Visions of infrastructure transformations in the Patras railway line

Abstract

The reconfiguration process of a railway line in Patras, Greece that has been led to a standstill is used as a device in order to illuminate different infrastructure planning discourses of various planning actors. These different paradigms correspond to different problem representations and visions and often compete with each other based on the fragmented structures of infrastructure planning. They are grounded in different planning scales and knowledge cultures and promote different ideas in terms of the viability of visions the and appropriateness of solutions. The "ideational power” that underpins the antagonisms of these ideas reflects not only the content of these ideas but also the agency of the respective actors. The juxtaposition of different "modes of problematisation" and "sociomaterial visions" aims to help disentagle the key concepts of such debates along with their contested meanings, having firstly unravelled the ways they are defended.