From Open Data to “Grounded Openness”: Recursive Politics and Postcolonial Struggle in Hong Kong

2020 ◽  
pp. 152747642093144
Author(s):  
Rolien Hoyng
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Social History ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
The Political ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Data Infrastructures ◽  
Colonial Histories ◽  
Ethical Investments

This article maps the parameters of an emerging field of struggle around “openness” pertaining to digital data in the postcolonial smart city. Whereas colonial governance operated in relative secrecy with archives not quite available to ordinary citizens, what do we make of current institutions from government departments to banks flaunting their commitment to Open Data? Looking at data activism in Hong Kong, this article highlights the (post)colonial histories that have shaped the reception of Open Data in this context. More so, it explores the ways in which the techno-materialities of data infrastructures affect and reconfigure postcolonial struggle. Building on Kelty’s discussion of “recursive publics” and Hui’s account of recursivity, my notion of recursive politics underscores the mutuality of social history and techno-materiality. While recursive politics can contribute to technodiversity, I analyze how such politics weigh up against the political and ethical investments of postcolonial struggle.

scholarly journals Towards an Integrated Framework to Measure Smart City Readiness: The Case of Iranian Cities

Smart Cities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 676-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Negar Noori ◽  
Martin de Jong ◽  
Thomas Hoppe
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Indicator System ◽  
Theory Of Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Governance Model ◽  
Practical Guidelines

This paper introduces an indicator system to measure and assess smart city readiness. Analyzing smart city initiatives in Iran as case studies, the theoretical framework we present reflects on how cities explore the possibility of becoming smart, and prepare themselves to begin implementing the transition towards becoming a smart city. This theoretical framework is then applied to four Iranian cities aspiring to become smart and that already possess credible smart city brands. The findings reveal that the most significant difficulty in Iran is associated with the political context. The changing urban governance model is the most important factor in Iranian smart cities’ readiness. Utilization of open data policies and data sharing, as well as making reforms in government structures are all considered a sine qua non to gain momentum. Based on the results of our empirical analysis a Theory of Change is developed to address the cities’ technological, socio-economic, and political readiness vis-à-vis the desired transition. The framework for measuring smart city readiness and the Theory of Change provide practical guidelines to developing systematic roadmaps for developing and implementing smart city policies.

scholarly journals Data infrastructure literacy

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 205395171878631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Gray ◽  
Carolin Gerlitz ◽  
Liliana Bounegru
Keyword(s):  
Data Science ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Data Infrastructure ◽  
Data Literacy ◽  
Collective Inquiry ◽  
Literacy Initiatives ◽  
Data Infrastructures ◽  
Data Journalism

A recent report from the UN makes the case for “global data literacy” in order to realise the opportunities afforded by the “data revolution”. Here and in many other contexts, data literacy is characterised in terms of a combination of numerical, statistical and technical capacities. In this article, we argue for an expansion of the concept to include not just competencies in reading and working with datasets but also the ability to account for, intervene around and participate in the wider socio-technical infrastructures through which data is created, stored and analysed – which we call “data infrastructure literacy”. We illustrate this notion with examples of “inventive data practice” from previous and ongoing research on open data, online platforms, data journalism and data activism. Drawing on these perspectives, we argue that data literacy initiatives might cultivate sensibilities not only for data science but also for data sociology, data politics as well as wider public engagement with digital data infrastructures. The proposed notion of data infrastructure literacy is intended to make space for collective inquiry, experimentation, imagination and intervention around data in educational programmes and beyond, including how data infrastructures can be challenged, contested, reshaped and repurposed to align with interests and publics other than those originally intended.

scholarly journals The rise and ongoing legacy of localism as collective identity in Hong Kong: Resinicisation anxieties and punishment of political dissent in the post-colonial era

2021 ◽  
pp. 146247452110403
Author(s):  
Michael Adorjan ◽  
Paul Vinod Khiatani ◽  
Wing Hong Chui
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Civil Disobedience ◽  
Colonial History ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Political Dissent ◽  
Mainland Chinese ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial Histories

China’s new National Security Law, enacted in Hong Kong on 30 June 2020, has amplified widespread concerns among the city’s population regarding the implications of this law. These concerns have at root anxieties related to Hong Kong’s resinicisation, referring to anxieties over Hong Kong's political and economic dependence on mainland China, including loyalty and patriotism towards the motherland. This paper explores these developments in relation to the ongoing legacy of localism, argued to be instilled as a colonial project to help secure the populations’ identification with Hong Kong. Seen as ‘criminals’ from the perspective of mainland Chinese authorities, many of those involved in today's protests (many of whom include young people) see themselves as engaging in legitimate forms of civil disobedience. First explicating the context of Hong Kong's colonial history in order to help make sense of present-day turmoil, we turn to recent trends in arrests related to the protests, as well as evidence of rapidly declining trust in the Hong Kong Police Force, seen by some as increasingly beholden to the interests of mainland China. Implications for these trends going forward are considered, with a discussion of the need for greater attention to colonial histories and post-colonial ramifications.

scholarly journals Smart cities: Who cares?

2020 ◽  
pp. 0308518X2094151
Author(s):  
Ryan Burns ◽  
Max Andrucki
Keyword(s):  
Smart City ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Smart Cities ◽  
Open Data ◽  
The Body ◽  
City Government ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
Advocacy Organizations ◽  
Reproductive Labor ◽  
Reproductive Worker

The growing critical research agenda on smart cities and open data programs has largely overlooked the body-subjects that enable its (re)production. The “ideal” subject of the smart city is prefigured as tech-savvy, independent, and uber-modern, able to produce digital data and analyze it to hold city government “accountable.” In this subject production, however, we argue that smart cities continue to rely on forms of reproductive labor that are invisibilized in current research and public discourse: We focus here on unpaid domestic labor, low-paid caring and reproductive labor, and volunteer work. We introduce the term “digital care worker” to capture a new category of reproductive worker in the smart city—voluntary and low-paid data producers and analyzers such as those who undertake “hackathons,” usually expected to do so out of love for their cities and communities. Drawing on geographies of care and Eve Sedgwick’s notion of the “closet.” we argue that the invisibility of digital caring laborers exists in dialectic relation to the spectacularization of particular body-subjects charged with caring for the smart city. Drawing on a discourse analysis of promotional materials and mission statements of key open data advocacy organizations, we propose the idea of “marginalized coder incubators,” who deploy assimilationist rhetoric to spectacularize the voluntary labor of women, people of color, and LGBTQ communities that is ultimately performed for the benefit of elites in the neoliberalizing city.

POST-COLONIAL HISTORIES OF SEXUALITY: THE POLITICAL INVENTION OF A LIBIDINAL AFRICAN STRAIGHT

Africa ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. 609-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Basile Ndjio
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Same Sex ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Heterosexual Identity ◽  
Colonial Histories ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Leading Question

ABSTRACTThis study addresses the problem of sexuality and ideology in relation to (pan)-Africanist doctrines that have been instrumental in the effort of post-colonial African elites to constitute an exclusive African sexual selfhood. The focus is on their efforts to ‘Africanize’ the sexuality of the masses in a global context that dramatizes the uncontrolled flow of sexual desires, and favours the emergence of new forms of sexual expressions and practices that destabilize the post-colonial sexual order. The leading question informing this study is how a hegemonic heterosexual identity has come to be internalized in post-colonial Africa, and how both men and women have come to believe that to be ‘good’ citizens or ‘real’ Africans they have to become repressed subjects who not only limit their sexuality solely to heterosexual desires, but also have a natural aversion to other forms of sexuality such as same-sex relations. My main argument is that in most African countries, and specifically in Cameroon, both the edification of a phallocratico-patriarchal society and the political invention of the sublimated Muntu, the so-called libidinal African straight, went along with the suppression, annihilation or negation of gays and lesbians, generally misrepresented as deracinated Africans and dangerous ‘witch-others’.

Exploring Language Stereotypes in Post‑colonial Hong Kong through the Matched-guise Test

2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 225-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mee Ling Lai
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Language Education ◽  
The Political ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Research Results ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Vernacular Language ◽  
The Status ◽  
Target Languages ◽  
The City

After the change of sovereignty in Hong Kong from Britain to China on July 1st, 1997, the status of Putonghua (the language of the new Chinese ruler) has been formally recognized in addition to Cantonese (the vernacular language) and English (the international and ex-colonizer’s language). Four years after the political handover, a Matched-guise test was conducted on a total of 1048 local Hong Kong Secondary 4 students. The aim of this study was to ascertain the respondents’ subjective reactions towards the three languages when the city was undergoing significant political and socio-economic changes. The results showed that the Cantonese guise was rated the highest on traits of solidarity, the English guise the highest on traits of power, whereas the Putonghua guise was rated the lowest in both dimensions. Although the study started from a micro perspective investigating the attitudes of the respondents towards the three target languages and their speakers, the research results helped to reveal the vitality of the three target languages in post-colonial Hong Kong and suggest directions for language education.

Jumbos and Jumping Devils

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nisha P R
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Social History ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of

Jumbos and Jumping Devils is an original and pioneering exploration of not only the social history of the subcontinent but also of performance and popular culture. The domain of analysis is entirely novel and opens up a bolder approach of laying a new field of historical enquiry of South Asia. Trawling through an extraordinary set of sources such as colonial and post-colonial records, newspaper reports, unpublished autobiographies, private papers, photographs, and oral interviews, the author brings out a fascinating account of the transnational landscape of physical cultures, human and animal performers, and the circus industry. This book should be of interest to a wide range of readers from history, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies to analysts of history of performance and sports in the subcontinent.

scholarly journals Smarter Open Government Data for Society 5.0: Are Your Open Data Smart Enough?

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (15) ◽  
pp. 5204
Author(s):  
Anastasija Nikiforova
Keyword(s):  
Industry 4.0 ◽  
Economic Value ◽  
Open Data ◽  
Digital Data ◽  
Open Government ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Time Data ◽  
Open Government Data ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Government Data

Nowadays, governments launch open government data (OGD) portals that provide data that can be accessed and used by everyone for their own needs. Although the potential economic value of open (government) data is assessed in millions and billions, not all open data are reused. Moreover, the open (government) data initiative as well as users’ intent for open (government) data are changing continuously and today, in line with IoT and smart city trends, real-time data and sensor-generated data have higher interest for users. These “smarter” open (government) data are also considered to be one of the crucial drivers for the sustainable economy, and might have an impact on information and communication technology (ICT) innovation and become a creativity bridge in developing a new ecosystem in Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0. The paper inspects OGD portals of 60 countries in order to understand the correspondence of their content to the Society 5.0 expectations. The paper provides a report on how much countries provide these data, focusing on some open (government) data success facilitating factors for both the portal in general and data sets of interest in particular. The presence of “smarter” data, their level of accessibility, availability, currency and timeliness, as well as support for users, are analyzed. The list of most competitive countries by data category are provided. This makes it possible to understand which OGD portals react to users’ needs, Industry 4.0 and Society 5.0 request the opening and updating of data for their further potential reuse, which is essential in the digital data-driven world.

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