AHO WORKS StudieS 2011-2012
Institute of Urbanism and Landscape
Legacy, Opportunity, Responsibility
and its replacement by standardized formu-
las legible only from the center is virtually
inscribed in the activities of both the state
and large-scale bureaucratic capitalism. As
a ‘project,’ it is the object of constant initi-
atives which are never entirely successful,
for nor forms of production or social life can
be made to work by formulas alone – that
is, without metis. The logic animating the
project, however, is one of control and ap-
propriation. Local knowledge, because it is
dispersed and relatively autonomous, is all
but unappropriable. The reduction or, more
utopian still, the elimination of metis and
the local control it entails are preconditions,
in the case of the state, of administrative
order and fiscal appropriation and, in the
case of the large capitalistic firm, of worker
discipline and profit [Scott 1998: 335–6].
Perhaps, metis has to be leitmotiv of the Insti-
tute, regardless whether it occupies itself with
urbanism or landscape.
References
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Lister, N. M. (2007), ‘Sustainable Large Parks: Ecolog-
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G. Hargreaves (eds.)
Large Parks
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Scott, J. C. (1998),
Seeing Like a State: How Certain
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