| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This paper seeks to open up what economic geographers think they can do as academics engaging in the policy realm. It draws on the author's role as an academic and his policy persona as academic expert and academic with expertise that has been guided by post-structural political economy (PSPE) thinking. It is Auckland-centred, situated in three trajectories: PSPE thought and practice developing at the University of Auckland, the Auckland Regional Economic Development Strategy (AREDS) trajectory of the Auckland Regional Council and Auckland City Council's sustainability trajectory. The paper recovers in PSPE terms dimensions of two 2006 policy moments, those of the Metropolitan Auckland Project (MAP) and the Mayoral Taskforce on Sustainable Development (MTSD), in which the author participated. Placing intellectual (PSPE) and policy trajectories (growth and sustainability) into conversation allows a unique exploration of co-constitutive dimensions between academy and policy worlds. Conceptually and methodologically, the moments in the policy trajectories are accessed by (i) analytic description of the policy trajectory from the outside in terms of academic understandings of institutional processes and (ii) in-the-room deliberations about policy decision possibilities. New insights about academy-policy relations emerge from the PSPE focus on rooms and moments.
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