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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