Interstitiality as practice
Exploring the discursive practices producing the tech city
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19230449 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mariana Fried (0000-0002-2022-4250, Erasmus MC, corresponding author), Isabel Awad (0000-0002-2619-6748, Erasmus MC), Jiska Engelbert (0009-0003-5214-1227, Erasmus University Rotterdam) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-15 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Urban Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0042-0980 • E-ISSN: 1360-063X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00420980261446268 |
| OpenAlex | W7164864381 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 30 |
This article examines the discursive practices through which actors produce and negotiate representations of Rotterdam, the Netherlands, as a tech city. We approach the tech city as a discursive construct and argue that its ongoing remaking can be obscured when scholarship centers on dominant governmental and corporate institutions as coherent, top-down discourse producers. Instead, we show how tech city institutions function as enacted assemblages shaped by individuals’ interstitial practices. We examine such practices through text-elicited, in-depth interviews with actors involved in those institutions. Our findings identify four clusters of practices through which individuals professionally engaged in the tech city (i) critically addressed rhetorical gaps and positioned themselves as bridges, (ii) expressed skepticism and dissent, (iii) reproduced narratives tactically, and (iv) resignified dominant representations
Construct (python library) · Discourse analysis · Function (biology) · Narrative · Negotiation · Rhetorical question · Scholarship · Skepticism · Smart Cities and Technologies · Sustainability and Climate Change Governance · Urban Planning and Governance
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| Highly cited | No |
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