KEYNOTE LECTURE

Crystal Legacy, UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

Volatile infrastructures: fragile solidarities and the careful art of structural gaslighting

There is a careful art to structural gaslighting, and it can thrive in environments where stakes are high, and resistance is likely.  In volatile planning contexts, such is the delivery of mega road projects in democratic societies, community solidarity to resist is greeted by state power to deliver. How these two forces collide, where they collide, and what transpires thereafter brings to the fore questions about volatility, and the practices and processes used to limit it. In this paper I consider these questions by bringing the concept of volatility into conversation with the growing body of literature on structural gaslighting. By reflecting on 10 years of research on contested tollroad projects in Melbourne, including the soon to open West Gate Tunnel, I will show that structural gaslighting is most acute when community solidarities provoke the precarious foundations that make these infrastructures volatile in the first place.

ABOUT OUR KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Crystal Legacy is Associate Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Melbourne, Australia where she is also the Co-Director of the Informal Urbanism Research Hub. She resides on Wurundjeri Country where she writes, teaches and works with communities on issues related to urban transport politics, public participation and gaslighting in the city.  She publishes in a range of academic journals, provides critical commentary for local and national media outlets, and works in solidarity with a range of community-based groups seeking climate just outcomes in transport planning. Crystal is an Editor of the journal Planning Theory and Practice and is the co-Chair of the Australasian Cities Research Network.