Gaslighting Urban Planning? On Risk, Public Participation, and the Evolving Structures of Social Licence to Operate

This paper explores how coalitions of state, finance, and capital actors safeguard accumulation and monopolistic structural conditions while gesturing towards more inclusive cities, through what is described as gaslighting. Gaslighting is the manipulation of circumstances to sow doubt, normalising systemic oppression whilst invalidating testimonial capacities of the oppressed. Proponents of urban development deals require certainty. However, with growing demands for just planning practice, proponents must also ensure “social licence to operate” by engaging diverse, and sometimes oppositional, communities. De-risking proposals must resolve this tension through a regulatory-structural “fix”. We argue that gaslighting is one such fix. Drawing on ten years of case study-based research in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, we outline three modalities of structural gaslighting observed within the planning process—epistemic, moral, and cultural—and for each, we illustrate who is gaslighting and the techniques and tactics used to generate and secure a social licence to operate.