In this blog, originally published on Medium, 3S member Nickhil Sharma shares his insights from an exploratory workshop on embedding intersectionality in policy research that he organised, together with Rachel Mills, during his research secondment with the energy policy team at Citizens Advice.
3S researchers Nickhil Sharma, Tom Hargreaves and Helen Pallett have a new Open Access article published in the journal Buildings and Cities on ‘Social justice implications of smart urban technologies: an intersectional approach’. The article demonstrates how, despite claims that ‘smart urban technologies’ will solve multiple urban crises, narratives around ‘smart urbanism’ (SU) often end up reinforcing and deepening existing inequalities by prioritizing market interests and data monetization over the rights and interests of marginalised groups. The article calls for a comprehensive analysis of social justice concerns in SU and develops a novel intersectional approach for doing so. It uses this approach to map and analyse 70 cases of opposition, alternatives, and glitches with smart urban technologies from around the world.
A blog post by 3S PhD student Sara Skarp reflecting on her trips to several academic conferences this summer. “Climate change is a lost battle”, human ecologist Alf Hornborg said. The people in the audience at the Degrowth conference seemed shocked, but I suspect that he was echoing secret fears. Is this what we are…