Assemblages of altruism in urban service delivery : seamful designs and cities

Teresa Swist, Liam Magee

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Lack of access to services is one of the chief difficulties faced by marginalized urban communities. The proximity of digital technologies and data promises to remove a key constraint to greater access: the unequal distribution of information. However, issues of digital literacy and affordability and the local specificity of services make opportunities for achieving well-being both a technical and ethical concern. We discuss 2 community-based projects - one in Western Sydney, Australia, and the other in Dhaka, Bangladesh - that sought to unpack this interface through prototyping a combination of offline and online service directories. Through these, we explore what we have termed altruistic assemblages—circulations of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), researchers, local communities, service providers, hackathons, co-design events, and technology devices. The contributed time, resources, hopes and care of these assemblages do not presuppose a finite solution to urban service delivery but rather offer a prefigurative politics for the more equitable cities to come.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)618-629
Number of pages12
JournalJournal of Urban Affairs
Volume41
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019

Keywords

  • Centre for Western Sydney
  • Dhaka (Bangladesh)
  • Western Sydney (N.S.W.)
  • cities and towns
  • globalization
  • information technology
  • marginality, social
  • well-being

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