ABSTRACT

This article 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 exist that are non-state and non-networked and sometimes integrate indicating digital technologies 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 by dwellers’ context-specific and nonlinear processes of place making.

摘要

本文通过研究在非正式城市环境中部署数字项目所产生的多样化和自发的基础设施配置，批判了智能城市主义的去语境化概念。我们对在内罗毕马萨雷谷推出的水自动取款机进行了实证检验，以突出三种类型的“网络之外的智能”：首先，水自动取款机证明了超越网络化城市供水的智能数字基础设施；其次，居民在采用和使用水自动取款机时，扰乱了他们原来的运作，在这个过程中，通过来自下方的破坏，使他们远离原来的设计；第三，其中存在预先存在的机制的持续表现，这些机制是非国家和非网络的，有时整合表明来自下方的数字技术异构连接和智能。总而言之，我们主张为智能数字基础设施解开南方和另类的愿景，考虑到在不同的城市环境中，智能不仅受到城市建设的霸权和雄心勃勃的表述，而且还受到居民特定环境和非线性过程的影响。地方制作。