IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/urbstu/v61y2024i1p165-179.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Smart and disruptive infrastructures: Re-building knowledge on the informal city

Author

Listed:
  • Kerry Bobbins

    (University of Exeter, UK)

  • Federico Caprotti

    (University of Exeter, UK)

  • Jiska de Groot

    (University of Cape Town, South Africa)

  • Whitney Pailman

    (University of Cape Town, South Africa)

  • Mascha Moorlach

    (University of Cape Town, South Africa)

  • Hendrik Schloemann

    (Zonke Energy, South Africa)

  • Alex Densmore

    (Zonke Energy, South Africa)

  • Kimenthrie Finlay

    (Thrie Energy Collective, South Africa)

  • Ellen Fischat

    (Story Room SA, South Africa)

  • Siseko Siwali

    (Virtual Operative Services, South Africa)

  • Joslyn Links

    (Virtual Operative Services, South Africa)

Abstract

Smart urbanism is an established research area in geography and the social sciences. We draw on ‘worlding-provincialising’ strategies identified in an Urban Studies Special Issue from February 2021 to explore how smart infrastructures, a form of smart urbanism, disrupt representations of informality and urban development in new and productive ways. Focussing on the disruptive or troublesome implications of smart infrastructures reveals site-level considerations for developing policy and practice, where acknowledging the nuanced context for its use can present opportunities for not only understanding energy transitions in the Global South, but also creates opportunities for cross-learning. Drawing on our collective insights on a solar mini-grid project in Qandu-Qandu, Cape Town, we sketch out three ways the disruptive aspects of solar energy can be helpful for re-building knowledge on the informal city by: (i) re-positioning notions of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ infrastructure(s) in urban planning and policymaking; (ii) highlighting new avenues for citizen autonomy; and (iii) recasting the informal city as a site for continuous innovation and learning.

Suggested Citation

  • Kerry Bobbins & Federico Caprotti & Jiska de Groot & Whitney Pailman & Mascha Moorlach & Hendrik Schloemann & Alex Densmore & Kimenthrie Finlay & Ellen Fischat & Siseko Siwali & Joslyn Links, 2024. "Smart and disruptive infrastructures: Re-building knowledge on the informal city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(1), pages 165-179, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:61:y:2024:i:1:p:165-179
    DOI: 10.1177/00420980231172582
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00420980231172582
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00420980231172582?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Paola Jirón & Walter A Imilán & Carlos Lange & Pablo Mansilla, 2021. "Placebo urban interventions: Observing Smart City narratives in Santiago de Chile," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(3), pages 601-620, February.
    2. Ananya Roy, 2011. "Slumdog Cities: Rethinking Subaltern Urbanism," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(2), pages 223-238, March.
    3. Glen David Kuecker & Kris Hartley, 2020. "How Smart Cities Became the Urban Norm: Power and Knowledge in New Songdo City," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 110(2), pages 516-524, March.
    4. Charlotte Lemanski, 2023. "Broadening the landscape of post-network cities: a call to research the off-grid infrastructure transitions of the non-poor," Landscape Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(2), pages 174-186, February.
    5. Morgan Mouton, 2021. "Worlding infrastructure in the global South: Philippine experiments and the art of being ‘smart’," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(3), pages 621-638, February.
    6. Harris Breslow, 2021. "The smart city and the containment of informality: The case of Dubai," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(3), pages 471-486, February.
    7. Nancy Odendaal, 2021. "Everyday urbanisms and the importance of place: Exploring the elements of the emancipatory smart city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(3), pages 639-654, February.
    8. Deen Sharp, 2022. "Haphazard urbanisation: Urban informality, politics and power in Egypt," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(4), pages 734-749, March.
    9. Stephen Graham & Simon Marvin, 2022. "Splintering Urbanism at 20 and the “Infrastructural Turn”," Journal of Urban Technology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 169-175, January.
    10. Ryan Burns & Victoria Fast & Anthony Levenda & Byron Miller, 2021. "Smart cities: Between worlding and provincialising," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(3), pages 461-470, February.
    11. Ezra Ho, 2017. "Smart subjects for a Smart Nation? Governing (smart)mentalities in Singapore," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 54(13), pages 3101-3118, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ryan Burns & Victoria Fast & Anthony Levenda & Byron Miller, 2021. "Smart cities: Between worlding and provincialising," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(3), pages 461-470, February.
    2. Byron Miller & Kevin Ward & Ryan Burns & Victoria Fast & Anthony Levenda, 2021. "Worlding and provincialising smart cities: From individual case studies to a global comparative research agenda," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(3), pages 655-673, February.
    3. Bipashyee Ghosh & Saurabh Arora, 2022. "Smart as (un)democratic? The making of a smart city imaginary in Kolkata, India," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 40(1), pages 318-339, February.
    4. Pooja Thomas, 2024. "Redesigning the relationship between heritage and city: Insights from the Gandhi Heritage Portal, Ahmedabad," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(6), pages 1111-1126, May.
    5. Matthew Cook & Andrew Karvonen, 2024. "Urban planning and the knowledge politics of the smart city," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(2), pages 370-382, February.
    6. Tooran Alizadeh & Deepti Prasad, 2024. "The right to the smart city in the Global South: A research agenda," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(3), pages 426-444, February.
    7. Ryan Anders Whitney & David López-García, 2023. "Fast-track institutionalization: The opening of urban planning best practice agencies in Mexico City," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 41(3), pages 600-616, May.
    8. Anthea van der Hoogen & Ifeoluwapo Fashoro & Andre P. Calitz & Lamla Luke, 2024. "A Digital Transformation Framework for Smart Municipalities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-28, February.
    9. Malini Ranganathan, 2014. "Paying for Pipes, Claiming Citizenship: Political Agency and Water Reforms at the Urban Periphery," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 590-608, March.
    10. Almeida, Renan P. & Hungaro, Lucas, 2021. "Water and sanitation governance between austerity and financialization," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    11. Ugo Rossi & Arturo Di Bella, 2017. "Start-up urbanism: New York, Rio de Janeiro and the global urbanization of technology-based economies," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(5), pages 999-1018, May.
    12. Christine Hentschel, 2015. "Postcolonializing Berlin and The Fabrication of The Urban," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(1), pages 79-91, January.
    13. Anguelovski, Isabelle & Martínez Alier, Joan, 2014. "The ‘Environmentalism of the Poor’ revisited: Territory and place in disconnected glocal struggles," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 167-176.
    14. Harshavardhan Jatkar, 2024. "BODIES AGAINST MODERNITY: Politics of Slum Rehabilitations in India," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(1), pages 111-125, January.
    15. Mikołaj Biesaga & Anna Domaradzka & Magdalena Roszczyńska-Kurasińska & Szymon Talaga & Andrzej Nowak, 2023. "The effect of the pandemic on European narratives on smart cities and surveillance," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(10), pages 1894-1914, August.
    16. Jane Zheng & Xiaohua Zheng, 2022. "Does Public Participation Matter to Planning? Urban Sculpture Reception in the Context of Elite-Led Planning in Shanghai," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-22, September.
    17. Catalina Ortiz, 2024. "Writing the Latin American city: Trajectories of urban scholarship," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(3), pages 399-425, February.
    18. Seth Schindler, 2014. "Producing and contesting the formal/informal divide: Regulating street hawking in Delhi, India," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(12), pages 2596-2612, September.
    19. Chihsin Chiu, 2024. "Greening informality through metabolic coordination: An urban political ecology of governing extralegal housing forms in Taiwan," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 61(6), pages 1127-1146, May.
    20. jiali, Wan & yanfang, Liu & xiaoling, Zhang, 2021. "Conflict in informal rural construction land transfer practices in China: A case of Hubei," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:61:y:2024:i:1:p:165-179. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/urbanstudiesjournal .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.