Bianca Maria Nardella
Experienced undegraduate and postgraduate lecturer (urban conservation and international development policy and practice; urban design skills). Doctoral research in policy analysis, provisional title "How do you mean Urban Conservation and Sustainable Development in Tunis? A reflective practice critique of international policy narratives". The thesis contributes to interpretive policy analysis debates, qualitatively investigating links between policy design and practice in the case of Urban Conservation in Sustainable Development (hence UCSD) narratives. Further, it advances methodological debates on reflective practice through the analysis of cognitive manoeuvres urban conservators need to perform to critically reflect on their own policy frameworks and knowledge practices.
My research investigates what it means for an practitioner involved in international ‘culture heritage in development’ projects to question the policy categories she was assigned. In particular, I interrogate international policy narratives and practices framed as UCSD, which emerged in the 1990s, in relation to: how they validate cognitive frameworks alternative to Eurocentric Modernity (such as an Islamicate perspective on continuity and change in the palimpsest of cities); and how they value ‘development’ beyond materialistic notions of progress (that is if and how matters of cultural heritage conservation have been/can be appreciated other than as a servants of economic ends). The research takes the standpoint of the urban conservation and development agenda for old city of Tunis, Tunisia, to explore tensions and contradictions existing between international policies and place-based dynamics, focusing on the challange of translating policy categories across different knowledge frameworks. Findings of a complex investigation - tracing articulations between key international organisations (such as UNESCO Culture; the World Bank; European Union; and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture) and the work of the Association du Sauvegarde de la Mèdina de Tunis - point to a co-production of UCSD policy knowledge, rather than a mere transfer from international policy ‘design’ to local ‘implementation’.
Supervisors: Dr. Colin Marx, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit and Jorge Fiori, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit / AA
Address: The Bartlett Development Planning Unit , UCL • 34 Tavistock Square • London WC1H 9EZ • UK
My research investigates what it means for an practitioner involved in international ‘culture heritage in development’ projects to question the policy categories she was assigned. In particular, I interrogate international policy narratives and practices framed as UCSD, which emerged in the 1990s, in relation to: how they validate cognitive frameworks alternative to Eurocentric Modernity (such as an Islamicate perspective on continuity and change in the palimpsest of cities); and how they value ‘development’ beyond materialistic notions of progress (that is if and how matters of cultural heritage conservation have been/can be appreciated other than as a servants of economic ends). The research takes the standpoint of the urban conservation and development agenda for old city of Tunis, Tunisia, to explore tensions and contradictions existing between international policies and place-based dynamics, focusing on the challange of translating policy categories across different knowledge frameworks. Findings of a complex investigation - tracing articulations between key international organisations (such as UNESCO Culture; the World Bank; European Union; and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture) and the work of the Association du Sauvegarde de la Mèdina de Tunis - point to a co-production of UCSD policy knowledge, rather than a mere transfer from international policy ‘design’ to local ‘implementation’.
Supervisors: Dr. Colin Marx, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit and Jorge Fiori, The Bartlett Development Planning Unit / AA
Address: The Bartlett Development Planning Unit , UCL • 34 Tavistock Square • London WC1H 9EZ • UK
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Papers by Bianca Maria Nardella
1995), cultural heritage conservation, sustainable urban development (Unesco 1996)
and intellectual cooperation in the euro-mediterranean region (Pace 2007), we explore how, from the French colonial period (1881-1956) to the independent State (1956-present), international normative frameworks intersect with political processes and local practice structures and systems. Our narrative sidelines the self- representations of bureaucratic rationality in order to uncover more about the inner workings of the development agencies (Lewis and Mosse 2006: 3). It is supported by the voices of primary actors, following the anthropology of development critique that insists on the primacy of contingent practice over the conceptual work of policy (op.cit.).
What do International Organisations (IOs) mean by policy categories as ‘legislative reform’ and ‘institutional strengthening’? How do actors themselves reflect on reasons for failure in implementation? And, how can we understand what seems a standstill in urban conservation and development policy implementation other than as governance failure?
To answer these questions we start by interrogating the genealogy of heritage law and its institutions, further accounting how regimes ideologies intersect with urban conservation processes. By exploring selected development projects relating IOs accounts of success and failure with relevant actors’ voices, this story then illustrates how international policy tends to gloss over the historical and epistemological reasons underpinning institutional conflict and legislative impasses. The narrative highlights instances where disjunctures between urban conservation planning policy and practice become evident before reflecting on what lessons can be learned from Tunis as an established laboratory for urban conservation and development.
1995), cultural heritage conservation, sustainable urban development (Unesco 1996)
and intellectual cooperation in the euro-mediterranean region (Pace 2007), we explore how, from the French colonial period (1881-1956) to the independent State (1956-present), international normative frameworks intersect with political processes and local practice structures and systems. Our narrative sidelines the self- representations of bureaucratic rationality in order to uncover more about the inner workings of the development agencies (Lewis and Mosse 2006: 3). It is supported by the voices of primary actors, following the anthropology of development critique that insists on the primacy of contingent practice over the conceptual work of policy (op.cit.).
What do International Organisations (IOs) mean by policy categories as ‘legislative reform’ and ‘institutional strengthening’? How do actors themselves reflect on reasons for failure in implementation? And, how can we understand what seems a standstill in urban conservation and development policy implementation other than as governance failure?
To answer these questions we start by interrogating the genealogy of heritage law and its institutions, further accounting how regimes ideologies intersect with urban conservation processes. By exploring selected development projects relating IOs accounts of success and failure with relevant actors’ voices, this story then illustrates how international policy tends to gloss over the historical and epistemological reasons underpinning institutional conflict and legislative impasses. The narrative highlights instances where disjunctures between urban conservation planning policy and practice become evident before reflecting on what lessons can be learned from Tunis as an established laboratory for urban conservation and development.