Public engagement in smart city development: Lessons from communities in Canada's Smart City Challenge

Quality of life is often touted as the main benefit of building smart cities. This, however, raises questions about the extent to which the public is engaged as part of the “smart” development process, particularly given the significant financial investments often required to meaningfully design smart city projects. To better understand approaches to public engagement in the context of smart city development, we draw upon three selected finalists of Infrastructure Canada's Smart City Challenge, which invited municipalities, regional governments, and Indigenous communities to enter a competition where the winning proposals would be awarded federal financial grants to complete their projects. Prizes of $5 million, $10 million, and $50 million were awarded. Specifically, we compare the public engagement experiences of the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne (Quebec), the City of Guelph, and the Region of Waterloo. We carried out semi-structured interviews and reviewed documents in each community to better understand how finalists in each category engaged residents in proposal development. The paper addresses how communities are approaching public engagement in smart city development and the implications of these approaches. We conclude that, despite earnest attempts to publicly engage and become citizen-centric, municipal governments continue to see civic participation as a top-down tool.     

Reframing belonging: affective localism and the early fiction of Reino Rinne

The early fiction of a novelist and journalist born in the north of Finland, Reino Rinne (1913–2002), is illustrative of the post-war interest in a redefinition of cultural belonging. The aim of this article is to offer a reading of Rinne’s works that throws light on the way they exemplify a post-war articulation of affective localism. What is especially characteristic of the affective localism produced in Rinne’s early fiction is the deployment of certain narrative elements, realism as an aesthetic regime, tropes of spatial belonging and historical myths that are endowed with affective charge. A comparison between Rinne's first novel Tunturit hymyilevät. Kuvaus Lapista 1900-luvun alkuvuosilta ([1945a]. The Fells are Smiling. Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava), and his collection of short stories Erämaan omia ihmisiä ([1949]. People of the Wilderness. Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava), reveals that there was a change in Rinne’s artistic practice. While Rinne’s first novel revolved around a promise of reciprocity and happiness, the collection of short stories shows the dissolution of the optimism that, according to Berlant [(2011). Cruel Optimism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press], is at the core of all attachments.     

Bone mineral content in medieval Greenland Norse

The bone mineral content (BMC) was measured using a special dual-photon scanner in 25 mandibles with normal macroscopic and radiographic bone structure. The mandibles were excavated from two Norse sites in Greenland, which date to the first and last part of the medieval Norse settlement period, respectively. The main purpose of this study was to investigate whether there was a change in BMC levels between the early and the late settlement period. The results showed no difference in male BMC between the early and the late site material. A statistically significant gender difference was found, analogous to most clinical and archaeological BMC studies. The sample did not allow testing for age-related, especially female postmenopausal-related, bone loss. It is known that Eskimos generally have a very low BMC, probably the effect of a high-protein marine diet. The lack of decrease in BMC levels for the Norse could indicate that they did not increase their overall protein intake over the 500-year settlement period. Other studies (both archaeological and anthropological) point to an increased reliance on marine foodstuffs throughout the settlement period. Thus, if the Norse increased their reliance on marine foodstuffs, they probably did not do so to the extent of an almost exclusive marine diet like that of the Eskimo. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spatial-Temporal Spread of the AIDS Epidemic, 1982–1990: A Correlogram Analysis of Four Regions of the United States

We applied correlogram analysis to county-level AIDS data of four regions—the Northeast (Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania), California, Florida, and Louisiana—for the period 1982–1990 to characterize the spatial-temporal spread of the AIDS epidemic. Correlograms computed from yearly incidence rates differ substantially among these four regions, revealing regional differences in the spatial patterns and intensity of AIDS spread. A general trend of increasing spread to rural America, however, can still be detected. Contagious spread was predominant in the Northeast throughout the nine-year period, whereas California was dominated by hierarchical spread through time. The spatial-temporal changes of AIDS incidence patterns were most drastic in Florida, where the correlograms show hierarchical spread in the early years and then contagious spread in the later years. As a representative region for most other states in the United States, Louisiana has low spatial autocorrelation and no definite spatial pattern of spread. Grouping data into three-year periods for states with low yearly incidence rates such as Louisiana should help identify the dominant trends for these states. The correlogram results could provide useful insights into the specification of spatial models for AIDS forecasting.     

Narrative strategies in a nondemocratic setting: Moscow’s urban policy debates

The Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) explains the role of narratives in policy processes. The NPF was developed for democratic contexts and has not been systematically applied in a nondemocratic setting. This study fills this gap with an empirical analysis of narrative strategies used by governmental and oppositional actors in urban policy debates in Moscow. Results show how governmental actors consistently use angel shifts, contain issues, and avoid using causal mechanisms, while actors opposing governmental policy use devil shifts, expand issues, and use intentional causal mechanisms. The findings suggest that narrative strategies differ depending on whether policy actors seek to promote policy reforms or draw attention to problems. We argue that policy actors’ objectives are a well-suited predictor for narrative strategies in both democratic and nondemocratic contexts.     

Nationalism,primitivism and the golden age in Othon Friesz's Autumn Work (1908)*

Abstract. This paper focuses on a detailed analysis of the Fauve artist Othon Friesz's painting Autumn Work (1908) within the contextual juncture of nationalism and primitivism. The painting occupies a unique position within this framework as it elucidates a point a convergence between nationalist ideologies and the primitivist turn towards peasant cultures as a repository of the past. This interpretation also identifies how Friesz's fusion of the Virgilian golden age with the contemporary, rural myth disrupts the Self/Other framework of primitivism via the lens of national identity. Friesz's employment of classically influenced and avant‐grade aesthetics further underscores the ways in which the painting references not only his personal artistic negotiation between tradition and modernity, but also the significance of ancestral myths and temporal oppositions in both nationalist and primitivist discourse.     

Spaces of hidden labor: migrant women and work in nonprofit organizations

Laboring in low-paid jobs with poor conditions, migrant women are some of the most vulnerable workers in the US labor market. These women often carry a disproportionate burden at home, expected to care for children and elderly relatives and maintain a stable and loving family. Given the weight of work and family obligations, migrant women workers often turn to community-based organizations for assistance with securing work, negotiating an abusive workplace situation, and making ends meet on low wages. Increasingly, organizations are recognizing the social reproduction concerns of migrant women. In crafting responses to this reality, much work is undertaken by staff members, clients, and volunteers that is hidden from the organizations' funders, from the clients' employers, and from official statistics. The objective of this article is to reveal how and why nonprofit organizations can act as a space for the hidden labor of social reproduction, as well as for economic development experiments that account for the needs of social reproduction. Hidden labor is conceptualized as filling gaps in the social safety net created by a neoliberalizing society. In addition, it is the argument of this article that social reproduction is being reframed as a collective endeavor within organizations, where the ethic of care is potentially transforming an insidious political-economic context into a source of strength and resiliency for migrant women. Based on semi-structured interviews and participant observation in an organization in Chicago, this article provides a review of hidden labor within the space of nonprofit organizations.