Paper short abstract:

This paper is a methodological reflection on ethnographic field research on zoning in Vancouver (BC) that puts forward to follow the zoning code and decenter the planner when studying land-use planning with STS. It extends this reflection to the politics of zoning as a 'parliament of zones'.

Paper long abstract:

Planning scholars have problematized with STS the hybrid of human and non-human in planning practice, yet other hybrids that have long been pertinent to the planning community-and STS for that matter-have received little attention. Invoking STS, this paper aims to turn the apparently technical and inherently political nature of planning into an empirical question, and considers the methodological implications of such a move. Grounded in ethnographic research on zoning in Vancouver (BC), the paper sees land-use planning as a form of network ordering, an uncertain process of overcoming resistance, that culminates in the zoning code. Through this lens, the research started with the shadowing of planners in the planning office but soon turned into the following of the zoning code in many places and with many appearances. Following the code in rezonings, the rational standardization and political administration with zoning is opened up as the socio-material negotiation of a specific and locally situated zone. This negotiation of uses-and implied users-observed in rezonings is the basis for a discussion on how a Latourian 'parliament of zones' could be a way of taking hybrids more seriously in planning.