Discovering smart: early encounters and negotiations with smart street furniture in London and Glasgow

Chesher, C., Hanchard, M. , Humphry, J., Merrington, P. , Gangneux, J. , Joss, S. , Maalsen, S. and Wessels, B. (2023) Discovering smart: early encounters and negotiations with smart street furniture in London and Glasgow. Digital Geography and Society, 4, 100055. (doi: 10.1016/j.diggeo.2023.100055)

Abstract

In the late 2010s, publics in the UK encountered new kinds of street furniture: Strawberry Energy Smart benches in London and InLinkUK kiosks in Glasgow, with smart features such as phone charging, free Wi-Fi, free phone calls, information screens and environmental data. This article analyses how smart street furniture is socially constructed by relevant social groups, each with different interests, forms of power and meanings. Smartness became associated not only with advanced technologies, but with a neoliberal agenda of private-public partnerships promising urban transformations, such as free devices for councils and citizens in exchange for access to advertising or sponsorship space in public places. The research examined the design, use and governance of new types of smart street furniture using mixed methods, including document analysis of promotional and regulatory texts, site observations of these devices, and interviews. We found that the uses and meanings of these devices were discovered at different moments by technology companies, local councils, and the public. Few members of the public knew about the devices, and showed little interest in them, even if they were the assumed users. An exception was gig workers and people experiencing homelessness who found uses for the smart features and a community activist who campaigned against these as surveillant and intrusive. Businesses and councils embraced smart city visions but took multiple approaches to agreements for the implementation and governance of smart street furniture. Notably, these more powerful groups discovered and negotiated the meanings of smart street furniture well before these were publicly encountered. This article reveals how a social construction of technology (SCOT) approach is strongest when it accounts for the relative power of social groups in struggles over meanings and resources. It provides empirical information on everyday sociotechnical encounters that provide nuanced evidence for wider critiques of smart city agendas.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work was supported by a USyd-Glasgow Partnership Collaboration Award (PCA) from The University of Sydney and The University of Glasgow (2019) as part of the ‘Smart publics: Exploring the social implications of smart street furniture’ project.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Wessels, Professor Bridgette and Joss, Professor Simon and Gangneux, Dr Justine and Merrington, Dr Peter and Hanchard, Dr Matthew
• Authors: Chesher, C., Hanchard, M., Humphry, J., Merrington, P., Gangneux, J., Joss, S., Maalsen, S., and Wessels, B.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences; College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Urban Studies
• Journal Name: Digital Geography and Society
• Publisher: Elsevier
• ISSN: 2666-3783
• ISSN (Online): 2666-3783
• Published Online: 06 March 2023
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2023 Crown Copyright
• First Published: First published in Digital Geography and Society 4: 100055
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License