**Apologies for cross-posting**
Dear Colleagues,
Please find a call for papers to our session on smart rural transformation and
regional inequalities at EUGEO 2025 in Vienna. STS approaches will be very
welcome!
EUGEO 2025 (8-11.9.2025, Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna)
*
Session 201 "Exploring the Links between Rural Smartification and
Digitalization: Regional Inequalities and Socio-spatial Exclusion"
*
Abstract submission deadline: January 20, 2025
*
Link: session overview (https://www.eugeo2025.eu/eugeo-2025-sessions/),
abstract submission: ConfTool
*
Session description: Smartification and digitalization processes mark an
ongoing societal change with important geographical implications. By ideally
contributing to a more sustainable, innovative and healthier life,
smartification is attributed many potentials for the future development of
places. Mainly developed in urban context, we focus on the question if these
promises hold true for rural areas? The session critically engages with the
prospects of smartification and digitalization in rural contexts. Moving
beyond dominant readings of smartification as rather technology-, market- and
urban-based, the session turns to interpretations of smart in rural
realities, paying particular attention to impacts on inequalities and
processes of exclusion. Despite recently receiving more academic attention,
smart rurality has often been under-recognized and subjected to an urban
smartification blueprint that does not necessarily fit rural realities or
undermines their agency in locally (re)interpreting smartification. Our
session thus proposes to focus on the possible socio-spatial divides
smartification strategies are embedded in and questions to what extend
smartification strategies incl. smart specialization, smart social
innovations, or smart village/countryside initiatives can overcome or are
further perpetuating these. We welcome both theoretical and inspiring
empirical studies that contribute to a new conceptualization of smartification
in non-urban contexts. The panel is meant as a discussion forum as well as a
platform to bring together recent research in the field and open opportunities
for future collaborations. In particular, we invite:
* critical reflections on dominant readings of smart rurality concepts
and their impacts on rural areas, including proposals for new interpretations
of smart, development and innovation
* empirical studies exploring aspects of rural power, agency and
exclusion in smart regional initiatives or local digitalization projects
* empirical studies on current uses of smart in rural areas,
including uses of and interactions with particular digital technologies
*
case studies that shed light on questions of inclusion, participation and
under-recognized examples of rural smartification and innovation
Best regards,
Bradley Loewen
Bradley Loewen, PhD
Onsager Fellow (Associate Professor) in STS and sustainability transitions
Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture (KULT)
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway |
bradley.loewen@ntnu.no |
http://www.ntnu.edu/employees/bradley.loewen
EASST's Eurograd mailing list -- eurograd-easst.net@lists.easst.net
Archive: https://lists.easst.net/hyperkitty/list/eurograd-easst.net@lists.easst.net/
Edit your delivery settings there using Account dropdown, Mailman settings.
Website: https://easst.net/easst_eurograd/
Meet us on Mastodon: https://assemblag.es/@easst
Or X: https://twitter.com/STSeasst
view formatted text
