AAG Washington 2019, 3-7 April

Paper session: Smart regions – theoretical, empirical and conceptual
perspectives

In the last years, the discourse on urban development and planning has
shifted its emphasis from sustainability to smartness. However,
contributions on smartness concentrate on cities and urban areas, while
largely ignoring other spatial contexts. Recent contributions on smart
cities narrowly examine urban cores, selected neighbourhoods or the
administrative boundaries of cities. There is only very little research on
smartness in the regional context, for instance in debates regarding smart
countries or smart regions. These studies emphasise that digitalisation
processes, which are typical for approaches towards enhancing smartness,
differ depending on respective spatial forms.

Our paper session aims to generate a deeper theoretical and empirical
understanding of smart regions. Scholars following research approaches of
sustainability, transition management, STS and governance research are
invited to join our debates with a critical engagement towards smartness.
By merging different disciplinary perspectives, the paper session seeks to
analyse smart regions as a relational phenomena and social construct,
examining concomitant implications for digital infrastructures, services
and changing behavioural patterns.

As such, the papers may address the following questions: How to categorize
and conceptualize smartness for regional development? In which ways do
governance processes and social discourses shape the digital
transformation of regions? How can empirical work contribute to a better
understanding of smart regions? We are particularly interested in papers
which consider comparative methodological approaches to constitute a
different range of disciplinary perspectives on the spatial implications
of digitalization.

Submissions:
Please submit abstracts of no more than 250 words along with a short
author(s) biography in a single pdf document by email to Antje Matern
([log in to unmask]) before October 21st 2018. Please direct any inquiries to
Julia Binder ([log in to unmask]).
Successful submissions will be contacted by October 24th 2018. Please note
a range of registration fees will apply and must be paid before the
submission of abstracts.




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Dr. Julia Binder
Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin/Post-doc

BTU Cottbus - Senftenberg
Fakultät für Architektur, Bauingenieurwesen und Stadtplanung
Fachgebiet Regionalplanung

Tel:  +49 355 692449 (Sekretariat)
E-Mail:  [log in to unmask]

https://www.b-tu.de/fg-regionalplanung/team/mitarbeiterin/dr-phil-julia-binder
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