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Abstract
Although aspirations for the ‘smart home’ have existed since the 1950s, the recent understanding of smart technological interventions as ecosystems of policy, material, people, ICT and data that drive social and spatial change, suggests we need to revise the smart home. From increased leisure time to increased energy efficiency – the smart home has promised, and frequently failed to deliver its utopian promises. First, this paper argues the smart home can be conceptualized as an assemblage of social, economic, political and technological apparatuses. Thinking about the smart home as assemblage allows us to see the network of relationships which constitute it, the work they do in the world, and the subsequent possibilities of becoming. Second, the paper offers innovative methodologies for researching the smart home that draws on the agentive capacities of ‘smart’ technologies. Such unpacking is critical to understand the work and possibilities of the smart home. The methodologies are productive for thinking about the future of housing research.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the Ian Buchanan Fell Trust and School of Architecture, Design and Planning, University of Sydney, for funding this work.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
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Notes on contributors
Sophia Maalsen
Sophia Maalsen is a lecturer in urbanism at the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney.
