Digital Social Innovation and Urban Space: A Critical Geography Agenda

Digital Social Innovation (DSI) is a new concept referring to social innovation initiatives that leverage digital technologies potentiality to co-create solutions to a wide range of social needs. These initiatives generally take place in urban contexts. However, in the existing literature, scarce attention is devoted to the spatial dimensions and the social, cultural or political space-related effects of DSI practices. This article suggests that a critical geography perspective can address these gaps. After a review of existing relevant contributes, the article elaborates a research agenda for a critical geography of DSI. This articulates along four research lines, including the emergence of DSI networks, the (re)production of DSI processes and socio-cultural urban space, the representations of DSI practices and the power relationships these mobilise

Digging deep the oil world: corporate liability and environmental justice strategies

The impacts provoked by the expanding oil industry encompass environmental destruction, health impacts and violations of human rights. The increasing contamination jeopardizes safe conditions of life and destroys means of livelihood of vulnerable communities and of those relying on healthy ecosystems. Local communities, feeling that they are simply sacrificed to the oil industry, see themselves involved in social conflict. They are experiencing forms of environmental discrimination and might even face criminalisation of the protest when they stand up to defend their rights promoting the chilly effect on others who need and want to defend themselves and the environment. In fact, the number of lawsuits demanding justice for environmental, social, economical and cultural damages provoked by oil companies are increasing as well as their media visibility. Yet most outcomes are not satisfactory in tackling impacted communities claims for justice. This paper describes the most recent trends regarding oil corporations’ responsibilities and use of procedural justice by civil society through the review of emblematic legal cases

Citizen empowerment and innovation in the data-rich city

This book analyzes the ongoing transformation in the “smart city” paradigm and explores the possibilities that technological innovations offer for the effective involvement of ordinary citizens in collective knowledge production and decision-making processes within the context of urban planning and management. To so, it pursues an interdisciplinary approach, with contributions from a range of experts including city managers, public policy makers, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) specialists, and researchers. The first two parts of the book focus on the generation and use of data by citizens, with or without institutional support, and the professional management of data in city governance, highlighting the social connectivity and livability aspects essential to vibrant and healthy urban environments. In turn, the third part presents inspiring case studies that illustrate how data-driven solutions can empower people and improve urban environments, including enhanced sustainability. The book will appeal to all those who are interested in the required transformation in the planning, management, and operations of data-rich cities and the ways in which such cities can employ the latest technologies to use data efficiently, promoting data access, data sharing, and interoperability

Beyond Income and Inequlity: The Role of Socio-Political Factors for Alleviating Energy Poverty in Europe

In each country, the occurrence of energy poverty among resident households is usually related to low income and its unequal distribution. Like other manifestations of material deprivation, however, such a phenomenon is likely to be also correlated with some internal socio-political factors that allow its persistence by preventing effective solutions. In this paper, we build and analyse a dataset for European countries by assessing the role of the perceived quality of internal public governance on different measures of energy deprivation. Specifically, we rely on the Worldwide Governance Indicators provided by the World Bank and estimate an array of panel models. After controlling for income, income inequality, energy prices, and weather conditions, we find that high government effectiveness, good regulatory quality, widespread property rights, contract enforcement, and corruption control are significantly associated with lower energy poverty. In addition, we consider the policy implications of this broader perspective on energy deprivation

The city of digital social innovators

The concept of digital social innovation (DSI) refers to a fast-growing set of initiatives aimed at providing innovative solutions to social problems and needs by deploying the potential of the social web and digital media. Despite having been often interpreted as synonymous with digitally enhanced social innovation, we explain here why, in consideration of its epistemological and socio-political potentialities, we understand it as an interdisciplinary set of practices able to interpret and support the changes of a society that is more and more intrinsically virtual and physical at the same time. Notably, we briefly discuss how DSI processes can be functionally mobilized in support of different socio-political projects, ranging from the mainstream neoliberal to the revolutionary ones. Eventually, we provide a synopsis of the articles included in this thematic issue, by aggregating them accordingly to the main stakeholders promoting the DSI projects, being more bottom-up oriented or more institutional-based