Decolonizing the Smart City

Summary

The application of the smart city approach to urban development has been strongly influenced by technological determinism and modernization theory. Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies and critical geography inform an approach that departs from this, arguing for a lens situated in time and place. The emphasis on the everyday and the recognition of southern urbanism in urban studies offer opportunities to contribute to an analysis of smart city dynamics that uncovers power relations and enables deep contextual engagement. A decolonial approach engages with the many ways in which the idea and impact of smart tools are appropriated, subverted, and remade in everyday life. It therefore also foregrounds human agency. Contemporary debates suggest four themes that illuminate the textures of everyday smart urbanisms and help to clarify what smart urbanism is.

The first theme relates to space and placemaking. Here, the overarching aim is to turn the conventional idea of the smart city, as a “city in a box” solution to complex socioeconomic problems, on its head by offering a more grounded alternative that celebrates the interpretations of place expressed in local appropriations of technology. The second theme addresses how the smart city represents a form of “infrastructuration” that is identifiable with regime changes and continuities. Embracing a more nuanced understanding of infrastructure in the digital age enables us to probe whether it reflects democratic values and reveal ways to empower communities to engage proactively in shaping urban futures. The third theme rejects the separation between online and offline tools and explores hybridity as a feature of contemporary urbanism (rather than focusing solely on the digital). Finally, the fourth theme examines data and knowledge generation as a mix of quantitative and qualitative functions often interwoven with everyday lives.

The four themes analyze current debates in both the global north and south to build a decolonial perspective. The goal is to equip researchers with tools for understanding how new technologies intersect with everyday urban life. This approach shifts the focus from a top-down smart city model to lived experiences, social connections, and empowerment. It allows us to reimagine spaces outside inherited rural-urban binaries, knowledge versus stories, and existing definitions of the urban. It highlights and gives voice to the everyday struggles faced by urban poor and marginalized communities.