Bachelor Thesis Topic: Exploring the digital city
Christine Richter
Nowadays digital technologies and data play a key role in the organization of cities: in planning,
management and administration, in the daily lives of urbanites, and in representations of the city in
through maps, databases, info-graphics, statistics, as well as in new concepts like “smart city.” This
project offers the opportunity to explore the role of digital technologies and data in the
contemporary city.
Rabari and Storper (2014, p.40) succinctly summarize the reasons for such research when they write
that “[t]he digital skin [of the city] is a nascent portfolio of technologies, still very young and the
implementation of these technologies is just beginning. As such, this is an optimal time to begin
understanding their potential for resolving problems and their potential unintended effects…
rigorous empirical research on the processes and effects of the digital skin is needed, and such
research must be framed by questions identified by social science theory” ("The digital skin of cities:
urban theory and research in the age of the sensored and metered city, ubiquitous computing and
big data." Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 8: 27–42)
Students can choose to follow one of three possible entry points to this kind of research.
1. Students may explore the role of digital technologies/data in urban governance. An
important tension here is that between safety and efficiency, on one hand, and the risks of
surveillance and hyper-regulation, on the other. A key question here pertains to how the
contemporary city is being made legible to authorities, private companies, and/or citizens,
for what purposes, and with what effects. Relevant topics include sensor systems to
monitor, improve, and secure traffic and people movements and safety, (preventive)
policing, and (ethnic) profiling.
Literature:
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Lyon, D. (2003) “Technology vs ‘Terrorism’: Circuits of City Surveillance since September 11th”. International
Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 27(3): 666-678.
Pentland, A. (2011). Society's nervous system: building effective government, energy, and public health systems.
Pervasive and Mobile Computing, 7(6): 643-659.
Richter, C. & Y. Georgiadou (2014). Practices of Legibility making in Indian Cities: Property Mapping Through
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Slum Listing in Government Schemes. Information Technology for
Development. DOI: 10.1080/02681102.2014.886548.
2. As a second entry point, students can explore the role of digital technologies/data in the
daily lives of urbanites. Here a main tension is that between inclusion and exclusion. A key
question here is, what (new) categories of citizens and places emerge in the digital city?
Relevant topics include the use of social media & mobile phones in the (re-)organization of
individual daily lives; the role of social media at neighborhood level (various online
neighborhood organizations that seek to foster cohesion or safety in the neighborhood);
limitations to access or use various digital technologies, for instance experienced by the
elderly, handicapped; the practices and reasons of people who choose to opt out from
digital technologies; or who are engaged in digital social movements and forms of
resistance.
Literature:
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Forlano, L. (2013) Making waves: Urban technology and the co-production of place. First Monday 18(11).
Papadimitriou, F. (2006) "A geography of ‘Notopia’". CITY, 10(3): 317-326.
Porter, G; et al (2015) "Intergenerational relations and the power of the cell phone: Perspectives on young
people’s phone usage in sub-Saharan Africa". Geoforum, 64: 37–46.
3.
Thirdly, the role of digital technologies/data in the discourses about the nature and future of
the city at an inter-national scale may be explored, and the transfer of technologies and
embedded rationales from the global north to south or vice versa. For instance, one may
ask, what does “smart city” mean in the US context versus the European or Indian context,
or how and why has the concept of “smart city” traveled across the world? How is are big
data initiatives implemented in north-south settings; and what implications does this have
for so called “development?”
Literature:
-
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Czarniawska, B. & G. Sevón (2005). "Translation is a vehicle, imitation its motor, and fashion sits at the wheel." In
B. Czarniawska and G. Sevón (editors). Global ideas - how ideas, objects and practices travel in the global
economy. Malmoe, Sweden: Liber & Copenhagen Business School Press: 7-12.
Soederstroem, O.; Paasche, T.; & F. Klauser (2014) “Smart cities as corporate storytelling.” CITY, 18 (3): 307–320.
Wiig, A. (2015) IBM's smart city as techno-utopian policy mobility. CITY, 19(2–3): 258–273.
Additional notes regarding this project:
Students are encouraged to use digital technologies/data in their own methodology and critically reflect on the
scientific representations created through the process of research.
The supervisor’s skills in technical terms lie in the application of GIS and digital cartography.
Supervisor’s theoretical focus derives from science and technology studies, (urban and regional) planning
theory, critical cartography/GIS, and information infrastructure/systems.
Supervisor reads and understands Dutch well, but may communicate part in English, part in Dutch. Students
can communicate in Dutch; and the thesis is written in Dutch (or if student wants to in English).