Seeking to Find out Why Things Happen. Variations on a Theme of Diallo Sampa’s Grandfather. In: Jan Visser, Muriel Visser (ed.): Seeking Understanding. The Lifelong Pursuit to Build the Scientific Mind. Leiden (Brill)

Syring, Ralf (2005) The Mine, Dignity, and a Hospital's Protection against Raids. In: Lukas Einsele: One Step Beyond – The Mine Revisited. Berlin (Hatje Cantz)

This brief introduction is to welcome you all back to the podcast after the summer break, and to very briefly introduce the podcast to any newcomers. A longer introduction can be found in the first episode, and we welcome everyone to go back and listen to any previous episodes, as they continue to be relevant! Immediately after this introduction, you’ll also find the next episode, with Ralf Syring, published.

Stay tuned for new episodes every month! We are open to suggestions for new speakers and/or topics, so do leave us a message if you’ve thought of something we should cover. We look forward to hearing back from you!

In this last episode before our summer break, Susa and Kim explore various more-than-human voices in Coimbra (Portugal), Berlin (Germany), and Matosinhos (Portugal). By doing so, we touch on various types of symbiosis between humans and more-than-humans in cities, and when they are more or less toxic. We also reflect on whether more-than-humans are always coming from “nature”, or whether they might also include machines, for example.

As always, we welcome your input on how such episodes might be done in future, and hope you have enjoyed our attempt to give voice to and explore possible meanings of more-than-human voices around us.

We will be back with our next episode in September! Until then, we leave some ideas for how you might engage with more-than-humanness over your summer! :)

Take-aways for planners (and others!):

* Revisiting relations between humans and more-than-humans so that nature isn’t perhaps so aligned with trash or “leftovers”

* Emphasizing a sense of mutual care with birds (and other more-than-humans)

* Thinking about how much priority we are giving to which more-than-human and human side, i.e. “nature”, human, machine

* Recognizing the huge diversity of more-than-humanness even within urban environments, perhaps challenging the urban-rural binary

* Go listen for more-than-humanness, also in urban environments, seeking to hear and experience beyond our usual human senses, and allow this to challenge the directionalities we chose to prioritize in daily life

References from the episode:

Bridle, J. (2023). Ways of being: Animals, plants, machines: the search for a planetary intelligence. Penguin Books.

Hagens, Nate (2024) Daniel Schmachtenberger: "Moving from Naive to Authentic Progress: A Vision for Betterment”. The Great Simplification Podcast. 5.6.2024. https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/126-daniel-schmachtenberger-7

In this episode, we speak with Emīlija Vaselova, Doctoral researcher in Multispecies Design at Aalto University, Finland, about her fascinating experiences in designing with Nature, in the truest sense of the word. She has worked for many years at expanding the definition of a “stakeholder” to include more-than-humans, in desin and planning practice and research, even while not losing sight of the importance of inclusion of diverse human groups. This includes the process of identifying which more-than-humans are stakeholders in diverse design processes, as well as practical explorations of how, once identified, they might be included.

Emilija has explored multiple ways of incorporating various shapes Nature can take, from weather processes (such as snow), to mushroom ecosystems to winter and other seasons, and much more. She explains the difference between including various individual “organisms” (e.g. one specific dog) versus single species collectives (e.g. a single bee versus a bee hive), or even multi-species collectives (e.g. lichens en trees, etc.), which for some (most?) species is crucial, as they require more than one of themselves and/or other beings to live (well). This to provide only one of many fascinating examples of the themes explored in this episode.

Emīlija shares that in her experience, even if such more-than-human inclusion is still rudimentary, an aspect of “added care” does make a difference in making sure that more-than-humans are at least somewhat considered in decision-making. She highlights how both experiential and more abstract knowledge about the natural environment can be crucial for gaining a better sense of the interconnectedness and needs concerned in human and more-than-human relations. And she asks anyone to ask themselves: does this project or this decision involve any more-than-human stakeholder? Even if a more-than-human stakeholder is not immediately apparent, which might be there in hidden ways, after all, while emphasising the fun, curious side of this exploration.

Take-aways for planners, by Emīlija Vaselova:

* Explicitly acknowledge that we need nature, now, in 10 years, in 100 years.

* Acknowledge that we shape the future with the actions we take today, including the spaces all species will live in, and the way humans and all species view these spaces and how they/we coexist.

* Have curiosity about how the processes could be different already today, and test it today, or tomorrow, or next week.

* Support nature so that in turn it can support us.

In this - double-themed and thus somewhat longer - episode, we speak with Philippe van Parijs, Belgian political philosopher and political economist. We discuss both basic income and linguistic justice, neither of which might immediately seem logical themes for this podcast, especially compared to the themes discussed so far. However, we want to challenge our listeners to see the connections, because seeking ways of binding together exciting ideas for the future and relating them to how this would impact a “planetary” approach, is precisely what drives this podcast. This conversation really highlights how radical a change in all aspects of life - for humans and more-than-humans would likely emerge, from the apparently “simple” implementation of a basic income. For instance, although individual basic income might seem to further highlight individualism and individual, human-centered living, thinking about it in very practical terms makes one realize that it would actually more likely incentivise more community-oriented living. At the same time, Philippe also highlights that some changes might be less radical than we might hope or expect - for example, he suggests that people would still probably specialize in a specific field of work or discipline of thought. We also speak of how basic income leaves more space and incentive for life-long learning, for instance.

As we move to the theme of linguistic justice, we discuss the impact this could have on people’s choice to stay in given locations, as their realities would be much more contected to a locality, bound together with a language, and moving to another locality would (more than now) mean that one would need to learn a potentially very different language. Might this also be another incentive for humans to reconnect with localities? Even when they do choose to move, perhaps this movement would be less removed from the realities of the locality - after all, culture, nature, and language are arguably deeply intertwined…

Take-aways for planners, by Philippe van Parijs:

* Planning is most crucial in its function as a form of intelligent interdisciplinary foresight.

* As such, planning will unavoidably lead to coercive measures, but these are necessary in a context where human action so often results in highly negative consequences for non-humans.

* Despite its coercive side, planning should always maintain the promise of a utopia of maximum freedom for people, and this will most likely require some form of Universal Basic Income.

References from the episode:

Philippe van Parijs’ Université Catholique de Louvin page

Philippe van Parijs’ Wikipedia page

Parijs, P. van, & Vanderborght, Y. (2019). Basic income: A radical proposal for a free society and a sane economy (First Harvard University Press paperback edition). Harvard University Press.

This episode is the first in a series of more-than-human interviews Susa and I have planned for this podcast. Every third episode will be one of these. In these episodes, we do our best to give a little space for a more-than-human to “speak”, and discuss a little about the context and about what messages we can read into this. We try to listen, but of course our own human capacities and patterns of thought influence what we are able to hear and interpret here. This is why the episodes also include soundscapes without speech. We hope that our listeners might be inspired by this to think of various ways these soundscapes may be interpreted.

In this particular episode, we host “Finnish Winter”, with the help of Susa, who lives in Finland and regularly experiences this winter. The soundscapes for this episode were recorded in April 2024, and this Winter was already turning towards Spring, although the amount of snow was still quite high. Birds that normally eschew the coldest winter months in Finland can be heard returning. These sounds trigger Susa and Kim to reflect on the pleasantness of natural soundscapes, on Finnish seasonalities, on the importance of seasonality more broadly, on how seasonality is being affected by climate change, and much more. Of course, all with an eye for implications for “Planning”, that is, imagining futures and how to reach (or avoid) them…

We hope you enjoy the episode!

We refer to one book in the episode, here is the reference:

Graeber, D., & Wengrow, D. (2021). The dawn of everything: A new history of humanity. Penguin Random House UK.

In this episode, we explore the topic of more-than-human planning with Jonathan Metzger, Professor at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Jonathan is a truly transdisciplinary scholar, connecting Planning Studies, Human Geography, STS (Science- and Technology Studies) and Organizational Studies. He studies various angles of decision-making concerning complex environmental issues – generally with a focus on urban and regional planning, policy and politics. More than for these reasons, though, we invited him for the podcast because he is one of the few “planners” we are aware of, who has actively sought to connect more-than-human perspectives with planning decision making. He has published, for example, about planning’s relationship with Moose, and with Mosquitoes (together with Jean Hillier).

In this episode, Jonathan gives us examples as well as triggers more abstract thinking about how no planning process (or any process) is neutral or equally “postive” in terms of affecting or benefiting various groups - be they human or more-than-human. Choices are made, and losses experienced, but too frequently there is not even any awareness of much of that. And this is something that can change, and might be an important step towards creating a different discussion also among and between those who are able to speak up in defense of themselves and other species.

Take-aways for planners, by Jonathan Metzger:

* Avoid common pitfalls by better connecting the existing theory and practice on more-than-human planning! Check out the wealth of what is already out there, and bring it together.

References from the episode:

Metzger, J. (2014). The moose are protesting: the more-than-human politics of transport infrastructure development. In Planning against the Political (pp. 191-213). Routledge.

Metzger, J. (2019). A more-than-human approach to environmental planning. In The Routledge companion to environmental planning (pp. 190-199). Routledge.

Hillier, J., & Metzger, J. (2021). Towns within Towns: From Incompossibility to Inclusive Disjunction in Urban Spatial Planning. Deleuze and Guattari Studies, 15(1), 40–64. https://doi.org/10.3366/dlgs.2021.0428

Metzger, J. (2023). The Cosmopolitics of Urban Planning in a More-than-Human World. In The Routledge International Handbook of More-than-Human Studies (pp. 348-358). Routledge.

Other authors mentioned in the episode, with links to their work:

Noel Castree

Sarah Whatmore

Donna Haraway

Patsy Healey

Isabelle Stengers

Robin Wall-Kimmerer

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Heather Campbell

Claire Coldbrook

In this episode, we explore Solarpunk imaginaries, and how they can inspire planetary planning, with Dr. Phoebe Wagner - writer, editor, and academic working at the intersection of climate change and speculative fiction. Their academic research explores how the predictive futures unintentionally imagined in speculative fiction can inspire new systems of adaptation and transformation during the climate crisis. Their Almanac for the Anthropocene, compiled together with Brontë Christopher Wieland in 2022 (see reference below), inspired Kim and Susa to approach Wagner and explore how solarpunk can provide inspiration for and quite concrete imaginaries for a planetary planning. The episode includes excerpts from their novella When We Hold Each Other Up (2023), and glimpses into the wonderful anthologies they have compiled. Wagner’s current projects focus on completing a short story collection themed around environmentalism, skateboarding, and activism, and dark academic novel focusing on disrupting white supremacy and settler colonialism in higher ed. She is also an active participant in the speculative fiction community, holding membership to the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, regularly presenting at the World Science Fiction Convention, and blogging about speculative literature at the Hugo award finalist Nerds of a Feather, Flock Together.

In the episode, we explore ways that fiction and stories that make very specific contributions to imaginaries of what a solarpunk future could look like, while at the same time allowing for a very wide range of possibilities, imagined by authors around the globe. While our invited speaker is based in the USA and their imaginaries are mainly based there, they also acknowledge the importance of the international community around Solarpunk.

In many ways, this is an episode about hope within a context of nevertheless acknowledging the dire consequences climate change is leading to and is likely to continue to lead to. It is about livelihoods adapting to these realities without relinquishing that change at a larger scale is necessary. It is about care for the environment in a time and context in which this is not the “norm” for most people. We explore how much perhaps significant change depends on rethinking human dependence on consumerism and innovation, and how we are drawn to something “shiny and new” as solutions. How can we think and act more long-term, and how can we rethink justice across human groups as well as across other species as well.

Take-aways for planners, by Phoebe Wagner:

* Make time for stories, and read widely!

* Seek out conversations with different communities, beyond your usual ones, beyond your comfort zone, to explore the themes of time, planning, and community involvement (even if it sometimes doesn’t have an immediate bearing on a given project or initiative)

Some references from the episode:

Wagner, P., & Wieland, B. C. (Eds.). (2022). Almanac for the anthropocene: A compendium of solarpunk futures (First edition). West Virginia University Press.

Wagner, P. (2023) When We Hold Each Other Up. Android Press.