Alan Wiig | University of Florida (original) (raw)
Papers by Alan Wiig
he relationship between data to space extends beyond the network equipment, services, and mobile ... more he relationship between data to space extends beyond the network equipment, services, and mobile devices that transmit and present information to a user. Pervasive wireless connectivity and ubiquitous computing, as ‘the cloud’ are central, common elements of contemporary urban life. Data centers translate, as it were, between individuals and their experience of the city by mediating experiences through digital augmentation. An example of this is Google Maps’ locative ability to place the user on the map and then orient said user to wherever they need to go
Bristol University Press eBooks, May 25, 2023
Planning Perspectives, Oct 11, 2017
This is a repository copy of The geopolitics of real estate: reconfiguring property, capital and ... more This is a repository copy of The geopolitics of real estate: reconfiguring property, capital and rights.
Routledge eBooks, Nov 30, 2020
Journal of Urban Technology, Mar 14, 2022
The paper critiques decontextualized notions of smart urbanism by examining the variegated and sp... more The paper critiques decontextualized notions of smart urbanism by examining the variegated and spontaneous infrastructural configurations stemming from the deployment of a digital project in an informal urban setting. We offer an empirical examination of the rollout of water ATMs in Mathare valley, Nairobi, to highlight three types of ‘smartness beyond the network’. First, where water ATMs evidence a smart digital infrastructure that transcends the networked urban water supply. Second, where residents, in their adoption and use of water ATMs, unsettle their original operation, in the process driving them further away from their original design through disruptions from below. And third, where persistent manifestations of pre-existing mechanisms that are non-state and non-networked and sometimes integrate digital technologies indicate heterogeneous articulations and smartness from below. In sum, we argue for unpacking Southern and alternative visions for smart digital infrastructure, considering that smartness, within diverse urban settings, is informed not just by hegemonic and aspirational articulations of city making, but also dwellers’ context-specific and nonlinear processes of place making.
Springer eBooks, Nov 21, 2017
Smartphones connect users to the Internet while on the move: these devices harness always-on wire... more Smartphones connect users to the Internet while on the move: these devices harness always-on wireless connectivity, powered by batteries in need of regular charging. Supporting the mobile communication of smartphones is the infrastructure of wireless connectivity and the global Internet itself. Both systems require not-insignificant amounts of electricity. Emerging social practices of using and charging smartphones in transit offer an entry point to theorizing energy needs surrounding information-communication technologies (ICTs) beyond home and workspaces, in public and in motion. An ethnographic travel narrative is presented, detailing charging practices in train stations in the Northeast United States, on trains, and the energy demand of a nearby data center. This narrative provides an overview of the merged infrastructures that facilitate new social practices and create new forms of energy demand.
Urban Geography
Over the last decade, scholarship on China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also called ... more Over the last decade, scholarship on China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also called the New Silk Road, has burgeoned. However, it is only recently that analysis has interrogated the BRI as a driver of global urban transformation. In this paper, we advance an indepth review of literature generated since 2013 that has critically examined relations between the BRI and urban-scale processes. Based on a categorization of studies into three areas, staging of the urban BRI, the building of BRI cities and living in BRI cities, we suggest that the urban is integral to the scope and impacts of the initiative. As the BRI goes into its second decade, we argue that BRI's infrastructural spaces can be seen as new landscapes where novel kinds of urbanization are emerging, influencing patterns of socio-spatial contestation, and demanding new narratives of social change to make sense of cityscapes and urban futures worldwide.
Bristol University Press eBooks, May 25, 2023
The Royal Albert Dock in London was transformed – not without controversy – from an abandoned ind... more The Royal Albert Dock in London was transformed – not without controversy – from an abandoned industrial waterfront into a node for Chinese multinational business, creating a hub of ‘Silk Road urbanism’ in the UK’s capital (ABP, 2017). The Royal Docks, inclusive of the Royal Albert Dock, have been a global infrastructure space since the 19th century, first as the maritime ‘heart of empire’ in imperial London, as a point for the ‘import and export of people’ and goods (Driver and Gilbert, 1998: 21). This repurposing of a globalized space is an exemplar of the epochal shifts in infrastructure that drive the urbanization process. After shutting in the 1960s due to ports shifting to standardized shipping containers, the Royal Docks sat derelict and as at the 2010s remained a large undeveloped parcel in the centre of London, showing all the hallmarks of urban and economic misalignment and obdurate infrastructure. The attention paid to the prospect of turning long-standing derelict land into a node of Chinese business highlighted the UK’s ambitions to reorder trade patterns towards Asia after the post-war decline of North Atlantic, industrial capitalism (Wallerstein, 1979) and more recently the geopolitical disruption of Brexit (Peters, 2018). The Royal Albert Dock may one day transform into a prominent node for global firms
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2022
Journal of Urban Technology, 2022
The paper critiques decontextualized notions of smart urbanism by examining the variegated and sp... more The paper critiques decontextualized notions of smart urbanism by examining the variegated and spontaneous infrastructural configurations stemming from the deployment of a digital project in an informal urban setting. We offer an empirical examination of the rollout of water ATMs in Mathare valley, Nairobi, to highlight three types of ‘smartness beyond the network’. First, where water ATMs evidence a smart digital infrastructure that transcends the networked urban water supply. Second, where residents, in their adoption and use of water ATMs, unsettle their original operation, in the process driving them further away from their original design through disruptions from below. And third, where persistent manifestations of pre-existing mechanisms that are non-state and non-networked and sometimes integrate digital technologies indicate heterogeneous articulations and smartness from below. In sum, we argue for unpacking Southern and alternative visions for smart digital infrastructure, considering that smartness, within diverse urban settings, is informed not just by hegemonic and aspirational articulations of city making, but also dwellers’ context-specific and nonlinear processes of place making.
lo Squaderno, 2019
Global infrastructures and logistical networks are being deployed as technologies of geopolitical... more Global infrastructures and logistical networks are being deployed as technologies of geopolitical intent and territorial ambition. Airports, free-trade zones, logistics warehouses and data centers, port expansions and shipping canal upgrades, continent-spanning road, rail and fuel transport projects have all become hallmarks of an infrastructure-led attempt to secure competing national visions of capitalist growth. We offer an illustrative case of the rise of the Belt and Road Initiative, through which China is reshaping the world economy, delineating new political and economic relationships that sidestep established patterns of trade, and signalling a new era where ‘the West’ is no longer the centre of connection, logistical circulation, and political power. Amid the uncertainty of a multi-polar world economy, examining global infrastructure offers a means of tracing out the contours of renewed political and economic turbulence.
Journal of Urban Technology, 2022
's Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condit... more 's Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition (2001) brought the study of infrastructure to the core of urban studies and inspired the "infrastructural turn" in the social sciences more widely. The book catalyzed a rich trove of research on how technology and society are implicated in the production of contemporary cities. More than any other publication, it has animated the socio-technical systems of water, energy, transport, and telecommunications as fundamental to the functioning and livability of cities. It has inspired scholars to seek out the vital processes and politics of the cables, wires, pipes, and roads that undergird urban development. The twentieth anniversary of the book provides a good opportunity to reflect on the impacts of the book and to consider the emerging trajectories of scholarship on urban infrastructure. Splintering Urbanism has taken on that rare quality in the history of urban thought and research in that it is both a text and an event. Of course, it is not the first book to focus on the relationship between the city and its infrastructure systems. It builds upon the work on large technical systems (
Inside Smart Cities, 2018
Smartphones, tablets, and laptops connect users to the digital services of the Internet (email, s... more Smartphones, tablets, and laptops connect users to the digital services of the Internet (email, social and locative media, etc.) while on the move: the operation of these networked devices harness always-on wireless, digital connectivity and are powered by batteries in need of regular charging. This digital overlay to everyday life cannot be separated from its underlying energy demands. Supporting ubiquitous digital communication is both the infrastructure of wireless connectivity but also the wired, global telecommunications systems of the Internet itself. These systems require not-insignificant amounts of electricity. Conceptualizing the energy demand of mobile communication begins by considering the interweaving of infrastructures with expectations of constant service pulsing through social practices of connectivity and charging. While the energy consumption of each device is low, the sheer number of devices in use aggregates higher, and ties into the energy consumption of digita...
Creating Smart Cities, 2018
Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2019
This article employs a social justice framing to examine youth perspectives of the smart city. We... more This article employs a social justice framing to examine youth perspectives of the smart city. We examine how youth understand the impact of digital technologies on urban transformations and whether their technology skills and digital literacy give them a sense of ownership over the future of their city. Research was conducted within the context of a six-week summer educational program involving seventy-nine youth of color from public high schools in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The program mixed digital skill building with urban fieldwork to prototype solutions to long-standing urban problems: the sort of problems that smart city policies also seek to change. Our research points to a conundrum for youth. Although they embraced technological innovations, they indicated that digital technologies failed to serve the public or address pressing concerns they identified as problematic within the city: crime, drugs, and homelessness. Instead, in their view, digital technologies delivered the most benefit to private spaces in the home and workplace. Furthermore, the youth did not envision that emergent technologies would improve their neighborhoods or communities but only their employment prospects. This research suggests that the emergent smart city is reproducing actual as well as perceived urban inequities: Wealthy residential neighborhoods and spaces of the new economy become "smart," but much of the city remains left behind. These patterns create a paradox for youth who invest in digital skills while remaining on the margins of technology-driven, smart urban change.
he relationship between data to space extends beyond the network equipment, services, and mobile ... more he relationship between data to space extends beyond the network equipment, services, and mobile devices that transmit and present information to a user. Pervasive wireless connectivity and ubiquitous computing, as ‘the cloud’ are central, common elements of contemporary urban life. Data centers translate, as it were, between individuals and their experience of the city by mediating experiences through digital augmentation. An example of this is Google Maps’ locative ability to place the user on the map and then orient said user to wherever they need to go
Bristol University Press eBooks, May 25, 2023
Planning Perspectives, Oct 11, 2017
This is a repository copy of The geopolitics of real estate: reconfiguring property, capital and ... more This is a repository copy of The geopolitics of real estate: reconfiguring property, capital and rights.
Routledge eBooks, Nov 30, 2020
Journal of Urban Technology, Mar 14, 2022
The paper critiques decontextualized notions of smart urbanism by examining the variegated and sp... more The paper critiques decontextualized notions of smart urbanism by examining the variegated and spontaneous infrastructural configurations stemming from the deployment of a digital project in an informal urban setting. We offer an empirical examination of the rollout of water ATMs in Mathare valley, Nairobi, to highlight three types of ‘smartness beyond the network’. First, where water ATMs evidence a smart digital infrastructure that transcends the networked urban water supply. Second, where residents, in their adoption and use of water ATMs, unsettle their original operation, in the process driving them further away from their original design through disruptions from below. And third, where persistent manifestations of pre-existing mechanisms that are non-state and non-networked and sometimes integrate digital technologies indicate heterogeneous articulations and smartness from below. In sum, we argue for unpacking Southern and alternative visions for smart digital infrastructure, considering that smartness, within diverse urban settings, is informed not just by hegemonic and aspirational articulations of city making, but also dwellers’ context-specific and nonlinear processes of place making.
Springer eBooks, Nov 21, 2017
Smartphones connect users to the Internet while on the move: these devices harness always-on wire... more Smartphones connect users to the Internet while on the move: these devices harness always-on wireless connectivity, powered by batteries in need of regular charging. Supporting the mobile communication of smartphones is the infrastructure of wireless connectivity and the global Internet itself. Both systems require not-insignificant amounts of electricity. Emerging social practices of using and charging smartphones in transit offer an entry point to theorizing energy needs surrounding information-communication technologies (ICTs) beyond home and workspaces, in public and in motion. An ethnographic travel narrative is presented, detailing charging practices in train stations in the Northeast United States, on trains, and the energy demand of a nearby data center. This narrative provides an overview of the merged infrastructures that facilitate new social practices and create new forms of energy demand.
Urban Geography
Over the last decade, scholarship on China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also called ... more Over the last decade, scholarship on China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also called the New Silk Road, has burgeoned. However, it is only recently that analysis has interrogated the BRI as a driver of global urban transformation. In this paper, we advance an indepth review of literature generated since 2013 that has critically examined relations between the BRI and urban-scale processes. Based on a categorization of studies into three areas, staging of the urban BRI, the building of BRI cities and living in BRI cities, we suggest that the urban is integral to the scope and impacts of the initiative. As the BRI goes into its second decade, we argue that BRI's infrastructural spaces can be seen as new landscapes where novel kinds of urbanization are emerging, influencing patterns of socio-spatial contestation, and demanding new narratives of social change to make sense of cityscapes and urban futures worldwide.
Bristol University Press eBooks, May 25, 2023
The Royal Albert Dock in London was transformed – not without controversy – from an abandoned ind... more The Royal Albert Dock in London was transformed – not without controversy – from an abandoned industrial waterfront into a node for Chinese multinational business, creating a hub of ‘Silk Road urbanism’ in the UK’s capital (ABP, 2017). The Royal Docks, inclusive of the Royal Albert Dock, have been a global infrastructure space since the 19th century, first as the maritime ‘heart of empire’ in imperial London, as a point for the ‘import and export of people’ and goods (Driver and Gilbert, 1998: 21). This repurposing of a globalized space is an exemplar of the epochal shifts in infrastructure that drive the urbanization process. After shutting in the 1960s due to ports shifting to standardized shipping containers, the Royal Docks sat derelict and as at the 2010s remained a large undeveloped parcel in the centre of London, showing all the hallmarks of urban and economic misalignment and obdurate infrastructure. The attention paid to the prospect of turning long-standing derelict land into a node of Chinese business highlighted the UK’s ambitions to reorder trade patterns towards Asia after the post-war decline of North Atlantic, industrial capitalism (Wallerstein, 1979) and more recently the geopolitical disruption of Brexit (Peters, 2018). The Royal Albert Dock may one day transform into a prominent node for global firms
HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2022
Journal of Urban Technology, 2022
The paper critiques decontextualized notions of smart urbanism by examining the variegated and sp... more The paper critiques decontextualized notions of smart urbanism by examining the variegated and spontaneous infrastructural configurations stemming from the deployment of a digital project in an informal urban setting. We offer an empirical examination of the rollout of water ATMs in Mathare valley, Nairobi, to highlight three types of ‘smartness beyond the network’. First, where water ATMs evidence a smart digital infrastructure that transcends the networked urban water supply. Second, where residents, in their adoption and use of water ATMs, unsettle their original operation, in the process driving them further away from their original design through disruptions from below. And third, where persistent manifestations of pre-existing mechanisms that are non-state and non-networked and sometimes integrate digital technologies indicate heterogeneous articulations and smartness from below. In sum, we argue for unpacking Southern and alternative visions for smart digital infrastructure, considering that smartness, within diverse urban settings, is informed not just by hegemonic and aspirational articulations of city making, but also dwellers’ context-specific and nonlinear processes of place making.
lo Squaderno, 2019
Global infrastructures and logistical networks are being deployed as technologies of geopolitical... more Global infrastructures and logistical networks are being deployed as technologies of geopolitical intent and territorial ambition. Airports, free-trade zones, logistics warehouses and data centers, port expansions and shipping canal upgrades, continent-spanning road, rail and fuel transport projects have all become hallmarks of an infrastructure-led attempt to secure competing national visions of capitalist growth. We offer an illustrative case of the rise of the Belt and Road Initiative, through which China is reshaping the world economy, delineating new political and economic relationships that sidestep established patterns of trade, and signalling a new era where ‘the West’ is no longer the centre of connection, logistical circulation, and political power. Amid the uncertainty of a multi-polar world economy, examining global infrastructure offers a means of tracing out the contours of renewed political and economic turbulence.
Journal of Urban Technology, 2022
's Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condit... more 's Splintering Urbanism: Networked Infrastructures, Technological Mobilities and the Urban Condition (2001) brought the study of infrastructure to the core of urban studies and inspired the "infrastructural turn" in the social sciences more widely. The book catalyzed a rich trove of research on how technology and society are implicated in the production of contemporary cities. More than any other publication, it has animated the socio-technical systems of water, energy, transport, and telecommunications as fundamental to the functioning and livability of cities. It has inspired scholars to seek out the vital processes and politics of the cables, wires, pipes, and roads that undergird urban development. The twentieth anniversary of the book provides a good opportunity to reflect on the impacts of the book and to consider the emerging trajectories of scholarship on urban infrastructure. Splintering Urbanism has taken on that rare quality in the history of urban thought and research in that it is both a text and an event. Of course, it is not the first book to focus on the relationship between the city and its infrastructure systems. It builds upon the work on large technical systems (
Inside Smart Cities, 2018
Smartphones, tablets, and laptops connect users to the digital services of the Internet (email, s... more Smartphones, tablets, and laptops connect users to the digital services of the Internet (email, social and locative media, etc.) while on the move: the operation of these networked devices harness always-on wireless, digital connectivity and are powered by batteries in need of regular charging. This digital overlay to everyday life cannot be separated from its underlying energy demands. Supporting ubiquitous digital communication is both the infrastructure of wireless connectivity but also the wired, global telecommunications systems of the Internet itself. These systems require not-insignificant amounts of electricity. Conceptualizing the energy demand of mobile communication begins by considering the interweaving of infrastructures with expectations of constant service pulsing through social practices of connectivity and charging. While the energy consumption of each device is low, the sheer number of devices in use aggregates higher, and ties into the energy consumption of digita...
Creating Smart Cities, 2018
Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 2019
This article employs a social justice framing to examine youth perspectives of the smart city. We... more This article employs a social justice framing to examine youth perspectives of the smart city. We examine how youth understand the impact of digital technologies on urban transformations and whether their technology skills and digital literacy give them a sense of ownership over the future of their city. Research was conducted within the context of a six-week summer educational program involving seventy-nine youth of color from public high schools in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The program mixed digital skill building with urban fieldwork to prototype solutions to long-standing urban problems: the sort of problems that smart city policies also seek to change. Our research points to a conundrum for youth. Although they embraced technological innovations, they indicated that digital technologies failed to serve the public or address pressing concerns they identified as problematic within the city: crime, drugs, and homelessness. Instead, in their view, digital technologies delivered the most benefit to private spaces in the home and workplace. Furthermore, the youth did not envision that emergent technologies would improve their neighborhoods or communities but only their employment prospects. This research suggests that the emergent smart city is reproducing actual as well as perceived urban inequities: Wealthy residential neighborhoods and spaces of the new economy become "smart," but much of the city remains left behind. These patterns create a paradox for youth who invest in digital skills while remaining on the margins of technology-driven, smart urban change.
Smartphones, tablets, and laptops connect users to the digital services of the Internet (email, s... more Smartphones, tablets, and laptops connect users to the digital services of the Internet (email, social and locative media, etc.) while on the move: the operation of these networked devices harness always-on wireless, digital connectivity and are powered by batteries in need of regular charging. This digital overlay to everyday life cannot be separated from its underlying energy demands. Supporting ubiquitous digital communication is both the infrastructure of wireless connectivity but also the wired, global telecommunications systems of the Internet itself. These systems require not-insignificant amounts of electricity. Conceptualizing the energy demand of mobile communication begins by considering the interweaving of infrastructures with expectations of constant service pulsing through social practices of connectivity and charging. While the energy consumption of each device is low, the sheer number of devices in use aggregates higher, and ties into the energy consumption of digital systems themselves. Emerging social practices of charging smartphones in transit offer an entry-point to theorizing the energy needs surrounding information and communication technologies beyond home and workspaces, in public and in motion. The widespread adoption and constant use of smartphones signal the end-point of electricity consumption patterns as well as digital services stretching globally yet relying on locally-generated, co-produced electricity and digital infrastructures at the same time. Nested case studies of charging practices in train stations in the Northeast United States, on trains passing through these stations, and finally an examination of the electricity use of a prominent Philadelphia data center provide an overview of how the powering of smartphone batteries and the Internet represent conjoined infrastructures and, as such, frameworks for new practices to develop that create qualitatively new forms of energy demand. Introduction: Charging smartphone batteries, powering the Internet From cell phones to stem cells, stuff of all kinds increasingly makes us what we are.-Braun and Whatmore (2010, x) For many if not most people, the experience of travel goes metaphorically and literally hand-in-hand with a constant connection to a smartphone or other mobile computing device.
How to Run a City like Amazon, and Other Fables, 2019
This is a speculative fiction article that is a satire imagining a couple seeking a new place to ... more This is a speculative fiction article that is a satire imagining a couple seeking a new place to live that has been regenerated in part using a militarised surveillance regime. For more information and to read the rest of the chapters in the book, visit: https://meatspacepress.com/
Conversation, 2019
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China’s ambition to reshape the world economy has sparked... more China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China’s ambition to reshape the world economy has sparked massive infrastructure projects spanning all the way from Western Europe to East Africa, and beyond. The nation is engaging in what we, in our research, call “Silk Road urbanism” – reimagining the historic transcontinental trade route as a global project, to bring the cities of South Asia, East Africa, Europe and South America into the orbit of the Chinese economy.
By forging infrastructure within and between key cities, China is changing the everyday lives of millions across the world
by losquaderno_ journal, Niccolò Cuppini, Mattia Frapporti, Maurilio Pirone, Michael Zinganel, nancy couling, Carola Hein, Alessandro Peregalli, Matthew Hockenberry, Andrea Bottalico, Alan Wiig, Evelina Gambino, and Daniela Leonardi
The paper critiques decontextualized notions of smart urbanism by examining the variegated and sp... more The paper critiques decontextualized notions of smart urbanism by examining the variegated and spontaneous infrastructural configurations stemming from the deployment of a digital project in an informal urban setting. We offer an empirical examination of the rollout of water ATMs in Mathare valley, Nairobi, to highlight three types of ‘smartness beyond the network’. First, where water ATMs evidence a smart digital infrastructure that transcends the networked urban water supply. Second, where residents, in their adoption and use of water ATMs, unsettle their original operation, in the process driving them further away from their original design through disruptions from below. And third, where persistent manifestations of pre-existing mechanisms that are non-state and non-networked and sometimes integrate digital technologies indicate heterogeneous articulations and smartness from below. In sum, we argue for unpacking Southern and alternative visions for smart digital infrastructure, considering that smartness, within diverse urban settings, is informed not just by hegemonic and aspirational articulations of city making, but also dwellers’ context-specific and nonlinear processes of place making.
Infrastructuring Urban Futures The Politics of Remaking Cities, 2023
The Royal Albert Dock in London was transformed – not without controversy – from an abandoned ind... more The Royal Albert Dock in London was transformed – not without controversy – from an abandoned industrial waterfront into a node for Chinese multinational business, creating a hub of ‘Silk Road urbanism’ in the UK’s capital (ABP, 2017). The Royal Docks, inclusive of the Royal Albert Dock, have been a global infrastructure space since the 19th century, first as the maritime ‘heart of empire’ in imperial London, as a point for the ‘import and export of people’ and goods (Driver and Gilbert, 1998: 21). This repurposing of a globalized space is an exemplar of the epochal shifts in infrastructure that drive the urbanization process. After shutting in the 1960s due to ports shifting to standardized shipping containers, the Royal Docks sat derelict and as at the 2010s remained a large undeveloped parcel in the centre of London, showing all the hallmarks of urban and economic misalignment and obdurate infrastructure. The attention paid to the prospect of turning long-standing derelict land into a node of Chinese business highlighted the UK’s ambitions to reorder trade patterns towards Asia after the post-war decline of North Atlantic, industrial capitalism (Wallerstein, 1979) and more recently the geopolitical disruption of Brexit (Peters, 2018). The Royal Albert Dock may one day transform into a prominent node for global firms