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

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.

Additional information

Funding

We acknowledge funding by Save the Children Bangladesh and the support of Random Hacks of Kindness (Sydney and Western Sydney).

Notes on contributors

Teresa Swist

Teresa Swist is Research Fellow at Western Sydney University’s Institute for Culture and Society. She was an adviser for the Kolorob project and has co-organized numerous hackathons in Western Sydney. Her research interests span the complexity and power relations of knowledge practices in the digital age, with a particular focus on co-design, learning, creativity, ecology, and well-being. She is currently part of the Centre of Research Excellence for Adolescent Health exploring an ethics of engagement, emerging technologies, and health equity. Swist’s research draws upon an interdisciplinary approach to examine the politics of platforms and imaginaries, as well as the possibility of critical alternatives. Her work has been published in Journal of Youth Studies, New Media and Society, Communication and the Public, and Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies.

Liam Magee

Liam Magee is Senior Research Fellow at Western Sydney University’s Institute for Culture and Society. He was also an adviser for the Kolorob project and has co-organized numerous hackathons in Western Sydney. He researches relations between software and cities, markets, knowledge systems, and the environment. He is a Chief Investigator of Antarctic Cities and the Global Commons: Rethinking the Gateways, where he leads development of a game and other tools for engaging urban communities in environmental issues. Magee’s recent work examines the rising influence of autonomous systems, from AI systems to robotics, in contemporary labor and life. His work has been published in Local Environment, Geoforum, Environment and Planning C, and Environmental Politics, and his most recent book, Interwoven Cities, was published by Palgrave Macmillan.