The metaphor of navigation […] comprises several components. Firstly, the obvious
idea of a journey (trajet), of effective movement from one point to another. Secondly,
the idea of navigation implies that this movement is directed towards a certain goal,
that it has an objective. […] During the journey one encounters risks, unforeseen risks
that may challenge your course or even get you lost. Consequently, the journey will
be one which leads you to the place of safety through a number of known and little
known, known and unknown, dangers. Finally, in this idea of navigation, I think that
we should retain the idea that this journey to the port, across the dangers, implies – in
order to be undertaken well and to reach its objective – knowledge, technique and art.
Such knowledge is complex, both theoretical and practical. It is also conjectural, which
is, of course, very close to the knowledge of piloting.
The idea of piloting as an art, as a theoretical and practical technique necessary to
existence, is an idea that I think is important and which would merit analysis in more
depth. (Foucault, 1982, 2, my translation)
Michel Foucault engaged the metaphor of ships and navigation (pilotage) on several
occasions in his exploration of ideas of spatial planning/town planning and governance
(1982; 1983a; 1983b; 1983c; [2001] 2005; [2004] 2007). I argue that such
metaphors resonate strongly with conceptualisations of strategic spatial planning
in complex and increasingly uncertain circumstances. Equally relevant and echoing
Foucault’s (1967) suggestion that a boat is ‘a floating piece of space’, Deleuze and
Guattari also refer to a ‘maritime model’ in which ‘to think is to voyage