Chesher, C., Hanchard, M. orcid.org/0000-0003-2460-8638, Humphry, J. et al. (5 more authors) (2023) Discovering smart: Early encounters and negotiations with smart street furniture in London and Glasgow. Digital Geography and Society, 4. 100055. ISSN 2666-3783
Abstract
In the late 2010s, publics in the UK encountered new kinds of street furniture: Strawberry Energy Smart benches in London and InLinkUK kiosks in Glasgow, with smart features such as phone charging, free Wi-Fi, free phone calls, information screens and environmental data. This article analyses how smart street furniture is socially constructed by relevant social groups, each with different interests, forms of power and meanings. Smartness became associated not only with advanced technologies, but with a neoliberal agenda of private-public partnerships promising urban transformations, such as free devices for councils and citizens in exchange for access to advertising or sponsorship space in public places. The research examined the design, use and governance of new types of smart street furniture using mixed methods, including document analysis of promotional and regulatory texts, site observations of these devices, and interviews. We found that the uses and meanings of these devices were discovered at different moments by technology companies, local councils, and the public. Few members of the public knew about the devices, and showed little interest in them, even if they were the assumed users. An exception was gig workers and people experiencing homelessness who found uses for the smart features and a community activist who campaigned against these as surveillant and intrusive. Businesses and councils embraced smart city visions but took multiple approaches to agreements for the implementation and governance of smart street furniture. Notably, these more powerful groups discovered and negotiated the meanings of smart street furniture well before these were publicly encountered. This article reveals how a social construction of technology (SCOT) approach is strongest when it accounts for the relative power of social groups in struggles over meanings and resources. It provides empirical information on everyday sociotechnical encounters that provide nuanced evidence for wider critiques of smart city agendas.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) |
Keywords: | Mixed methods; Local government; Science and technology studies; Discovery, social construction of technology; Smart cities; Street furniture |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Research Institutes Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number USyd-Glasgow Partnership Collaboration 2019/20-USyd-Glasgow-SmatPublics |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 14 Mar 2023 11:43 |
Last Modified: | 14 Apr 2023 12:50 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier BV |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.diggeo.2023.100055 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:197257 |