Walking in Another’s Shoes

Growing cultural diversity brings new challenges to the practice of planning. In participatory planning, this diversity poses challenges related to communicating across culture-based epistemologies and soliciting the voices of multiple publics. This article explores five challenges that planners face when working in communities where the cultural background of residents is different from one’s own. These challenges are (1) traversing interpretive frames embedded in culture, history, and collective memory; (2) confronting otherness in the articulation of cultural values and social identities; (3) understanding the multiple meanings of language; (4) respecting and navigating cultural protocols and social relationships; and (5) understanding the role of power in cultural translation.

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