Discourse and Urban Change: Introduction to the Special Issue

This Special Issue is part of the `culturalturn’ within the ® eld of urban studies, giventhat it highlights the role of discourse as acomponent of urban processes and change.The papers start from the assumption that ourexperience of the world will be shaped by theprocesses and practices by which we signifyor represent the world. The papers share acommon perspective that the processes bywhich meanings are made, shared, negotiatedor imposed are intrinsic to processes of socialreproduction, contestation and change andare therefore actively involved in shapingeconomy and society. More speci® cally, theIssue focuses on the role of language use indetermining meaning in the urban policy pro-cess. It foregrounds how discursive practicesand language use, mediated through thearena of political action and policy interven-tion, interact with other kinds of societalprocesses and practices operating within theurban sphere. Perhaps, therefore, it is moreaccurate to describe this Issue as contributingspeci® cally to the development of thelinguistic rather than cultural turn within thestudy of urban policy.The issue collects selective papers fromthe conference `Discourse and UrbanChange’ held at the University of Glasgow,UK in 1997. In collecting the papers, it ishoped that the relevance and value of explor-ing urban issues from the perspective of dis-course studies can be demonstrated. Theconference was organised in the knowledgethat, whilst the study of language and dis-course was emerging as a research issue inthe urban studies ® eld, the research wasfragmented between disciplines and institu-tions. The themes of the conference included:social constructionist accounts of urban pol-icy processes and events; communication,rhetoric and argumentation in policy and thevalue of textually orientated discourse analy-sis