 Smart subjects for a Smart Nation? Governing (smart)mentalities in SingaporeEzra Ho Urban Studies, 2017, vol. 54, issue 13, 3101-3118 Abstract: As visions of smart urbanism gain traction around the world, it is crucial that we question the benefits that an increasingly technologised urbanity promise. It is not about the technology, but bettering peoples’ lives, insist smart city advocates. In this paper, I question the progressive potential of the smart city drawing on the case of Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative. Using the case studies of the smart home and ‘learning to code’ movement, I highlight the limits of such ‘smart’ interventions as they are stunted by the neoliberal-developmental logics of the state, thereby facilitating authoritarian consolidation in Singapore. As such, this paper distinguishes itself from previous works on the neoliberal smart city by situated smart urbanism within the socio-political dynamics of neoliberalism-as-developmental strategy. For smart urbanism to better peoples’ everyday lives, technological ‘solutionism’ needs to be replaced with more human-centric framings and understandings of urban challenges. Keywords: computational thinking; governmentality; neoliberal; Singapore; smart city; smart home; ç®—è®¡å¼ æ€ ç»´; æ²»ç †æœ¯; 新自由主义; æ–°åŠ å ¡; 智慧城市; 智慧家居 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:54:y:2017:i:13:p:3101-3118 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited |
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