Regulate, replicate, and resist – the conjunctural geographies of platform urbanism

Bibliographic Data

ID11670500
AuthorsM Graham (0000-0001-8370-9848, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume41
Issue3
Pages453-457
Publication date2020-01-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueUrban Geography (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0272-3638 • E-ISSN: 1938-2847
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02723638.2020.1717028
OpenAlexW3002251334
LanguageEN
Citations received156
References cited8

Platforms in the urban environment are fundamentally unaccountable. They present themselves as too big to control, too new to regulate, and too innovative to stifle, and remain un-democratic, and usually distant, organizations with no interest in promoting local voices or investing in local priorities. This paper argues that platforms control urban interactions whilst remaining unaccountable through a strategic deployment of ‘conjunctural geographies’ – a way of being simultaneously embedded and disembedded from the space-times they mediate. These conjunctural geographies, however, render platforms vulnerable. The ephemeral nature of platforms means we can avoid them, circumvent them and replicate them; their material nature suggests points of regulation and resistance. The paper closes by pointing to three broad strategies —regulate, replicate, and resist - which can be deployed to build alternate platform futures. Each of which is built on understanding the simultaneously embedded and disembedded ways in which platforms occupy their conjunctural geographies

Archaeology · Economic geography · Geography · Nanotechnology · Replicate · Resist · Sociology · Urbanism · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Sharing Economy and Platforms · Transportation and Mobility Innovations · Architecture

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access