Expertise in an uncertain world: The role of expert knowledge in addressing environmental and planning challenges

This special section addresses the geographies of knowledge and expertise across contemporary environmental and planning challenges. Understanding the changing role of expert knowledge and how it weaves its way into policy and decision-making is more important than ever given the mammoth challenges we face. Different forms of expertise can often be conflicting and competing with one another, reflecting the power relations underpinning their deployment. The four papers in this special section from geography and planning speak to the diverse knowledge claims and networks of expertise that shape and seek to challenge contemporary decision-making. The special section reflects on how embedded expertise operates across different sectors and scales. It pays attention to how expertise can become destabilized across particular geographies, as the mobility of knowledge generated in one context is deployed elsewhere. By attending to the multiplicities of knowledge at play across environmental and planning challenges, the papers break down the assumption that there is a single form of expertise.

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Expertise in an uncertain world: The role of expert knowledge in addressing environmental and planning challenges, which has been published in final form at https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/area.12807. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited