Civic Infrastructure and the Appropriation of the Corporate Smart City

Sung-Yueh Perng and Sophia Maalsen

Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2020, vol. 110, issue 2, 507-515

Abstract: Concerns have been raised regarding smart city innovations leading to, or consolidating, technocratic urban governance and the tokenization of citizens. Less research, however, has explored how we make sense of ongoing appropriation of the resources, skills, and expertise of corporate smart cities and what this means for future cities. In this article, we examine the summoning of political subjectivity through the practices of retrofitting, repurposing, and reinvigorating. We consider them as civic infrastructure to sensitize the infrastructural acts and conventions that are assembled for exploring inclusive and participatory ways of shaping urban futures. These practices, illustrated by examples in Adelaide, Dublin, and Boston, focus on capabilities not only to write code, access data, or design a prototype but also to devise diverse sociotechnical arrangements and power relations to disobey, question, and dissent from technocratic visions and practices. The article concludes by suggesting further examination of the summoning of political subjectivity from within established institutions to widen dissent and appropriation of the corporate smart city. Key Words: citizen, infrastructure, political subjectivity, smart city, urban future.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1080/24694452.2019.1674629

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