The 5th International Data Power Conference has just concluded, offering a thought-provoking exploration of the power dynamics behind data practices and their wide-reaching social, political, economic, and cultural impacts. This year’s conference centred on moving “beyond data universalism”, challenging us to consider how data is shaped by the power relations in specific contexts. Researchers and practitioners from various disciplines gathered to discuss critical issues such as the influence of place and time on data, the infrastructure that sustains data power and the methodologies required to study these dynamics both locally and globally. Throughout the event, conversations emphasised justice, inequality and the role of resistance in an increasingly data-driven world. The Data Stories team were involved in various sessions of this conference.

Artist Joan Somers Donnelly led one of the ‘Making & Doing’ sessions on the first afternoon of the conference, introducing some of the arts-based methods she has used to undertake collaborative research as Phase 2 of the Data Stories project. The workshop drew mostly on work she has done with a citizen-led group, the Dublin Democratic Planning Alliance, together with researcher Juliette Davret. So far, the collaborative stage of the case study has involved facilitating the group to (a) reflect on the structure of their network and how they use it to tell different stories with planning data and to (b) continue strategising on how they might re-position themselves within the ecosystem of planning and public participation in order to amplify those stories.

Two of the exercises were analogue 3D mapping exercises; one using paper, pens and objects that participants undertook from the perspective of a current project they are working on; and another using our bodies in space to map consensus / dissensus on different statements, in this case about the potential future directions of a citizen-led group at somewhat of a crossroads (scenario from the case study). The third exercise was a role-playing exercise where participants focused on inhabiting the different points of view of the people they work alongside or (want to) collaborate with. For this exercise participants again chose scenarios from their own work.

The exercises generated lively discussion, in pairs and the wider group, on the topics that emerged as well as on the methods used. Many of the participants expressed that it was refreshing to do something active and hands-on, and to think in general about the possibilities research creation / arts-based research can open up in terms of collaborating with people who are not researchers by training, particularly groups that are self-organised and might not have access to institutional resources or platforms. There was also discussion about the fact that working with tactile materials can be an interesting bridging strategy when bringing together people from different disciplines or backgrounds.

Towards the end of the session, Joan shared some of her ongoing reflections on collaborative arts-based research with stakeholders, and fostering fertile conditions and relationships for these kinds of approaches. For example, that it can be a way to feed research insights back to a group on the ground that is also generative for them, and that an artistic praxis can do a lot more than create artworks, for example creating different frames and ways of talking, thinking, making and doing. While she stressed that it takes time, patience and willingness to engage in an open-ended process to build the relationships and trust needed, she discussed how integrating collaborative art practices in particular, i.e. art that involves the participation of people without an arts background, can serve to shift attention to the relational and affective aspects and subjectivities at stake in research, activism, policy work and other fields.

There were several other presentations at the conference that dealt with the topic of participant-led research, research-creation, arts-based research, and research co-production (among the many terms used by people from different contexts to describe these related research practices) including an inspiring keynote by Kim Sawchuk and Eric Craven about drawing data ecosystems as swamps with older individuals. It was very enjoyable and productive to swap (swampy) notes with other researchers and artists, both about the challenges of implementing these kinds of practices and the different kinds of knowledge exchange that they can open up. 

[Image Source: Stiefkind Fotografie Graz]

Juliette Davret had the opportunity to present a paper* on the intersection of open-access data, data capitalism and urban planning during the Situating Open Data Practices session on Friday 6th. Drawing on West’s (2017) theories of data capitalism, the paper explored how the commodification of data creates asymmetrical power relationships, particularly in the realm of open-access data. The paper examined how capitalist models transform raw data into valuable products, flipping the dynamics so that the creators of open-access data often become its buyers.

[Image Source: Stiefkind Fotografie Graz]

Findings emerged from one of our case studies in the Data Stories project, which focused on a company specialising in the commercialisation of open-access data within the Irish urban planning system. The study revealed the intricate process of consolidating disparate data systems into one unified product, a task that involved breaking down data silos, validating information and merging these data streams into a coherent whole.

The research was built on a robust set of methods, including four semi-structured interviews with key employees, two meetings to discuss their operations and three walkthroughs of their data processes. This data was further explored through three speculative fiction-based workshops designed by artist, Mel Galley, offering a creative lens into the company’s data philosophy.

One of the paper’s key insights was an understanding of data flows between Ireland and data intermediaries as far afield as South Asia, illustrating the complexities of managing multiple data systems. We highlighted how a capitalist approach to data streamlines data infrastructure, making information management more efficient and strategic, but also raising crucial questions about data ethics and the roles of intermediaries.

Finally, the paper examined how the rise of digital planning processes and the open data movement (Lund, 2017) is challenging traditional capitalist data models. As urban planning becomes more digitised, it’s essential to strike a balance between economic gain and ethical use of open-access data, ensuring that this valuable resource is managed responsibly in the public interest. 

The paper presentation was followed by a lively discussion with the other panellists, focusing on the long-running debate about the role of the state in the open data movement. For years, researchers have questioned the extent to which governments should be responsible for the quality, accessibility and ethical use of open data. While many argue that the state has a duty to regulate and maintain high standards, some panellists have raised the provocative point that it may not be the government’s role to guarantee the quality of open data.  

This discussion focuses on the idea that open data, by its very nature, thrives in decentralised and collaborative environments, where multiple stakeholders – private companies, researchers and civil society – can contribute to the validation, refinement and use of data. Rather than placing the responsibility solely on the state, there is a growing belief that the open data ecosystem should be self-regulating, with market forces, public control and third-party organisations playing a greater role in ensuring data quality and ethical use.  

This shift in perspective challenges the traditional view of governments as the central authority for data governance. It suggests that while the state can and should facilitate access to data and define general ethical guidelines, its role may be more limited when it comes to exercising practical supervision. As open data initiatives continue to evolve, the question remains: can we trust other actors to enforce quality and ethical standards, or must the state still play an active role in safeguarding the public interest? This ongoing debate is crucial, as open data becomes an increasingly powerful tool for shaping society.

[Image Source: Stiefkind Fotografie Graz]

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the conference organisers, who did a remarkable job ensuring everything was as enjoyable as possible for us. 

References:  

*Davret J., Mutter S., Kayanan C. M., Kitchin R. & Galley M. (2024) Open access data, data capitalism and urban planning, Data Power 5.0, Graz, Austria. 4-6 September 

West, S.M., 2019. Data Capitalism: Redefining the Logics of Surveillance and Privacy. Business & Society 58, 20–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/0007650317718185 

Lund, A., 2017. The Open Data Movement in the Age of Big Data Capitalism. Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies (WIAS), University of Westminster. 

On the 2nd and 3rd of September 2024 a group of academics, practitioners and activists gathered at Maynooth University for a two-day workshop to examine the data politics shaping and underpinning housing and planning. With material drawing from case studies on Ireland, Australia, the US, UK, Kenya, South Africa and the Netherlands, the presentations featured a variety of regional perspectives.

Professor Rob Kitchin opened the workshop with an introduction to the Data Stories project. He discussed key points of data politics, and key ‘data debates’ relating to housing, planning His opening was followed by five themed sessions: 1) Property information; 2) Planning; 3) Financialisation, platforms, residential/commercial real estate; 4) Renting, landlords, evictions, vacancy; and 5) Data activism and counter-data activism. We concluded the workshop with a panel discussion summarising overarching issues/themes of the workshop.

This blog post outlines key topics that arose throughout the workshop, structured around each of the themed sessions and the final panel discussion.  

Day 1 

Property information  

In the session, Dr Mariana Reyes presented the work of herself, Dr Dennis Muthama and Prof Ayona Datta on the development control aspect of the planning system in Kenya, a system in transition after the introduction of automation. While the automation process is billed as improving efficiency, reducing corruption, speeding up the planning process and increasing investment, the transition has not been simple due to developers using multiple strategies to avoid planning processes, including constructing buildings at night. This presentation was followed by Dr Elsa Noterman, who discussed the concept of ‘data deferral’ through recounting the arduous process of submitting a freedom of information act request. This concept assists in naming a variety of strategies that hinder access to what is ostensibly ‘public’ data, as those seeking to access the data are continuously denied, redirected and delayed.

Dr Daan Bossuyt examined the processes and techniques resulting in the privatisation of public property through analysing how the Dutch Central Real Estate Agency and the Ministry of Defence deal with public real estate. Contrary to expectations, Dr Bossuyt found that the sale of public land held by the Ministry of Defence is not oriented towards the financialised nature of assets, but rather focused on cost metrics and replacement value. This focus leads to attention on short-term outcomes and avoiding high maintenance costs. Finally in this session, Dr Juliette Davret presented the work of herself, Dr Samuel Mutter, Dr Carla Kayanan, Prof Rob Kitchin and Mel Galley. Dr Davret examined processes of commodification of open data, considering the implications of open data being scraped, cleaned, put together with other datasets by private companies and then sold – sometimes back to those who originally produced the data.

Planning

Through an analysis of a metropolitan strategic plan, Prof Stephanie Dühr examined the political framing of data needs within such plans. Questions that arose included – what data is needed to meaningfully evaluate strategic policies? How does this compare with the datasets that are already available? Can the mismatch between the two point to instances of ‘policy based evidence making’? Then, Dr Carla Kayanan discussed work done along with Dr Juliette Davret, Dr Samuel Mutter and Prof Rob Kitchin on the data mobilities and data politics of planning. By examining the evolution of Ireland’s data ecosystem, the presentation sought to move beyond questions of inequalities that arise from access to technology, to consider how data practices and day–to–day operations demonstrate alternative forms of inequality and power dynamics.

Continuing the discussion of strategic planning, Dr Claire Daniel considered the unintended consequences of open planning data and analytics. Whilst the open data movement began with (and continues to espouse) the values of transparency and citizen empowerment – this does not capture the full view of open data. In reality, it can be difficult to use, invoke neoliberal models of individual agency and have unintended harmful consequences. Dr Daniel considered whether the use of open data by intermediaries, such as consultants, in effect makes the planning processes less transparent. Finally for the planning session, Dr Scott Markley discussed the rise of ‘municipal data solutions startups’ – startup companies offering a supposed solution to the problems arising from the highly fragmented, scattered, vague and confusing zoning system in the US. These companies are proliferating, claiming to, as one company’s tagline states, ‘empower the property industry’. The data these companies produce appear to be replete with errors and inconsistencies, as is the source data they are working with, due to zoning boundaries being poorly digitised and sourced from different places, at times not matching up. It is not clear how companies handle these issues, and someone, somewhere in the company must make (potentially arbitrary) decisions about where a boundary falls, or how a region is zoned. In some of these cases, as Dr Markley said, ‘to make a decision is to become the authority’.

Financialisation, platforms, residential/commercial real estate

Kick starting this session, Dr Julien Migozzi discussed how urban housing markets drive digital capitalism, and how digital capitalism upholds wealth inequalities and segregation within the context of global real estate networks. Dr Migozzi considered this through three key dimensions: legal, algorithmic and financial. Looking at this through public facing housing property portals in South Africa, Dr Migozzi found these portals recode housing inequalities, recycling apartheid boundaries for neighbourhood boundaries. PropTech, he argues, is RentTech – it fosters a traditional rentier model through the market, creating algorithmic rents from data services and software, and brings housing into the information economy. Next, Dr Sophia Maalsen discussed working with social media content creators to advocate for tenants’ rights, research done with Drs Peta Wolifson and Dallas Rogers. Dr Maalsen considered the difficulty of navigating multiple relationships with non-academic peers, as well as external partners, alongside the benefits of sharing academic research through storytelling on non-traditional platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. These considerations were made in the context of a project considering the (im)possibility of tenants having as much information about their landlords, as landlords have about tenants. The project advertised a fictional app, Know Your Landlord, that would allow tenants to vet their landlords.

Then Dr Maedhbh Nic Lochlainn discussed the transformation of Dublin’s Docklands drawing on Erin McElroy’s theory of siliconization. Examining the history of the area through various data sources, Dr Nic Lochlainn recounted the increasing financialisation of the area in the particular context of how Ireland was marketed as a safe, secure, desirable, English speaking location to invest in. In continuing to examine how the increasing financialisation of the city has been, and continues to be possible, Dr Nic Lochlainn found that doing this critical urban research ‘is partly like solving a crime that happened long ago, and partly like watching a very long and very slow car crash’. Closing out the day Dr Richard Waldron discussed work done in collaboration with Dr Declan Redmond and Dr Bernie O’Donoghue-Hynes examining the intricacies of understanding emergency accommodation use patterns of homeless families in Ireland. This is not straightforward work, as how this is recorded is not consistent (for example, in some cases children are not recorded at all, or are not recorded as part of a family unit so appear separately). Dr Waldron considered whether administrative data from emergency accommodation providers assist in monitoring presentation by families.

After a delightful dinner at Maynooth’s Pugin Hall and some well-earned rest, attendees gathered again bright and early for Day 2 of the workshop.

Day 2

Renting, landlords, evictions, vacancy

Dr Rachel Slaymaker opened up the second day of the workshop discussing the changing data landscape in the Irish Private Rental Sector (PRS). Slaymaker demonstrated how two new metrics included in the data collected by the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) can help better understand trends in PRS. However, Slaymaker cautioned that certain challenges remain in the data collection and analysis process, such as frequent housing policy changes and slow administrative changes related to data collection. Dr Erin McElroy then brought our focus to the various types of data methods tenant and housing organisers employ, mostly in San Francisco but also in other cities across the US and the globe, to identify corporate ownership trends and organise multi-building tenant associations and unions. McElroy’s presentation served as a powerful demonstration of the role of collective resistance against evictions, and how data stories can highlight issues of displacement contribute to resistance. An existing challenge to Ireland’s inability to address housing availability is the flattened categorisation of what constitutes as ‘vacant’ in Irish policy. Dr Cian O’Callaghan and Dr Kathleen Stokes grapple with this issue in their research. Their presentation provided a critical reading of how vacancy is understood in Ireland and the different narratives that emerge based on these interpretations. Providing additional empirics on the role of policy shaping the data landscape, Prof Michelle Norris closed off the session with findings from the analysis of Ireland’s Social Housing Assessments Report (SSHA) and Housing Assistant Payment (HAP) data sets from 2016 – 2022. The work, undertaken alongside Dr Cliodhna Bairéad, charts the increased reliance on data to inform policy, but the problematic that emerges in relation to data analysis in a period when housing and its accompanying policy is politicised, scrutinised and contested. Prof Norris was at pains to stress the troublesome issues that emerge with data analysis when fickle policy can change the direction of collection.

Data activism and counter-data actions  

In the final session, Dr Juliette Davret and Dr Samuel Mutter presented work completed with artists Joan Somers Donnelly and Augustine O’Donoghue, outlining similarities and divergences between the tactics of direct action and lobbying as data activism. They discussed the potential of these two approaches to resist neoliberal urbanism and defend the right to housing, and considered whether social movements could be thought of as data infrastructures. Wonyoung So, Asya Aizman and Chenab Navalkha presented on work completed with Catherine D’Ignazio, examining the motivations behind various housing data projects and the possibility of making data useful. They found some actors take a position of ‘strategic neutrality’, portraying a neutral position in order to be taken seriously in certain circles, and to have greater potential for influence (e.g. with policy makers). They called for more equitable and justice oriented housing data infrastructures.

Dr Danielle Hynes examined the implications of increasing datafication of processes of participation for social housing tenants, and considered whether datafication impedes the possibility of political voice and genuine listening for tenants. Finally, Jillian Crandall presented their research, examining how dispossession, displacement, and disenfranchisement of low-income Black communities is perpetuated through housing speculation and financialisation. Jillian outlined how cadastral mapping has caused disaster – echoing the findings of Dr Migozzi in outlining how cadastral mapping is tied to redlining, inequitable taxation and has been used as a tool of colonialism.

Final panel

The workshop concluded with a panel discussion between Prof Rob Kitchin, Dr Daithi Downey, Prof Michelle Norris, Dr Sophia Maalsen and Dr Erin McElroy. The panel members reflected on some themes repeated throughout the workshop, and then all attendees engaged in discussion around these themes. The discussion touched on:

• The fragmentation and harmonisation of data.
• The importance of understanding the contexts of power.
• Access to, usability and translatability of data.
• Potential harms of open/opening data.
• The inescapability of certain data infrastructures: Amazon, Google, and the contradictions that throws up when undertaking anti-capitalist data projects.
• The limited nature of our workshop internationally – the majority of research (with some exceptions) presented was based in Ireland, the UK, US or Australia.
• Digitalisaiton and datafication are processes that are incomplete and still underway in Ireland, and different departments are at different stages in this process.
• The tension between a simple narrative that can form part of lobbying/communicating a message effectively, and fully telling a nuanced story, or communicating all the nuances related to a dataset.
• Instances of people strategically using numbers that they know are not correct in order to further their argument.

Finally, many questions were considered as part of this discussion, including the following:

• What could community control of data look like?
• What problems that we see as data problems are new/unique to data, and what already existed but are easy to chalk up to issues of contemporary technology?
• Within the activist realm especially – what are the affective dimensions of this data work? How does energy and community grow? How does this relate to datafied processes? Is this something that can’t be datafied?
• What are the different genres of (housing) data? How are data stories told?

The Data Stories team would like to thank all the presenters for their insightful presentations. We are also grateful to the Irish stakeholders who took time out of their busy schedules to attend and contribute to developing the conversations. A special thank you is very much reserved for Orla Dunne, who dealt with all the travel and lodging logistics. Over the coming months, we will compile many of the presentations into an edited book. Keep an eye out! For now, most of the presenters have given us permission to share their slides with the public.

Presentation Slides

• Workshop agenda and presentation abstracts: Programme with Abstracts
• Mariana Reyes (UCL, UK) and Dennis M. Muthama (BIEA, Kenya) – Keeping up with peripheral urbanisation: the automation of urban planning in Kajiado, Kenya
• Elsa Noterman (QMUL, UK) – Data deferral: Speculating about property information
• Daan Bossuyt (Utrecht University, Netherlands) – The data politics of state property regimes: A case-study of the Dutch Central Real Estate Agency
• Juliette Davret (Maynooth University) – Open access data, data capitalism, and urban planning
• Stefanie Dühr (University of South Australia) – The data politics of strategic spatial planning: Experiences from the metropolitan spatial strategy for Greater Adelaide, South Australia
• Juliette Davret, Carla Kayanan, Rob Kitchin and Sam Mutter (Maynooth University, Ireland) – Charting the data ecosystem, data mobilities and data politics of planning
• Claire Daniel (University of New South Wales, Australia) – Are we just feeding the beast? Addressing unintended consequences of open planning data and analytics
• Scott Markley (Cornell University, USA) – Who is public planning data for? Zoning and the rise of the “municipal data solutions” startup
• Julien Migozzi (Oxford University, UK): PropTech is RentTech: (Re)coding housing into an asset class
• Sophia Maalsen (University of Sydney, Australia) – Know Your Landlord: inverting the data collection narrative as a means to tenancy advocacy in the private rental sector
• Maedhbh Nic Lochlainn (UCC, Ireland) – Diffracting Dublin Docklands: Fieldnotes from a technocapitalist frontier
• Richard Waldron (QUB), Declan Redmond (UCD) and Bernie O’Donoghue-Hynes (LGMA) – Understanding the Emergency Accommodation Use Patterns of Homeless Families: The Case of Dublin
• Rachel Slaymaker (ESRI, Ireland) – The Changing Data Landscape in the Irish Private Rental Sector
• Erin McElroy (University of Washington, USA) – Storying Landlord Geographies: Parsing Together Evictor Data to Narrate (Dis)possession and Resistance
• Cian O’Callaghan (TCD, Ireland) and Kathleen Stokes (DCU, Ireland) – Telling stories with vacancy data: Navigating between politics and praxis
• Clíodhna Bairéad and Michelle Norris (UCD, Ireland) – Does data change when housing need is met? Comparing Social Housing Assessment and Housing Assistance Payment Data (2016-2022)
• Juliette Davret, Sam Mutter, Joan Somers Donnelly, Augustine O’Donoghue (Maynooth University, Ireland) – A Critical Comparison of Direct Action and Lobbying as Data Activism: The case of housing and planning in Dublin
• Wonyoung So, Asya Aizman, Chenab Navalkha, and Catherine D’Ignazio (MIT, USA) – Housing Data Activism
• Danielle Hynes (Maynooth University, Ireland) – What data doesn’t capture: Voice, listening and participation in Australian social housing
• Jillian (Lee) Crandall (University of California, Berkeley, USA) – Who Owns Oakland?

(Source: RGS-IBG)

Between the 28th and 30th of August 2024 Samuel Mutter, postdoctoral researcher on the Data Stories team, attended the Royal Geographical Society-Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG) annual international conference in London, UK. The conference theme was ‘mapping’.

Data Stories PI Rob Kitchin was also virtually present at the event as a keynote speaker. Rob gave a live streamed presentation from the International Geographic Congress (IGC) conference in Dublin on ‘Digital twins, deep maps and the nature of mapping’, which discussed recent work exploring emerging developments in 3D mapping with our Creative Technologist Oliver Dawkins.

(Rob Kitchin gives his keynote. Source: Maynooth University)

Sam’s own presentation was co-authored with one of the Data Stories artists-in-residence, Augustine O’Donoghue. Entitled ‘Public Luxury: Building a data-informed board game for tenant organising’, their presentation was included in the session organised by Anil Sindhwani (Durham University & Queen Mary UoL) titled ‘Redefining the Housing (Activism) Question’. Their presentation focused largely on a discussion of Augustine’s recent intervention ‘Doormats in Anticipation of Doorknocking Politicians’ (the topic of a previous post on this blog) and her new concept for a housing activism board game to be co-created with members of the Community Action Tenant’s Union (CATU) in Dublin.

(Project artist Augustine O’Donoghue. Source: author)

The presentation sought to situate these artistic interventions within the wider Data Stories project, highlighting the benefits of deploying artistic ways of doing and thinking and the ways this had shaped research processes – including engagement with citizen groups – and outputs. It also reflected on some of the challenges of organising co-creative processes in the context of the Irish housing crisis, manifesting not only as a shortage of available, affordable and suitable housing, but also a shortage of available, affordable and suitable public and community spaces in which citizens, artists and activists can do or make things together.

The presentation provided an interesting point of comparison with other papers in the session. These included research on the practice of ‘rent bidding’ in the UK private rental market by Noterman & Barry-Born and studies of the blurring of public/private space in experiences of homeless populations and the community groups working with them by Burgum & Pojuner.

Overall, the conference enabled Data Stories to share different elements of the project’s work with academic audiences working in related fields.

Amidst the flurry of all the other events crammed into the last two weeks of August and the first week of September, Data Stories chaired a second session at the IGC with colleagues , Dr. Nic Lochlainn, from Cork City University, and Dr. Maalsen, from University of Sydney. Both Dr. Maedhbh Nic Lochlainn and Dr. Sophia Maalsen presented papers, along with Dr. Danielle Kerrigan from Simon Fraser University.

Considering how the increased use of data in urban planning, housing management, development and financialisation has led to profound shifts in how we understand, design, and manage our built environments, Critical Perspectives on Housing and Planning Data aimed to examine the most crucial and contentious aspects of data politics and power in urban planning and housing management. This research agenda is a response to how the transition towards a more data-driven approach raises a series of critical questions concerning who controls the data infrastructures, generation, analysis, and interpretation of data, and data-driven decision-making, as well as issues of spatial justice, privacy, representativeness and data ethics.

Dr. Nic Lochlainn started off the session with a presentation titled, Casing the joint: Repurposing planning and housing data for critical urban property research. With its methodological focus on how critical urban property research is conducted, in this presentation, Dr. Nic Lochlainn walked us through the idea of ‘casing the joint’, which involves undergoing a series of digital/material research methods to better understand how space is socially produced and how the production creates a data trail useful for critical research. This process of groundtruthing involves repurposing mundane and social data and determining what pieces matter, when and how.

Dr. Kerrigan followed with the presentation, The rise of own-use evictions and the limits of eviction data to understanding Canadian rental markets. This work was developed alongside Cloé St. Hilaire, University of Waterloo, and Dr. David Wachsmuth, McGill University, and inquires into the discrepancies of own-use eviction data with the starting point that in Canada own-use evictions are the most common type of eviction, but that the use of it is not even across the Canadian provinces. Deeper analysis of own-use eviction data is important, the authors argue, to provide planners and policy-makers with a better understanding of their housing landscape.

Dr. Maalsen closed off the session with the presentation, Know Your Landlord: Inverting the data collection narrative as a means to tenancy advocacy in the private rental sector. The research was produced alongside Associate Professor Dallas Rogers and Dr. Peta Wolifsonn, both at the University of Sydney. Dr. Maalsen showcased the fictional “Know Your Landlord” app to raise awareness of the power discrepancies between landlords and tenants. The presentation also highlighted methodological challenges that emerged in developing the app between the researchers, the design firm and the social media influencer.

Two additional scholars were meant to present in this session, but had unforeseen circumstances that prevented them from joining us. As chair, Dr. Carla Maria Kayanan used the extra time to allow the individuals to sit at the front of the room for a question and answer session and a more lengthy discussion on the topic.

Data Stories team would like to thank all the presenters for their insightful research and to the lively participants who joined us and asked such great, thought-provoking questions.

During the recent International Geography Congress, we organized a session on “The Digital Turn in Planning Practices and Policy Making”, organized by Juliette Davret, Carla Maria Kayanan, Oliver Dawkins and Rob Kitchin. This session brought together researchers and practitioners to explore how digitalization is transforming the planning and policymaking landscape. This session sought to examine the opportunities, challenges, and innovative approaches that emerge as planning becomes increasingly data-driven and dependent on digital tools. 

Source: IGU Commission on Local and Regional Development 

Historically, planning has relied on digital technologies such as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and decision-support systems. However, much of the field remained paper-based until a more concerted effort to digitise planning processes. This shift aims to move all aspects of planning, from strategic development to enforcement, onto integrated digital systems. As a result, planners are facing new ways of working, where data flows, engagement with external stakeholders and the public’s access to information have all been transformed. Yet, this digital transition also raises critical questions about inclusivity, public proficiency and engagement. How well equipped are citizens and professionals to navigate this new digital planning environment? And how do data infrastructures intersect across different sectors and scales of government, creating both opportunities and complexities? 

The first part of the session, chaired by Professor Zorica Nedovic-Budic, focused on evidence-based policies and processes.   

One of the key discussions centered around the challenges faced by national and local governments is adapting to this digital shift. For example, in Ireland, Carla Maria Kayanan presented a paper explaining how the planning system’s efforts to embrace digitalisation have been hindered by two significant factors: entrenched centralisation of governance and the impact of austerity. The lack of local autonomy, coupled with reduced resources and staffing since the Global Financial Crisis, has led to an atmosphere of uncertainty, and in many cases, reluctance to fully engage with digital tools. These challenges are further compounded by a lack of proper training and support, resulting in feelings of weariness and complacency among planning professionals who are expected to adapt to new systems without adequate assistance. 

With a focus on Greater Sydney, Australia, a critical evaluation of the data analytics ecosystem surrounding planning practices was presented by Claire Daniel. The findings revealed that while data-driven planning holds promise, its implementation is far from seamless. Publicly available data plays an essential role in shaping policies, but investment disparities in data collection across different sectors leads to imbalances in how environmental and commercial land-use concerns are addressed. Furthermore, while government agencies and large consulting firms dominate the conversation, community submissions are often underrepresented in formal planning documents, raising concerns about equity and the role of public input in shaping urban development. 

The session also highlighted efforts in the UK to reform the complex system of developer contributions, which currently relies on a blend of fixed and negotiated agreements as explained by Michael Crilly. The move towards a more standardised, digitally driven model for calculating developer contributions was discussed. This emerging model, developed in collaboration between academia and industry, breaks down the viability of planning applications into key cost components and uses digital tools to enhance transparency and precision in the planning process. By automating parts of the decision-making process and ensuring greater clarity around developer contributions, this approach aims to streamline planning practices and offer a more reproducible model for statutory planning. 

The second part of the session, chaired by Oliver Dawkins, focused mainly on the development, application, and assessment of advanced digital technologies for planning. 

Source: IGU Commission on Local and Regional Development 

From the 2010s onward, smart city control rooms and urban dashboards have drawn considerable critical attention due to the closed nature of their development, the exclusive nature of access, their reliance on quantitative metrics, their requirement for large amounts of data encouraging ever more fine-grained and surveillant forms of data collection, and their tendency to collapse the distinction between strategic, long-term planning and more reactive forms of urban operations dependent on the supply of real-time data. The discussion in this session sought to take stock of these developments and looked beyond current trends to consider future challenges and potentials. 

Davide Ceccato began the second part with a critical examination of Venice’s efforts to mitigate the daily impact of intensive tourism on the city through their own smart control room. The city increasingly relies on mobile positioning data, people counting sensors, surveillance cameras and traffic sensors to monitor tourist flows. However, while the system provides a detailed picture of urban activity, it remains unclear whether the promise of data-driven management has been realised. For this reason, Ceccato argued that it is essential to critically evaluate the quality, privacy, and accessibility of data and the wider political and market interests informing such projects. 

Continuing this examination, Louis Jolivalt compared the development of urban dashboards and digital twins for environmental planning in the French cities of Dijon and Angers. In both cases, the technological development was motivated by a desire to optimise the management of urban infrastructure and public space, and to support crisis response for environmental issues such as the impacts of urban heat islands or flooding. Both cities faced significant challenges in the development and implementation of long-term strategies for these technologies and struggled to achieve the centralisation of data required to meet their aims. Complex technical implementations in both cases also required the negotiation of competing political interests and necessitated a broader appreciation for the socio-technical entwinement of technology and the social. 

Focusing on digital twins, Mani Dhingra and Jack Lehane discussed Smart Dublin’s exploration of the technology to improve stakeholder communication and community participation. The project aims to develop an AI-driven simulation of urban systems for city management, but the authors caution that there are challenges in adopting 3D spatial media and digital methods within public sector planning. In alignment with the European Commission’s proposals for ‘local digital twins’, they outlined Smart Dublin’s plans for the ethical development and deployment of digital twin solutions that are more responsive to the needs and desires of local inhabitants. Underpinned by a range of case studies, the presentation offered vivid examples of more socially oriented uses of digital twins. This also posed challenges regarding the nature and suitability of such technologies, which have typically been discussed in purely technical terms to date. 

Looking to the forefront of technological development, the session ended with a presentation by Michal Rzeszewski examining the socio-technical imaginaries or aspirations motivating the intersection of discourses on urban planning and the metaverse. The Metaverse concept offers an encompassing vision for digital planning, combining emerging technologies like digital twins and augmented reality with the latest developments in gaming and gamification to deliver a new form of planning that crosses the boundary between physical, digital and hybrid spaces. Behind the hype, we often find familiar use cases and existing technologies already in need of critical reflection. This examination of the nascent metaverse sought to demonstrate how the identification of today’s imaginaries might steer more desirable developments in digitally informed planning and policy going forward.

Overall, this session underscored the transformative potential of digital technologies in planning, but also highlighted the complex challenges that come with it. The digital turn offers new tools for efficiency, transparency and inclusivity, but navigating this transition requires careful consideration of governance structures, public engagement and the ability of professionals and citizens alike to adapt to a rapidly changing planning landscape.  

Papers presented:

Part 1

Kayanan C. M., Mutter S., Davret J. & Kitchin R. Data-driven planning: a review of IT systems and the challenges to Ireland’s digital turn. 

Daniel C. & Pettit C. A critical evaluation of the data analytics and governance ecosystem surrounding planning for Greater Sydney. 

Crilly M. Digital betterment: modelling planning viability & developer contributions. 

Part 2  

Ceccato D. Smart Control Room, Venice: A tool for management and control of tourism mobility. 

Jolivalt L. Smart city tools for environmental planning: opportunities and challenges in two French case studies: Dijon and Angers. 

Dhingra M., Aphra Kerr A. & Lehane J. R. Rethinking digital ‘visual’ twins and building alternatives for smart city planning: a case of Smart Dublin. 

Rzeszewski M., Evans L. & Maciej Główczyński M. Reimagining Urban Planning in the Metaverse: A Critical Examination of Socio-Technological Imaginaries and Realities. 

Research creation, a method of researching and developing theory with and through arts-based methods, has been practiced within the arts and humanities since at least the 1990s (Loveless 2019, Truman 2021). However, within Geography this practice remains less known (see McCormack 2008). In this session we aim to explore the theoretical implications of research creation with a particular focus on critical data studies. 

This call is underpinned by the European Research Council (ERC) funded project, Data Stories, led by Rob Kitchin, which employs research creation to investigate the planning and property data ecosystem. By partnering researchers and artists in a series of case studies, Data Stories aims to co-produce knowledge about data use and data practices through artist-led workshops with planning and policy stakeholders in the public, private and civil sectors. The collaboration seeks to avoid tokenism (i.e. only employing artists to disseminate findings and/or using artists as consultants to lead the workshops) to instead leverage the unique capacities of artists in knowledge production throughout the entire duration of each case study. However, throughout the process, the case studies have also highlighted challenges, such as differing work practices, timelines and outputs between researchers, artists and the engaged stakeholders. See this blog post for our reflections on the above, as well as Kitchin (2023) for a discussion on arts-based methods to research digital life. 

We have three dominant objectives for this session: 

1. To theorise what constitutes co-production of knowledge in the context of critical data studies.
2. To develop theoretical insights on the co-production of academic knowledge with artists and stakeholders who possess different epistemologies and practices.
3. To examine the potential of research creation as a method to elucidate data’s use in the shaping of the built environment, policy and planning. 

We invite submissions from scholars, artists and scholar-artists engaged in similar projects who are interested in theorising the effectiveness of research creation. We seek papers that emphasise epistemological inquiry rather than those that primarily showcase the outputs of using arts-based methods. Papers that critically consider arts-based methods in the social sciences, engage with data, and focus on housing, planning, and property will be prioritised.  

Submission Guidelines: Please submit an abstract of up to 250 words to Carla.Kayanan@mu.ie and Juliette.Davret@mu.ie by Friday, October 11th. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by Friday, October 18th with the recognition that the AAG’s abstract submission deadline is October 31st. 

We look forward to your contributions to this theoretical exploration of research creation in critical data studies. 

Organisers: Dr. Carla Maria Kayanan (Assistant Lecturer, Maynooth University) and Dr. Juliette Davret (Postdoctoral Researcher, Maynooth University)  

Conference Details: 2025 AAG Annual Meeting, March 24-28, Detroit (Michigan, USA)  

For further information, please contact Carla.Kayanan@mu,ie and Juliette.Davret@mu.ie. 

References 

Kitchin, R., 2023. Arts-based methods for researching digital life. Available at: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/16870/1/DS%20WP1%20Arts%20based%20methods.pdf

Loveless, N., 2019. How to make art at the end of the world: A manifesto for research-creation. Duke University Press.

McCormack, D.P., 2008. Thinking-spaces for research-creation. Inflexions, 1(1), pp.1-16.

Truman, S.E., 2021. Feminist speculations and the practice of research-creation: Writing pedagogies and intertextual affects. Routledge.