“Smart Infrastructure” as Relational Practice: Cities, Nations and Corporate Strategies in Framing Future Cities

Abstract

“Smartness” is becoming a new characteristic of urban living. Integration of sensing technologies, cloud data services and Internet of Things (IoT) turns mundane infrastructures into smart information networks, in which local information can be remotely collected and processed. These digital platforms have been promoted as the standard building blocks of future urban planning by powerful public sectors such as China Central Government, or by multinational private sectors like IBM’s Smarter Cities® to strategic partnership with city governments worldwide. However, the national- municipal-corporate discourse assumes many unverified claims such as economic growth, citizen engagement, sustainability and operational efficiency. It further raises important ontological, epistemic and political challenges regarding the roles and relationships of citizens, communities, cities, nations, and corporations in framing and constructing “smartness”.

This panel investigates “smart infrastructure” as a critical discursive/operational space, to unfold the tangled relational encounters among local communities, state/national government, multinational corporations and transnational institutions. We invite papers that offer theoretical, methodological or empirical considerations to address the multi-sited, multi-faceted qualities, socio-economic alliance and geopolitics of smart infrastructure design, maintenance and operation in local and global contexts. Issues include (but not limited to):

Multi-stakeholders’ interests and imaginaries of future cities, and how they are represented by smart infrastructures.
Strategic partnerships and models of community engagement in constructing and stabilizing “smart infrastructures”.
Re-conceptualizing ”citizen”, “community” and “city” in smart infrastructure implementation.
The geopolitics, global economy and international standardization of smart infrastructure development.

Individual Presentations

• A Smart City as an Infrastructural Future Platform for Enhanced Quality of Life: A Story from South Korea - Eunjeong Ma, Pohang University of Science and Technology

• A Tale of Two Cities: Smart Cities in the US-China Trade/Tech War - Sharon Tsai-hsuan Ku, University of Virginia

• Contesting "Smart" Urban Infrastructure Ownership and Control in Google/Alphabet’s Sidewalk Toronto Experiment - Andrew Clement, University of Toronto

• Corporate Expertise and Civic Good: A Critical Examination of Seattle’s Innovation Advisory Council - Meg Young; Michael Katell, University of Washington (Information School); Peaks Krafft

• Data Competition in the Name of Well-Being: A Study on Neighborhood Committees’ Translation Actions in “Smart Community” Construction - Jun-hui Shen, Changsha Uuiversity of Science and Technology; Tao Ma, Changsha University of Science and Technology; Yan-hong Zhou, Changsha University of Science and Technology; Miao Liao, Changsha University of Science and Technology

• India’s Smart Transform-Nation Mission: Enabling or Obstructing a Smart Citizenry? - Michelle Ruiz

Session Organizer

• Sean Ferguson, Engineering and Society, University of Virginia