(En) coding care into digital urbanism: Vignettes of collective practices

Abstract

The tech-entrepreneurial model behind the computation of urban processes is (re) producing what has already been identified as a technocratic, solutionist, and commodifying model of urban planning. Within this model, not only is care no longer a prerequisite for urban production, but decades of smartification and platformization have been diminishing the spaces, infrastructures, and socio-economic relations that were co-produced to enable care. Through the lens of feminist geography, care is examined as a multidimensional concept encompassing socio-spatial dynamics, power relations, and ethical urban practices. Using empirical data from three research projects, the study showcases alternative digital urbanism practices, categorized into three vignettes: refusal, commoning, and reappropriation. These categories are illustrated with cases such as grassroots food cooperatives, feminist hack-spaces, digital sovereignty initiatives, platform-based welfare experiments and civil society initiatives such as Code for Germany. By situating care within the spatial and social fabric of urban life, the paper argues for its potential as a politic, practice, and epistemology that challenges the exploitative logic of contemporary digital infrastructures. The findings reveal the embeddedness of care practices within local contexts, highlighting the dual need for trans-local networks and territorial embeddedness. This study contributes to the discourse on caring digital urbanism, advancing a feminist theorisation of everyday digital urbanism.