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- Convenors:
-
Bradley Loewen
(NTNU-Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
Kadri Leetmaa (University of Tartu)
Bianka Plüschke-Altof (Tallinn University)
Ingmar Pastak
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- Format:
- Traditional Open Panel
Short Abstract
The panel contributes to emerging conceptualizations of smartness in non-urban contexts, shifting focus from its urban foundations to rural potentials of smartness, to critically explore and reflect on notions of smart rurality supporting rural transitions and resilience.
Description
This panel seeks to critically engage with normative and empirically founded aspects of ‘smartness’ and ‘smartification’ in rural contexts. The smart urban agenda has drawn the attention of STS scholars, such as through critical engagement with smart city futures, visions and imaginaries, innovations and socio-technical systemic change, and power and agency in smart city contexts, but STS perspectives have not yet focused on the emerging notion of smart rurality.
Moving beyond the dominant technology- and market-based readings of smartification that put the focus on urban settings, the notion of smart rurality is often either under-recognized or subjected to a development blueprint that does not necessarily fit rural realities, undermining their agency in (re)interpreting smartness and highlighting multidimensional processes of exclusion. Taking advantage of potentials for reflexivity, interdisciplinarity and intersectionality, STS scholars are poised to contribute to underlying debates in the making and doing of rural smartness.
We welcome both theoretical and empirical studies that contribute to a new conceptualization of smartification in non-urban contexts, exploring resilient futures for rural areas. The panel is meant as a discussion forum as well as a platform to bring together recent research in the field, opening opportunities for future collaborations. We invite papers that align with the major conference streams, including:
- Critical reflections on the role of smartness in rural transition and resilience, and on dominant readings of smart city and smart rurality concepts and their impacts on rural areas;
- Explorations of rural power, agency, collaboration and exclusion in ‘smart’ regional initiatives or local projects;
- Current uses of ‘smart’ in rural areas, including frontiers of rural innovation (including social and environmental), and uses of and interactions with particular technologies.