On resisting the seduction of theory

In: Dialogues in urban research

Abstract

Theory carries a heavy workload in the academic enterprise, offering access to Truth or Understanding of an external world. But theory has proven to be a capricious guide amidst the actual practice of academic theory production, in which the unending cycle of theoretical fashionability vanquishes hope for access to an enduring Truth and the obdurate complexity of the world poses impediments to Understanding at least as severe as those inhibiting the quest for Truth. The route of escape from the seduction of theory is to give up the idea that the problem lies in choosing the right representational lens through which to know or understand the world and, instead, to engage in a dialogical effort to build the world we collectively wish to inhabit. Successful transition from knowing to doing rests on overcoming the conceptual, institutional, personal and psychic costs imposed by relinquishing aspirations to Truth or Understanding in the present and accepting the collective – and far more challenging – task of imagining and creating a better future.