This edited collection provides an alternative discourse on cities evolving with physically and virtually networked communities―the ‘digital polis’―and offers a variety of perspectives from the humanities, media studies, geography, architecture, and urban studies. As an emergent concept that encompasses research and practice, the digital polis is oriented toward a counter-mapping of the digital cityscape beyond policing and gatekeeping in physical and virtual gated communities. Considering the digital polis as offering potential for active support of socially just and politically inclusive urban circumstances in ways that mirror the Greek polis, our attention is drawn towards the interweaving of the development of digital technology, urban space, and social dynamics. The four parts of this book address the formation of technosocial subjectivity, real-and-virtual combined urbanity, the spatial dimensions of digital exclusion and inclusion, and the prospect of emancipatory and empowering digital citizens. Individual chapters cover varied topics on digital feminism, data activism, networked individualism, digital commons, real-virtual communalism, the post-family imagination, digital fortress cities, rights to the smart city, online foodscapes, and open-source urbanism across the globe. Contributors explore the following questions: what developments can be found over recent decades in both physical and virtual communities such as cyberspace, and what will our urban future be like? What is the ‘digital polis’ and what kinds of new subjectivity does it produce? How does digital technology, as well as its virtuality, reshape the city and our spatial awareness of it? What kinds of exclusion and cooperation are at work in communities and spaces in the digital age? Each chapter responds to these questions in its own way, navigating readers through routes toward the digital polis.
Chapter "Introduction - The digital polis and its practices: Beyond gated communities" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Author(s): Kon Kim, Heewon Chung
Series: Advances in 21st Century Human Settlements
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 207
City: Singapore
Preface
Contents
Introduction: The Digital Polis and Its Practices—Beyond Gated Communities
1 From Global City to Global Polis
2 From Digital City to Digital Polis
3 Overview of Chapters
4 Part 1: The Digital Polis and the Formation of Technosocial Subjectivity
5 Part 2: Real-and-Virtual Combined Urbanity in Seoul and Istanbul
6 Part 3: The Spatial Dimensions of Exclusion in the Digital Polis
7 Part 4: Toward a More Emancipatory and Empowering Digital Polis
References
The Digital Polis and the Formation of Techno-Social Subjectivity
Digitalpolis and the ‘Safe’ Feminism: Focusing on the Strategies of Direct Punishment and Gated Community
1 Safety, the Logic of Oppression or Liberation?
2 Conditions of Digitalpolis: Deterritorialization and Hybridization
2.1 From Place-Based Communities to Nodes of Network
2.2 From Homogenization to Hybridization
3 Fear of Loss of Separated Body and Anxiety Caused by Uncertainty: How Safety Became the Top Priority for Feminism?
4 Direct Online Activism in Gated Communities with Imaginary Identity
4.1 Mocking and Direct Punishment
4.2 Fear of Invasion of Space and Gated Community
4.3 Fear of Disorder and Summoning Imaginary Territorial Identity
5 Are Gated Communities Safe?
Appendix
References
Toward Digital Polis: Gendered Data (In)Justice and Data Activism in South Korea
1 Introduction
2 The Topology of Datafication and Injustice in the Digital Polis
2.1 Injustice of Datafication and Gendered Perspective
2.2 Technology-Mediated Society and Gendered Surveillance
2.3 Vulnerability and Gender as a Vulnerable Data Subject: Elaboration of Vulnerability in Datafication
3 The Meanings and Limitations of Data Activism in Data Society
4 Data Activism from the gender perspective in South Korea
5 Conclusion
References
Subjection or Subjectification: Representation of ‘Networked Individuals’ in Korean Web Novels
1 Networked Individual: Machinic Enslavement of Humans
2 From Cyberspace to Network: Spatial Desubjectification of Networked Individuals
3 Post-apocalypse: Temporal Background of Desubjectification
4 Individual Cyborg: Paradoxical Subjectification of Humans
5 Subjection or Subjectification of Networked Individuals
References
Real-and-Virtual Combined Urbanity in Seoul and Istanbul
Digital Polis and Urban Commons: Justice Beyond the Gated Community
1 Introduction
2 Environment of Digital Polis as Medium and Problem of Commons
2.1 Medium and Digital Polis as Environment
2.2 Limits of Cognition in S-MAP and Digital Commons
3 Rethinking the Commons: Atmosphere, Foams, and Commons
4 Conclusion: Justice of Digital Polis Beyond Gated Community
Notes
References
Production and Reproduction of Space and Culture in the Virtual Realm: Gated Communities as the Imaginary, Intermediary, and Real Spaces
1 Introduction
2 The Literature Review
3 Gated Communities in Turkey
4 Research Questions and Methods
5 The Case Studies
6 The Visual Analysis of Social Media of Istanbul Istanbul and Kasaba
6.1 Imaginary-Virtual Gated Communities: Formal Websites to Sell Gated Communities
6.2 Intermediary-Virtual Gated Communities: Social Media Open to Anyone
6.3 Real-Virtual Gated Communities: Social Media for “Members Only”
7 Discussion
8 Conclusion(s)
References
The Spatial Dimensions of Exclusion in the Digital Polis
The Uniformity of Living Space and the Anxiety of the Middle Class
1 Introduction
2 The middle class as a virtual community and the birth of a new visuality
3 Apartments as a Voluntary Ghetto and the Affect of Anxiety
4 Imagination of Defamilisation and Finding ‘Individual’ Space
5 Conclusion
References
Spatial and Digital Fortressing of Apartment Complexes in Seoul: Two Case Studies
1 Introduction
2 Literature Review
2.1 Exclusion Through Spatial and Digital Fortressing
2.2 Visible and Invisible Elements of the ‘Gated’ Apartment Complex in Korea
3 The Fortressing of the Apartment Complex in Korea: Two Case Studies
4 Reinforced Visible (Physical) and Invisible (Digital/Technological) Gating Strategies
4.1 Additive Gating and Surveillance Strategies of Hanbo Mido Mansion
4.2 A Total Package: Integrated Gating and Surveillance Strategies of the H Honorhills
5 Discussion
References
Inclusion, Exclusion, and Participation in Digital Polis: Double-Edged Development of Poor Urban Communities in Alternative Smart City-Making
1 Introduction
2 Conceptual Framework
2.1 Digital Divide and Institutional Domain of Digital Polis in South Korea
2.2 Counter-Hegemonic Change and the Right to the City in a Digital Polis
3 Case Study: Dongja-Dong Outside Government-Led Digitalization
3.1 Dongja-Dong with Digital Divide and Deprivation in the Digital Polis of Seoul
3.2 Transformative Power Dynamics Through Community-Based Practices in Dongja-Dong
4 Inclusion, Exclusion, and Participation of the Urban Poor in Digital Polis
4.1 Intermediaries Inside Versus Outside the Institutional Domain
4.2 Inclusive Alternatives at the Margins of Welfare
4.3 Autonomous Participation but Vulnerable to Digital Capitalism
5 Conclusion
Appendix: List of interviewees
References
Towards a More Emancipatory and Empowering Digital Polis
Online-Based Food Hubs for Community Health and Well-Being: Performance in Practice and Its Implications for Urban Design
1 Introduction
2 Social Innovation and Practice Theory
2.1 Social Innovation in Urban Space
2.2 Practice Theory and Food Practices
3 Research Design and Method
4 Current Trend of Food Hubs in the United Kingdom
4.1 Characteristics of U.K. Food Hubs
4.2 Box Schemes as Suppliers for London
5 Case Study Analysis
5.1 Creation of the Box Schemes
5.2 Individuals’ Enjoyment, Community Health, and Well-Being for Engagement
5.3 Know-How, Habits, and Notions for Local Food
5.4 Development of Material-Functional Structure and Online Platform
5.5 Spatial and Temporal Flexibility Since the Outbreak of COVID-19
6 Discussion
7 Conclusion
References
Third Places: The Social Infrastructure of the Smart City
1 Introduction: Smart Cities and Infrastructure
2 Digital Divides in the Smart City
3 Social Infrastructure
3.1 Third Places
4 Open-source Urbanism
5 A Framework for Linking Social and Digital Infrastructure
6 Summary
References
