Send message to Authors

Paper short abstract

This paper critically engages with normative and empirical dimensions of smartness in rural contexts by advancing the concept of “quiet smartness.”

Paper long abstract

This paper critically engages with normative and empirical dimensions of smartness in rural contexts by advancing the concept of “quiet smartness.” Moving beyond technology- and market-led blueprints derived from smart city agendas, it examines how smartification is enacted, interpreted, and negotiated in everyday rural practice. Empirically, the study draws on innovation biographies of eleven initiatives in Järvamaa and Hiiumaa. The findings show that rural smartness often emerges through bottom-up collaboration, informal networks, and context-sensitive uses of digital and social infrastructures. While small-scale communities and dense social ties foster experimentation and resilience, demographic decline, long distances, and uneven local governance shape processes of exclusion and limit recognition within dominant smart discourses. By conceptualizing these initiatives as forms of quiet smartness, the paper challenges urban-centric benchmarks and contributes an STS-informed perspective on power, agency, and knowledge production in rural smartification, opening space for more reflexive and resilient rural futures.

Keywords: quiet smartness, rural smartification