Informating Urban Life, Engendering Spatial Technology

• In Event: Smart yet (in)Sensible? Feminist Critical Perspectives on “Smart Cities” I

Abstract

'Citizen safety' has been a key element in various smart city initiatives pursued by ensembles of public and private actors. Advocates of such initiatives stress that "smart" surveillance networks, along with citizen's use of digital technology such as safety apps, will allow for more timely response to crimes. In South Korea, women safety has particularly emerged as a pressing social issue, appearing frequently in government plans for smart cities. It is no news that women are identified as a vulnerable social group, but recent calls for government action to protect women are related to certain population changes: remarkable increases in the numbers of unmarried women and one-person households. Until the late twentieth century, the space that women occupy was often included in that of the family or the employer (e.g., workplace or factory dormitory). Such traditional notions of women's space no longer hold in this era marked by the decline of industrialism and family ideology.
This paper examines how the space of women (and their movement) is newly problematized in contemporary Korea. It also analyzes different kinds of subjectivity imagined in recent urban safety measures. It asks: what kinds of gender roles are created through the use of safety applications by women who seek help? Where do smart city initiatives meet with or diverge from patriarchy? Building on insights from anthropology, STS, and critical geography, this paper will provide an in-depth analysis of an informational turn in urban governance and the engendering of technology.

Authors

• Kijun Yun, KAIST

• Yoonjung Lee, KAIST