Herbert Gottweis Prize for Best Paper of 2024 in Critical Policy Studies

I am happy to share that my colleague, Andreanne Doyon, and I have been awarded the 2025 Herbert Gottweis Prize for Best Paper of 2024 in Critical Policy Studies for our article, “Exploring Ethical Space in Land Use Planning.”

This recognition came as a welcome surprise, especially after a two-year journey to publication, including some challenging (but important) peer reviews that we felt compelled to push back on. As we reflected on receiving this award, we were reminded that systems change often means pushing boundaries and ruffling feathers. 

I’m deeply grateful to have Andreanne as a collaborator in this work. Our article is freely available for one year on the journal’s website (link below). I’d love to hear your thoughts and reflections on how we can continue to build a more just planning sphere.

Here’s a snippet about the paper:

Grounded in rigorous ethnographic research and an innovative constructivist, grounded theory approach, the authors introduce the concept of ethical space as a transformative framework—one that directly challenges the enduring legacies of modernist and settler-colonial land use planning. The paper advances our understanding of ethical approaches to land governance by articulating three essential conditions: pre-engagement, relational accountability, and reflexivity. These are not introduced as abstract ideals or concepts, but as deeply practical insights that speak to the real-world complexities of decision-making in policy struggles between indigenous and non-indigenous actors. “Ethical space” is proposed as a model that is both critical-analytical and actionable, a rare combination in scholarly work. Overall, the article boldly confronts the entrenched power/knowledge asymmetries of planning practice and offers a compelling vision for doing things differently. Its relevance reaches well beyond the Canadian empirical context from which it is developed—it is a call to rethink how we build relations, how we govern land, and how we take responsibility in spaces marked by historical and ongoing injustice.