www.buildingsandcities.org/journal-content/special-issues/data-politics-si.html
This special issue advances understandings of the practices, politics and power implications of data-driven buildings and cities
Buildings and cities are increasingly being reconfigured and reimagined by flows of data e.g. in smart homes and cities, digitally networked infrastructure services, shared mobility programmes and autonomous vehicles, surveillance and security systems, and urban control centres. The benefits of a datafied built environment are uneven and result in detrimental impacts to some individuals and groups at the expense of others.
Guest editors: Andrew Karvonen and Tom Hargreaves
Datafication processes are far from neutral. In many cases, the datafication of the built environment is invisible to users which has negative democratic implications. The asymmetrical access to data produces conditions that are beneficial to some but not all. Decisions about what data gets collected and what is ignored are unavoidably political processes that privilege some while neglecting others. This special issue raise key questions about how data-driven buildings and cities can be designed to be inclusive and democratic.
A key theme emerging from the special issue involves processes of societal exclusion that are commonplace in datafication. Mello Rose and Chang argue that datafication processes tend to ignore important sources of 'subjective socio-cultural data' while Sharma et al. highlight the under-representation of particular social groups and the perpetuation of existing structures of inequality. White and Larsson demonstrate how digital platforms produce social relations that are de-individualized and de-personalised to realise globalised and consumerist modes of life, while Sareen et al. show how digitalisation favours privatised and individualised structures rather than collective forms of management and ownership.
A second theme in the special issue is the centrality of local geographies and histories to datafication processes. All of the contributions emphasise the importance of qualitative methods and datasets to characterise local histories and geographies while providing a strong corrective to the universalising quantitative abstractions of most datafication processes.
This special issue highlights the importance of including civil society in the development of new visions and alternatives that can dismantle existing unjust power structures. The contingent character of datafication processes is not inevitable but is the result of particular actions that could have turned out differently. Commoning can be a means to normalise and institutionalise more progressive and inclusive forms of collective consumption. Data-driven processes that are founded in social justice could realise fundamental systemic changes. A more 'radical ethics' of data politics could serve to renegotiate and re-evaluate interconnected urban crises.
Data politics in the built environment (Editorial)
A. Karvonen & T. Hargreaves
Social justice implications of smart urban technologies: an intersectional approach
N. Sharma, T. Hargreaves & H. Pallett
Urban data: harnessing subjective sociocultural data from local newspapers
F. Mello Rose & J. Chang
Social implications of energy infrastructure digitalisation and decarbonisation
S. Sareen, A. Smith, S. Gantioler, J. Balest, M.C. Brisbois,
S. Tomasi, B. Sovacool, G. A. Torres
Contreras, N. Dellavalle & H. Haarstad
Disruptive data: historicising the platformisation of Dublin's taxi industry
J. White & S. Larsson
Phronesis and epistemic justice in data-driven built environments
Miguel Valdez
The data politics of tech corporations
Dillon Mahmoudi & Alan Wiig
Disruptive technologies and the regulator's dilemma
Andrea Pollio
Populist dissent and digital urbanism
Robert Cowley
Analysing cold-climate urban heat islands using personal weather station data
J Taylor, C H Simpson, J Vanhatalo, H Sohail, O Brousse, & C Heaviside
Are simple models for natural ventilation suitable for shelter design?
A Conzatti, D Fosas de Pando, B Chater & D Coley
Impact of roofing materials on school temperatures in tropical Africa
E F Amankwaa, B M Roberts, P Mensah & K V Gough
Acceptability of sufficiency consumption policies by Finnish households
E Nuorivaara & S Ahvenharju
Key factors for revitalising heritage buildings through adaptive reuse
É Savoie, J P Sapinski & A-M Laroche
Cooler streets for a cycleable city: assessing policy alignment
C Tang & J Bush
Understanding the embodied carbon credentials of modern methods of construction
R O'Hegarty, A McCarthy, J O'Hagan, T Thanapornpakornsin, S Raffoul & O Kinnane
The changing typology of urban apartment buildings in Aurinkolahti
S Meriläinen & A Tervo
Embodied climate impacts in urban development: a neighbourhood case study
S Sjökvist, N Francart, M Balouktsi & H Birgisdottir
Environmental effects of urban wind energy harvesting: a review
I Tsionas, M laguno-Munitxa & A Stephan
Office environment and employee differences by company health management certification
S Arata, M Sugiuchi, T Ikaga, Y Shiraishi, T Hayashi, S Ando & S Kawakubo
Spatiotemporal evaluation of embodied carbon in urban residential development
I Talvitie, A Amiri & S Junnila
Energy sufficiency in buildings and cities: current research, future directions [editorial]
M Sahakian, T Fawcett & S Darby
Sufficiency, consumption patterns and limits: a survey of French households
J Bouillet & C Grandclément
Health inequalities and indoor environments: research challenges and priorities [editorial]
M Ucci & A Mavrogianni
Operationalising energy sufficiency for low-carbon built environments in urbanising India
A B Lall & G Sethi
Promoting practices of sufficiency: reprogramming resource-intensive material arrangements
T H Christensen, L K Aagaard, A K Juvik, C Samson & K Gram-Hanssen
Structural barriers to sufficiency: the contribution of research on elites
M Koch, K Emilsson, J Lee & H Johansson
Disrupting the imaginaries of urban action to deliver just adaptation [editorial]
V Castán-Broto, M Olazabal & G Ziervogel
Nature for resilience reconfigured: global- to-local translation of frames in Africa
K Rochell, H Bulkeley & H Runhaar
How hegemonic discourses of sustainability influence urban climate action
V Castán Broto, L Westman & P Huang
Fabric first: is it still the right approach?
N Eyre, T Fawcett, M Topouzi, G Killip, T Oreszczyn, K Jenkinson & J Rosenow
Social value of the built environment [editorial]
F Samuel & K Watson
Understanding demolition [editorial]
S Huuhka
Data politics in the built environment [editorial]
A Karvonen & T Hargreaves
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