White, James Merricks
(2019)
Standardising the city:
A material-discursive genealogy of
CPA-I_001, ISO 37120 and BSI PAS 181.
PhD thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
Abstract
City standards are a rapidly growing and highly innovative new area of international
standards development. They propose tools, techniques and guidelines for the governance
of smart and sustainable cities. In this thesis, I survey the standards literature, develop a
methodology for their study, and analyse three city standards, the institutions that support
them and the material-discursive apparatuses that allow them to take shape. CPA-I_001
is a diagram for seeing, measuring and managing the city as a system of systems. ISO
37120 defines 100 performance indicators for assessing and benchmarking city services
and quality of life. And BSI PAS 181 recommends practices for smart city leadership in
the integration and management of government services. My decision to focus on the
development, circulation and implementation of these standards prompted the use of
semi-structured interviews and document analysis; methods capable of following their
specific global movements. Drawing on data thus generated, I argue that city standards
act as an effective political technology in three capacities: by propagating ideas, materials
and techniques; by steering outcomes towards desirable goals; and by assuring city leaders
and decision-makers. The case study analysis is augmented by an exploration of the
broader intellectual traditions on which the three standards draw. This allows me to reveal
their political assumptions and logics, and intervene upon their role in the production of
future cities. My research contributes to: empirical work on standards in cities; research
methodologies in human geography, and science and technology studies; and conceptual
and theoretical debates within Foucault studies, the new materialism, nonrepresentational
theory and urban theory.
| Item Type: |
Thesis
(PhD)
|
| Keywords: |
Standardising; city;
material-discursive genealogy;
CPA-I_001, ISO 37120; BSI PAS 181; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology |
| Item ID: |
10848 |
| Depositing User: |
IR eTheses
|
| Date Deposited: |
06 Jun 2019 16:27 |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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