(En) coding care into digital urbanism: Vignettes of collective practices

The tech-entrepreneurial model behind the computation of urban processes is (re) producing what has already been identified as a technocratic, solutionist, and commodifying model of urban planning. Within this model, not only is care no longer a prerequisite for urban production, but decades of smar...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Niloufar Vadiati, Letizia Chiappini, Martin Bangratz
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2025-06-01
Series:Digital Geography and Society
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Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666378325000091
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Summary:The tech-entrepreneurial model behind the computation of urban processes is (re) producing what has already been identified as a technocratic, solutionist, and commodifying model of urban planning. Within this model, not only is care no longer a prerequisite for urban production, but decades of smartification and platformization have been diminishing the spaces, infrastructures, and socio-economic relations that were co-produced to enable care.Through the lens of feminist geography, care is examined as a multidimensional concept encompassing socio-spatial dynamics, power relations, and ethical urban practices. Using empirical data from three research projects, the study showcases alternative digital urbanism practices, categorized into three vignettes: refusal, commoning, and reappropriation. These categories are illustrated with cases such as grassroots food cooperatives, feminist hack-spaces, digital sovereignty initiatives, platform-based welfare experiments and civil society initiatives such as Code for Germany.By situating care within the spatial and social fabric of urban life, the paper argues for its potential as a politic, practice, and epistemology that challenges the exploitative logic of contemporary digital infrastructures. The findings reveal the embeddedness of care practices within local contexts, highlighting the dual need for trans-local networks and territorial embeddedness. This study contributes to the discourse on caring digital urbanism, advancing a feminist theorisation of everyday digital urbanism.
ISSN:2666-3783