Analyzing planning and design discourses

The term 'discourse' is used to describe the entangled and contested transactions through which real-world planning and policy issues are addressed. Studies of discourses have become an important way of understanding how power is mediated in planning, but the methods through which discourses are identified and evaluated is as yet unclear in the literature. Here, we describe our attempt -- with still only limited success -- to map discourses using a method that extends the work of Toulmin and Gasper and George. Our method consists of a tabular representation of argument structure to depict the content and structure of a discourse, and a graphical index to the discourse table to reveal higher order patterns in the discourse. Using discourse pertaining to a real-life design-review case, we demonstrate how our approach allows us to understand the internal structure of that discourse better. We conclude with suggestions for how the method might be further improved.