Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Annals of the American Association of Geographers on 4/11/2019, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24694452.2019.1665493
Accepted author manuscript, 216 KB, PDF document
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - “Smart” Discourses, the Limits of Representation, and New Regimes of Spatial Data
AU - Dalton, Craig
AU - Wilmott, Clancy
AU - Fraser, Emma
AU - Thatcher, Jim
N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Annals of the American Association of Geographers on 4/11/2019, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24694452.2019.1665493
PY - 2019/11/4
Y1 - 2019/11/4
N2 - As “smart” urbanism becomes more influential, spaces and places are increasingly represented through numeric and categorical data that has been gathered by sensors, devices and people. Such systems purportedly provide access to always visible, measurable and knowable spaces, facilitating ever-more rational management and planning. Smart city spaces are thus governed through the algorithmic administration and categorisation of difference, and structured through particular discourses of smartness, both of which shape the production of space and place on a local and general level. Valorization of data and its analysis naturalizes constructions of space, place, and individual that elide the political and surveillant forms of techno-cractic governance on which they are built. This article argues that it is through processes of measurement, calculation, and classification that “smart” emerges along distinct axes of power/knowledge. Using examples drawn from the British Home Office’s repurposing of charity outreach maps for homeless population deportation and the more recent EU EXIT document checking application for European citizens and family members living in the UK, we demonstrate the significance of Gunnar Olsson’s thought for understanding the ideological and material power of smartness via his work on the very limits of representation. The discussion further opens a bridge towards a more relational consideration of the construction of space, place, and individual through the thinking of Doreen Massey.
AB - As “smart” urbanism becomes more influential, spaces and places are increasingly represented through numeric and categorical data that has been gathered by sensors, devices and people. Such systems purportedly provide access to always visible, measurable and knowable spaces, facilitating ever-more rational management and planning. Smart city spaces are thus governed through the algorithmic administration and categorisation of difference, and structured through particular discourses of smartness, both of which shape the production of space and place on a local and general level. Valorization of data and its analysis naturalizes constructions of space, place, and individual that elide the political and surveillant forms of techno-cractic governance on which they are built. This article argues that it is through processes of measurement, calculation, and classification that “smart” emerges along distinct axes of power/knowledge. Using examples drawn from the British Home Office’s repurposing of charity outreach maps for homeless population deportation and the more recent EU EXIT document checking application for European citizens and family members living in the UK, we demonstrate the significance of Gunnar Olsson’s thought for understanding the ideological and material power of smartness via his work on the very limits of representation. The discussion further opens a bridge towards a more relational consideration of the construction of space, place, and individual through the thinking of Doreen Massey.
KW - data
KW - massey
KW - olsson
KW - place
KW - smart cities
KW - space
KW - spatial data
U2 - 10.1080/24694452.2019.1665493
DO - 10.1080/24694452.2019.1665493
M3 - Journal article
JO - Annals of the American Association of Geographers
JF - Annals of the American Association of Geographers
SN - 2469-4460
ER -