Phronesis Through GIS: Exploring Political Spaces of Education

Distilling the different ways that neoliberal regimes have impacted the governance of public policy and planning is as much a political maneuvering exercise as it is a scholarly endeavor. The process of empirical research that attempts to uncover such impacts is from the very beginning fraught with numerous problems: sifting through rhetorical ambiguities, dealing with agenda-makers and data gatekeepers, and navigating through complex bureaucratic layers of regulations. These all appear in a concerted effort to maintain and protect the interests of the rational state model. This frustration, although not uncommon in increasingly controlling and risk-adverse regimes, further necessitates that researchers draw on an alternative repertoire of skills and understandings. Flyvbjerg's (2001) argument toward critical social science advocating a phronetic approach-an Aristotelian value-laden concept highlighting the importance of "practical wisdom, practical judgment, common sense and prudence" (Flyvbjerg 2004, 284) balanced by Foucault's power-knowledge relations-provides a useful framework in navigating through these procedural hurdles. Reflecting on the process of research exploring various impacts of the neoliberalization of education in Ontario, this article argues that using a hybrid form of phronesis-engaged in reflexive practices, hidden knowledge and unorthodox sources-combined with the contextual dimensionality of geographic information systems (GIS) is useful to better understand the structural barriers in place and to develop a sensitivity to the political and ethical implications involved in exploring the conflicting spaces of education.