Responsibility to Whom?

In this penultimate chapter, we consider the signifier ‘responsibility’ as it is deployed in contemporary spatial planning practice. We then broaden this concept of responsibility, drawing from the philosophical thought of Emmanuel Lévinas, Jacques Derrida, Iris Marion Young and, from Lacanian-derived literature what is often called the Ethics of the Real (Zupančič 2000). We argue for a new ethics of globally conscious spatial planning. We suggest that this could possibly be accomplished by practising an understanding of responsibility that is predicated on a premise of ‘avoidance of avoidance’, especially when actors are aware of the global implications of their actions.