At SPIN we started a new research path, exploring the phenomenon we name Digital Autarky. We are introducing the concept in a flesh-talk on September 28th, at the event Unboxing E-Realities organised by the Goethe Institute.
Brief
Recent years have seen the rise of conflicts over people’s right to their own data, privacy, and transparency in the digital realm. These emerging conflicts bring forth issues of policy and governance for giant companies and non-democratic states just as much as positive possibilities for individuals, innovators, and public agencies.
We wish to explore cities as they evolve and shift from their traditional role in local democracy and urban economy to new opportunities offered by a networked, digital, and data-driven world. Claiming that new forms of local autonomy are on the rise, we focus on cities that are increasingly collecting data on their urban environment and actors. Through strategic leveraging of these data, cities may reclaim control from regional and national governing bodies and also from private technology companies and platform actors.
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