Gendering the smart city: A subaltern curation network on Gender Based Violence (GBV) in India
Lead Research Organisation:
University College London
Department Name: Geography
Abstract
This two-year research network interweaves urban studies, feminist geography and digital humanities to critically engage with the smart city agenda on women's safety and gender based violence (GBV). It is timely and innovative in approach by bringing together a multidisciplinary collective of feminist and urban geographers, ICT initiatives, feminist NGOs and media artists from UK and India. It shifts the debates around smart urban futures in the global north by focusing on highly marginalized and invisible subaltern citizens of the global south - GBV survivors living in slums and informal settlements of Delhi and Bengaluru. It identifies and addresses the faultlines in current smart city agendas, which seek to resolve key societal challenges of GBV through the technocratic rationality of crowdsourced safety apps.
This network draws upon urban studies debates to move away from a 'one size fits all' (Kitchin 2015) critique to examine the diversity of 'actually existing smart cities' (Shelton et. al. 2014) in India. It draws upon feminist geography debates on GBV as 'a form of political, institutional and economic violence' (McIllwaine 2013, 66) and combines the liminality of cyberspace with that of everyday corporeality (Madge and O'Connor 2005) to enable an embodied and gendered approach to the smart city. It uses digital humanities methods to develop the notion of a 'data body' (Critical Art Ensemble 1995) - a virtual entity that is unencumbered by the real and imagined boundaries which structure and control women's everyday experiences with GBV.
The network activities will be delivered through two city stakeholder workshops in Delhi and Bengaluru which will share knowledge, build capacity and explore how their smart city agendas of creating safe and sustainable cities can be gendered through the voices, experiences and digital practices of GBV survivors. In particular, each workshop will explore how the existing big data on GBV collected from different sources can be creatively curated. The focus of each workshop will be an interactive digital installation on the gender smart city, co-produced by digital artists and GBV survivors. The network will culminate in a symposium and exhibition in London to foster long-term international collaborations on gendering the smart city across UK and India.
Through these activities, the network will answer three research questions.
1: How are smart city agendas addressing challenges of safe cities? We will examine smart city visions, policies, projects and technologies of Delhi and Bengaluru to understand how they aim to address GBV across public and private spaces and deliver on NUA and SDG goals on Gender Equality and New Technologies.
2: What are the 'hotspots' and 'blindspots' of gendered big data on GBV? We will work with our societal partner, to examine the social and spatial unevenness of the gendered big data in their Safetipin app. This currently stands at crowdsourced safety audits of over 50,000 geolocations in Delhi and 10,000 in Bengaluru. We will focus particularly on the invisibility of this data in slums and informal settlements in both cities. in order to understand the reasons behind this we will engage with a range of stakeholders from smart city experts, law enforcement to grassroots GBV organisations.
3: How can the data-driven smart city be gendered by GBV survivors? Through our networks in NGOs we will work with GBV survivors in slums by using digital humanities methods (such as networked narratives, garment testimonials, campaign hashtags and augmented mapping) to build specific capabilities for freedom as fundamental rights of all citizens (Nussbaum 2006).
The network outcomes will include a project website for knowledge exchange supported by regular social media engagements. Academic outputs include a special issue in a high-impact refereed journal and the development of long term collaborations through a larger research grant application.
This network draws upon urban studies debates to move away from a 'one size fits all' (Kitchin 2015) critique to examine the diversity of 'actually existing smart cities' (Shelton et. al. 2014) in India. It draws upon feminist geography debates on GBV as 'a form of political, institutional and economic violence' (McIllwaine 2013, 66) and combines the liminality of cyberspace with that of everyday corporeality (Madge and O'Connor 2005) to enable an embodied and gendered approach to the smart city. It uses digital humanities methods to develop the notion of a 'data body' (Critical Art Ensemble 1995) - a virtual entity that is unencumbered by the real and imagined boundaries which structure and control women's everyday experiences with GBV.
The network activities will be delivered through two city stakeholder workshops in Delhi and Bengaluru which will share knowledge, build capacity and explore how their smart city agendas of creating safe and sustainable cities can be gendered through the voices, experiences and digital practices of GBV survivors. In particular, each workshop will explore how the existing big data on GBV collected from different sources can be creatively curated. The focus of each workshop will be an interactive digital installation on the gender smart city, co-produced by digital artists and GBV survivors. The network will culminate in a symposium and exhibition in London to foster long-term international collaborations on gendering the smart city across UK and India.
Through these activities, the network will answer three research questions.
1: How are smart city agendas addressing challenges of safe cities? We will examine smart city visions, policies, projects and technologies of Delhi and Bengaluru to understand how they aim to address GBV across public and private spaces and deliver on NUA and SDG goals on Gender Equality and New Technologies.
2: What are the 'hotspots' and 'blindspots' of gendered big data on GBV? We will work with our societal partner, to examine the social and spatial unevenness of the gendered big data in their Safetipin app. This currently stands at crowdsourced safety audits of over 50,000 geolocations in Delhi and 10,000 in Bengaluru. We will focus particularly on the invisibility of this data in slums and informal settlements in both cities. in order to understand the reasons behind this we will engage with a range of stakeholders from smart city experts, law enforcement to grassroots GBV organisations.
3: How can the data-driven smart city be gendered by GBV survivors? Through our networks in NGOs we will work with GBV survivors in slums by using digital humanities methods (such as networked narratives, garment testimonials, campaign hashtags and augmented mapping) to build specific capabilities for freedom as fundamental rights of all citizens (Nussbaum 2006).
The network outcomes will include a project website for knowledge exchange supported by regular social media engagements. Academic outputs include a special issue in a high-impact refereed journal and the development of long term collaborations through a larger research grant application.
Planned Impact
This project lies at the intersection of a number of UN policies on ICT4development, SDG and NUA commitments, Safer Cities (See ODA compliance statement) and its main beneficiaries are GBV survivors in informal settlements. It seeks engagement with five distinct communities of interest, namely: 1). Inter/Government departments/agencies, 2). third-sector organisations, 3). ICT and Cultural industries; 4) Built environment professionals and 5) GBV survivors. Each of these communities is directly involved and impacted by the research project either through informing the design, delivery and involvement in the city workshops and/or in the production of the digital art installation.
1) Inter/Government depts. and agencies (UN Women, Delhi Women and Child Development; Delhi Commissioner for Women; Karnataka State Commission for Women): Stakeholders in this group often see GBV survivors at best as passive victims worthy of state policy and interventions and at worst as those complicit in their own experience of GBV. The smart city agenda has reinforced this through the use of crowdsourced digital technology as a means to address GBV and create safe cities, which has sidelined key challenges in institutional forms of victim blaming. The workshops will provide a space to these stakeholders to debate and confront in a mutually respectful environment, the diversity of ways to address GBV within the smart city agenda.
2) Third sector organisations, grassroots collectives and NGOs working with GBV survivors (Jagori; Sangat South Asian Feminist network; Breakthrough, Vimochana): The network will provide a way to connect to other stakeholders through the workshops and the digital installations. It will provide a space for collaboration, knowledge exchange, advocacy and policy influence in addressing GBV.
3) ICT and Creative industries (Safetipin, Revue, Blank Noise): the network will include them as multidisciplinary collaborators, leading on various aspects of the pathways to impact (see document). Their involvement will bring arts and humanities approaches to work with ICT to shift societal perceptions on GBV. The network will also provide them with information on the disconnect between the nature of gendered big data on GBV and the actually existing experiences and complexities of GBV in public and private spaces. It will provide a multidisciplinary space and platform to address complex global problems of GBV through creative practice.
4) Built environment professionals, architects and planners will find the network useful as a way to understand the scope and limitations of design in creating safe cities. There is a common assumption within this sector that crime prevention in the context of GBV is a design problem, hence solutions from this sector has tended to propose street lighting, placemaking, public toilets and so on as pathways to reducing GBV. The network will highlight the interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach required to address GBV in both private and public spaces, where design is only one aspect of a complex array of forces required to tackle GBV. It will provide a space to confront and debate the role of design of smart cities in shifting societal attitudes towards GBV.
5) GBV survivors: the network will provide ethical and confidential space to GBV survivors to speak in their own voice, claim agency and transform their identity from victimhood to rights claiming citizens. It will provide a supportive and confidential environment to work with digital technology and art to co-create installations that will give confidence and creative agency to claim a gendered right to the smart city. It will also provide them the opportunity to participate in the supportive environment of the stakeholder workshops to draw attention to the complex temporal and spatial marginalisations that frame their experiences in the future smart city.
1) Inter/Government depts. and agencies (UN Women, Delhi Women and Child Development; Delhi Commissioner for Women; Karnataka State Commission for Women): Stakeholders in this group often see GBV survivors at best as passive victims worthy of state policy and interventions and at worst as those complicit in their own experience of GBV. The smart city agenda has reinforced this through the use of crowdsourced digital technology as a means to address GBV and create safe cities, which has sidelined key challenges in institutional forms of victim blaming. The workshops will provide a space to these stakeholders to debate and confront in a mutually respectful environment, the diversity of ways to address GBV within the smart city agenda.
2) Third sector organisations, grassroots collectives and NGOs working with GBV survivors (Jagori; Sangat South Asian Feminist network; Breakthrough, Vimochana): The network will provide a way to connect to other stakeholders through the workshops and the digital installations. It will provide a space for collaboration, knowledge exchange, advocacy and policy influence in addressing GBV.
3) ICT and Creative industries (Safetipin, Revue, Blank Noise): the network will include them as multidisciplinary collaborators, leading on various aspects of the pathways to impact (see document). Their involvement will bring arts and humanities approaches to work with ICT to shift societal perceptions on GBV. The network will also provide them with information on the disconnect between the nature of gendered big data on GBV and the actually existing experiences and complexities of GBV in public and private spaces. It will provide a multidisciplinary space and platform to address complex global problems of GBV through creative practice.
4) Built environment professionals, architects and planners will find the network useful as a way to understand the scope and limitations of design in creating safe cities. There is a common assumption within this sector that crime prevention in the context of GBV is a design problem, hence solutions from this sector has tended to propose street lighting, placemaking, public toilets and so on as pathways to reducing GBV. The network will highlight the interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder approach required to address GBV in both private and public spaces, where design is only one aspect of a complex array of forces required to tackle GBV. It will provide a space to confront and debate the role of design of smart cities in shifting societal attitudes towards GBV.
5) GBV survivors: the network will provide ethical and confidential space to GBV survivors to speak in their own voice, claim agency and transform their identity from victimhood to rights claiming citizens. It will provide a supportive and confidential environment to work with digital technology and art to co-create installations that will give confidence and creative agency to claim a gendered right to the smart city. It will also provide them the opportunity to participate in the supportive environment of the stakeholder workshops to draw attention to the complex temporal and spatial marginalisations that frame their experiences in the future smart city.
Publications
Datta A
(2020)
Self(ie)-governance: Technologies of intimate surveillance in India under COVID-19
in Dialogues in Human Geography
Datta A
(2022)
'Thick time': Experiments with feminist urban futures in community podcasts
in Geoforum
Datta A
(2021)
Curating #AanaJaana [#ComingGoing]: gendered authorship in the 'contact zone' of Delhi's digital and urban margins
in cultural geographies
Datta A
(2020)
The "Smart Safe City": Gendered Time, Speed, and Violence in the Margins of India's Urban Age
in Annals of the American Association of Geographers
Datta A
(2019)
How to Run a City Like Amazon, and Other Fables
| Title | Community podcasts |
| Description | Humari Kahani, Humari Zubaani is a community podcast on different aspects of life made by women from Khadar and Bawana,New Delhi. The podcast was conceptualized and recorded by the women using only their cell phones in the peak of the coronavirus pandemic in late 2020. |
| Type Of Art | Performance (Music, Dance, Drama, etc) |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | Stimulate debates on the everyday gender impacts of COVID19 |
| URL | https://soundcloud.com/gendersmartcity |
| Title | Gendering Covid19 technologies in India |
| Description | A short animated film that looks at the gendered impacts of COVID19 in India, through the eyes of Mala and Lakshmi - two friends in Bengaluru who have been separated due to a nation-wide lockdown. Their conversations through voice notes give us a glimpse into the new challenges that people, especially from the more marginalised communities, have had to face while adjusting to the 'new normal'. |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Impact | Republished in RGS-IBG online magazine Geography Directions. https://blog.geographydirections.com/2021/01/25/gendering-covid19-in-india-1/ |
| URL | https://youtu.be/EGkEL1atdhc |
| Description | Key Findings: 1. The project has identified that SDGs #5 and #11 can only be addressed if we understand that the boundaries between digital and physical spaces are completely blurred, and therefore violence has a continuum across these two sites. From the WhatsApp diary method, it was clear that young women use their phones constantly to navigate the routes between their homes and the city. In doing so, friendships, solidarities and networks spill over from digital to physical spaces and vice versa. It is also clear that online violence is becoming a significant issue, and this violence emerges often from their home or public transport or public spaces in the city and then moves into network spaces through cyber bullying, online stalking and so on. 2. For those in the margins, technology can be a tool of empowerment and medium to speak back to the city. Our research participants use their mobile phones to witness, curate and speak back to the city in our WhatsApp diaries. They show that even with use of cheaper android mobile phones, technology now has a role to play in documenting marginal lives and experiences of the city. 3. Art and music can be a form of expression for the poor to draw attention to the issues left neglected by the city authorities. The co-production of the hip-hop music video illustrated the immense impact that cultural and artistic practice can have in drawing attention to issues that have been neglected for a very long time. Since the circulation of the hip hop video, there has been increased attention paid by the media and third sector in campaigning for infrastructural provision in the peripheries as well as paying attention to issues of gender safety and violence. 4. The project highlighted the disjunctures between the rationality and efficiencies in time that the smart city promises, and its continuous tensions with the temporality and precarity of life in the margins. While the smartphone offers speed and the luxury of time to the middle-classes, the women in the peripheries continuously struggle for and against time. they suffer from huge time poverties and keeping up with time in the absence of infrastructure is a new inequality of the margins. 5. The project has found that in order to address the SDGs #5 and #11, more attention needs to be paid to addressing inequalities in the urban peripheries. On the one hand the peripheries are marked by lack of access to infrastructure - water, sanitation, energy, public transport and so on. On the other hand, their network connectivity through mobile phone makes them part of a wider network of knowledge and information which ultimately makes young women aware of their gender rights and entitlements from the state. This leads to increased consciousness and rights claims for infrastructure and gender safety. 6. In order to address SDG#5, it is important to understand how technology is used, rather than counting mere access to technology by women. Most of the women we worked with had mobile phones, but their use of the phone and capacity to access knowledge and information through the phone was considerably different from other middle-class groups. They often used the phone for creating networks and solidarities through social media, yet were unable to access browsers or government schemes which would give them benefits or services. Claims making from the government or municipality was not through city e-governance portals, rather through face-to-face protests or campaigns. 7. As a result of the COVID19 lockdown, we co-produced a series of community podcasts with participants who were locked inside their homes in order to tell the story of their struggles. This has led to the creation of a podcast toolkit which has been shared with our partners and third sector networks. |
| Exploitation Route | 1. The outcomes have been taken forward by our third sector partner organisations in learning from our methods and concepts. The WhatsApp diary method developed by the research team has been instrumental in shaping the methods of our partner Jagori in the field. The exhibition and hip-hop song have provided creative insights into the possibility of co-production which is being followed up through street theatres and open-air performances. 2. This project has immense promise for arts based initiatives to bring about transformative change in the grassroots. It has particular resonances with methods of using digital spaces for co-production of artefacts. The screening and discussion of the film and exhibition across the arts and cultural sector hold promise for how new digital enhanced methods of narrative storytelling may evolve. 3. The impacts of the COVID19 while crippling for our participants and Third sector partners in accessing and delivering services nonetheless produced unexpected creative outputs that speak back to the city. During the pandemic our partners organised a series of online training workshops, where the participants co-produced a series of community podcasts titled 'Humari Kahani, humari zubani' [our stories, our voice] through which they engaged in digital storytelling of their struggles during COVID19. The team has created a podcast toolkit which will be taken forward by the partners in training and co-producing community podcasts in the future. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy |
| URL | https://gendersmartcity.com |
| Description | This project has had significant impacts on India, which is a DAC country. The impact has been across two scales - transforming the strategies, aims and practices of third sector organisations and the lives of the research participants. Transforming the work of third sector organisations, particularly that of our project partner Jagori (a feminist NGO) 1. The project deepened their analysis and articulation of feminist activism and campaigning, giving a 'new lease of life' to long standing work with young women in Madanpur Khadar, a slum resettlement colony in Delhi's edge. 2. It strengthened their understanding of the potential of partnerships between academics, technology and activism 3. Providing them with specific methodological approaches such as WhatsApp diary method, policy briefing and community podcast toolkits. 4. Jagori is now expanding the multi-dimensional approach taken in the project to other communities where they work, in particular adopting the WhatsApp method to crate personal experiences of violence among women in other resettlement colonies. 5. The project helped Jagori build a wider dissemination strategy working with media professionals, electronic and social media. Transforming the lives of women in Delhi's slum resettlement colonies and empowering them. 1. The project gave young women living in the urban margins the opportunity to 'speak' through technology, gave importance to their stories and made them count through a public exhibition, hip-hop song and community podcasts. In doing so, it also gave them confidence and empowered them to clam their rights from their families, from the city as well as from the state. 2. The project highlighted the absence of spaces of leisure for young women from poorer neighbourhoods. The data from WhatsApp diaries and Safetipin method articulated this gap thus giving space to women to claim their right to a city for pleasure and not just for work. Through the project women travelled to different parts of the city for workshops and invariably these workshop days became days of heightened excitement and activity and ultimately the awareness that these spaces were unavailable to the women. 3. "The methods used in the research were safe and supportive of women's everyday experiences. The WhatsApp diaries, did not demand too much digital capacity yet was flexible enough to accommodate a diversity of media (text, audio, video and photos) for communication across a closed group. When women shared their everyday stories in the closed WhatsApp group they felt a strong sense of solidarity and support knowing they were not alone in facing these struggles. 4. The music co-production was transformative since it enabled them to "learn about each other, talk about themselves, and give a message to others". The music upheld their feelings as valid and made them reflect on some of they own personal relationships with family members, and seek to change them. 5. While otherwise people in resettlement colonies do not necessarily listen to women's opinions, filming the music video on the streets itself was transformative for gender power relationships in their families and community. People began to identify them on the streets and when national newspapers reported on their hip hop song, neighbours and acquantainces approached them to say how proud they were. It made participants feel that although they might have considered their stories insignificant, they could tell it to the world and bring change in others' lives. 6. Although initially some of their parents were hesitant for them to join in the video, the transformative change in families was apparent when their parents asked relatives in their village to watch the video on Youtube. 7. The co-production of community podcasts was transformative in developing participants' digital capacity and skills, as well as to train in articulating their struggles in their own voices. 8. Co-production and participation in the project were inherently transformative at all levels. It made the participants feel and express solidarity towards one another, it made them feel safe in expressing their feelings, it made them feel as if they could make a difference and most of all they said this was the most 'fun' project they have worked on.Most importantly, they felt committed and engaged with its transformative ethos since, they felt they were directing its course. As frequent recruits in various gender sensitization projects by different NGOs, they felt this was the first project where important messages on gender were not directed at them. Rather they were directing what messages they said from their life experiences to others. Participants said that the project gave them the chance to 'speak', gave importance to their stories and made them count. The project has given the participants increased visibility and legitimacy to their stories and rights claims to infrastructure and welfare services of the state. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2019 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy |
| Impact Types | Societal,Policy & public services |
| Description | Digitising the periphery: Co-producing a toolkit for digital democracy and inclusive urbanisation |
| Amount | £49,967 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | TGC\200118 |
| Organisation | The British Academy |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2021 |
| End | 02/2023 |
| Title | Community Podcast toolkit |
| Description | Lists the various steps and processes to undertake for communities to create their own podcasts. |
| Type Of Material | Improvements to research infrastructure |
| Year Produced | 2021 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Interest from third sector. |
| URL | http://www.gendersmartcity.com |
| Description | Partnership with Jagori, Delhi |
| Organisation | Jagori Women's Resource Centre |
| Country | India |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | This was an additional collaborations that arose during the course of the award because Jagori could act as gatekeepers in providing access to the field site and research participants. The research team collaborated with Jagori in data collection, analysis and dissemination. The team produced new outputs such as the exhibition and music video which gave new direction to work being done by Jagori. The team also gave critical advice to Jagori in terms of their future direction incorporating digital capacity building. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Jagori acted as a gatekeeper to our research participants. They also provided continuous advice and support in the data collection, presentation and analysis. |
| Impact | 1. 'Khadar ki Ladkiyan' hip-hop music video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d6awx1E1J8] 2. Wikipedia page - Madanpur Khadar JJ Colony [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madanpur_Khadar_JJ_Colony] 3. #AanaJaana exhibition in Delhi's Mandi House metro station [https://gendersmartcity.com/exhibitions-and-workshops/aanajaana-exhibition/] |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | Partnership with Safetipin |
| Organisation | Safetipin |
| Country | India |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | The project team have continuously been working with Safetipin seeking advice and direction, and particularly strategies in growing the research network. We have shared our findings with Safetipin throughout and given them more visibility and voice in academic and international communities. The PI now uses the Safetipin work as a case study in undergraduate and postgraduate teaching. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Safetipin was included as collaborator as part of the original application. They acted as strategic partner providing continuous support and access to a network of stakeholders and partners to circulate and disseminate findings. They also provided access to their safety mapping data which was very useful for analysis and was central to the #AanJaana exhibition. Safetipin are equal partners in this collaboration which has resulted in enhanced and richer outputs and analysis. Safetipin has continuously facilitated and mediated our relationship with other partners and helped us grow our network and gain visibility nationally in India. The outputs have been circulated widely and have come to the attention of the media because of these networks. |
| Impact | 1. 'Khadar ki Ladkiyan' hip-hop music video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d6awx1E1J8] 2. Wikipedia page - Madanpur Khadar JJ Colony [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madanpur_Khadar_JJ_Colony] 3. #AanaJaana exhibition in Delhi's Mandi House metro station [https://gendersmartcity.com/exhibitions-and-workshops/aanajaana-exhibition/] |
| Start Year | 2018 |
| Description | 'Corona Conversations' University of Cologne, Germany |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | An Interview with Ayona Datta (University College London), moderated by Amrita Datta, PhD. Over 50 postgraduate students attend live session online to engage in the conversation and discussions. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://youtu.be/b5hUehIO2e0 |
| Description | Blog: Gendering COVID19 in India |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Circulated to a wide audience including students and practitioners |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://blog.geographydirections.com/2021/01/25/gendering-covid19-in-india-1/ |
| Description | Blog: Survival infrastructures under COVID19 in India |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Reached a very wide audience in Geography across schools and universities as well as professionals |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://blog.geographydirections.com/2020/05/13/survival-infrastructures-under-covid-19/ |
| Description | Keynote: Bartlett International Lecture Series |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | This lecture was part of the annual PhD Research Projects conference and brings together the conference's five respondents, Irene Cheng, Amy Kulper, Huda Tayob, Phil Ayres and Ayona Datta. Variously located in the United States, in South Africa and across Europe, they will discuss the topic of "distance." Each speaker will contribute specific thoughts on their own response to the theme of "distance" in relation to their work and teaching practices, reflecting on a broad range of temporal and spatial forms of distance in our research at the moment, ranging from both physical and conceptual distance to different kinds of critical distance as well as shifting relations between the past, present and future (e.g. how dimensions of the past may have suddenly been activated in this present moment). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/architecture/events/2021/feb/phd-conference-bartlett-international-le... |
| Description | Keynote: Survival Infrastructures under COVID19 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Virtual Symposium 'Geographic Perspectives on the Pandemic', Heidelberg University |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.transient-spaces.org/online-symposium-covid-19-als-zasur/ |
| Description | Panelist: IHC Global Urban Thinkers Campus, New York, USA |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The panel considered drivers and strategies for making a people-centered smart city with a focus on the urban experiences and concerns of women. Our panel experts, coupled with audience participation, will help us consider: is technology neutral? Whose voices count when designing a smart city? What does a smart city look like from a gender perspective? How can we make inclusiveness, SDG 11, and the NUA a fundament of the deployment of frontier technology? |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://www.ihcglobal.org/2020/10/02/urban-thinkers-campus/ |
| Description | Panellist: Futurium Plenary, Berlin Future Institute |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
| Results and Impact | Futurium Plenary at the Berlin Future Institute. under the banner of Urbane Welten TV: Who and what makes the city? Futurium is a House of Futures. Here, everything revolves around the question: how do we want to live? In the exhibition, visitors can discover many possible futures; in the Forum, they can take part in open discussions; and, in the Futurium Lab, they can try out their own ideas. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| URL | https://youtu.be/vN_Mpe9M_Dg |
| Description | Research Seminars in Taiwan |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Expert advisor on a research programme funded by Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan. As part of this the PI visited National Taiwan University, National Taipei University and the Taipei Municipality's Smart City Department. Delivered a series of lectures and workshops with Taiwanese scholars, policymakers and postgraduate students. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |