Taking as its starting point Henri Lefebvre’s apparently innocent concept of ‘the right to the city’ (Lefebvre 1968), this chapter speculates on how citizenship in relation to both access to and control over civic space is becoming nuanced and philosophically challenging with the insertion of the adjective ‘smart’, as a qualifier of the city. In particular, I am interested in the agency of individuals and communities as appropriators of the city when the space of the city moves online – how this may be both a threat to the historical autonomy of groups and individuals and also an opportunity for such autonomy. Central to the analysis offered here is Chantal Mouffe’s (2000) notion of agonism, as a way of conceptualizing how agency may be negotiable both between communities of interest and with controlling authorities – either in the form of the state, or the market.
Reeve, Alan R.
School of the Built Environment
Year of publication: 2022Date of RADAR deposit: 2024-08-06