Research Project Smart Cities and Urban Citizenship

Project Duration: 10/01/2021 - 12/31/2024

This project is about smart city projects and their impact on urban citizenship. Specifically, it focuses on the new forms of (contestation over) citizenship that emerge as a consequence of smart city initiatives. Implementing visions of future urban place-making are inherently contested processes because everyday practices of urban residents and their identity-making are invested in the spatial and material surfaces of the city. However, smart city initiatives are often conceived as apolitical due the highly technological and technocratic processes that guides them and their vision of urban development and social improvement. The project approaches smart cities and citizenship contestations through three related analytical and methodological lenses: Citizenship, smart city visions, and the governance of visions. Case studies take place in three highly unequal cities. Johannesburg, Mumbai and Nairobi are subjected to disjunctive comparison.

New

Research seminar at KRVIA, Mumbai

24 April 2024 |

"Smart City projects have emerged as the newest framework for urban development schemes, especially across the Global South. High tech, sensor driven solutions to urban ‘problems’ are viewed as the key to building smart cities of the future. But how do these solutions fare in historically unequal cities? Drawing on research from South Africa, Kenya and India, panelists will deliberate the impact of smart cities projects on dynamics of urban inequality."

Contact

Project coordinator Jacob Rasmussen, Associate Professor, Roskilde University, jacobra@ruc.dk

Researchers

Jacob Rasmussen, Associate Professor, Roskilde University

Somdeep Sen, Associate Professor, Roskilde University

Wangui Kimari, CHRIPS, Kenya

Publications

Violent infrastructure, nationalist stigmatisation and spatial erasure
Sen, S., Feb 2024, In: Politics. 44, 1, p. 102-118 17 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Where is Palestine in Critical Terrorism Studies? A roundtable conversation
Aitlhadj, L., Finden, A., Haspeslagh, S., Kaleem, A., Khan, R., Salhab, A., Schotten, C. H., Sen, S. & Stampnitzky, L., 10 Jun 2024, In: Critical Studies on Terrorism. 17, 3, p. 437-462 26 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Why are Indian cities a mess? Because they’re not about people
Sen, S., 10 May 2023, Doha - Qatar : Al Jazeera English.
Research output: Other contribution › Net publication - Internet publication › Commissioned

Activities

Urban Discontent in an age of Authoritarianism
Gathara, P. (Speaker), Sen, S. (Speaker) & Rasmussen, J. (Speaker)
27 Nov 2024
Activity: Talk or presentation › Lecture and oral contribution
Smart Cities and Urban Citizenship
Rasmussen, J. (Organizer), Kimari, W. (Organizer) & Sen, S. (Participant)
25 Nov 2024 → 28 Nov 2024
Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Organisation and participation in conference
CLAIMS to digital everyday lives & energy futures in Cape Town
Rasmussen, J. (Speaker)
10 Jun 2024 → 11 Jun 2024
Activity: Participating in or organising an event › Participation in workshop, seminar, course

More activities

Funding

The project is funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark. The project is supported with DKK 2.614.026 (Euro 351.429,65) over a 3-year period. The primary aim of Independent Research Fund Denmark is to support and promote the most original ideas and initiatives within Danish research.