| Title | Everyday urbanisms and the importance of place: Exploring the elements of the emancipatory smart city |
|---|---|
| ID_Doc | 37990 |
| Authors | Odendaal, N |
| Title | Everyday urbanisms and the importance of place: Exploring the elements of the emancipatory smart city |
| Year | 2021 |
| Published | Urban Studies, 58, 3 |
| Abstract | Two of the most striking features of smart city discourses are the centrality of technology as a driver of transformational change and the strange 'placelessness' of its visual narrative. Whether envisaged in Kenya or Singapore, the commercial smart city is represented as a 'city in a box', seemingly capable of solving complex social issues through algorithms and technical innovation. Recently a robust literature has emerged that is critical of the techno-determinism inherent in smart city discussions. This paper expands on this critique by arguing that by solely focusing on the material dimensions of technologically informed urban change, devoid of context, we miss an opportunity to uncover an important moment in contemporary urbanity. By foregrounding the human dimensions of technology appropriation and the interface with livelihoods in their particular spatial contexts, this paper consciously decentres the dominant smart city discourse by arguing for the foregrounding of local dynamics. This paper rejects the universalisms embedded in smart city promises and argues that by provincialising the idea of smart urbanism, opportunities are presented for understanding the true markers of contemporary urbanism. Critical debates on the smart city, and by extension the need to consider smart urbanism contextually and as an infrastructure, relationally, together with the conceptual insights provided by postcolonial science and technology studies, contribute to a proposed frame for researching the ongoing dynamic between contemporary urban life and technological innovation. Empirical vignettes from urban Africa are used to illustrate the multiple dimensions of the interface between livelihoods and technology appropriation. |
Similar Articles
| ID | Score | Article |
|---|---|---|
38967
|
Odendaal, N; Aurigi, A Digital Cities 10: Towards a localised socio-technical understanding of the 'real smart city(2017) | |
| 36162
|
Verrest, H; Pfeffer, K Elaborating the urbanism in smart urbanism: distilling relevant dimensions for a comprehensive analysis of Smart City approaches(2019)Information Communication & Society, 22, 9 | |
| 38784
|
Guma, PK; Monstadt, J Smart city making? The spread of ICT-driven plans and infrastructures in Nairobi(2021)Urban Geography, 42, 3 | |
| 36579
|
Sepehr, P; Felt, U Urban Imaginaries as Tacit Governing Devices: The Case of Smart City Vienna(2023) | |
| 37967
|
Cook, M; Valdez, AM Exploring smart city atmospheres: The case of Milton Keynes(2021) | |
| 36195
|
Brown, W Mapping the Realities of Smart Urbanism: A Method to Promote Transdisciplinary Smart City Approaches(2022) | |
| 39338
|
Vanolo, A Is there anybody out there? The place and role of citizens in tomorrow's smart cities(2016) | |
| 79104
|
Kong, L; Woods, O The ideological alignment of smart urbanism in Singapore: Critical reflections on a political paradox(2018)Urban Studies, 55, 4 | |
| 39559
|
Tironi, M; Criado, TS Of Sensors and Sensitivities Towards a Cosmopolitics of "Smart Cities"?(2015)Tecnoscienza-Italian Journal Of Science & Technology Studies, 6, 1 | |
| 39977
|
Caprotti, F; Cowley, R Varieties of smart urbanism in the UK: Discursive logics, the state and local urban context(2019)Transactions Of The Institute Of British Geographers, 44, 3 |