Open AccessThe smart grid as a security device: Electricity infrastructure and urban governance in Kingston and Rio de Janeiro
Author(s) -
Francesca Pilo
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
urban studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.922
H-Index - 147
eISSN - 1360-063X
pISSN - 0042-0980
DOI - 10.1177/0042098020985711
Subject(s) - corporate governance , politics , smart grid , state (computer science) , sovereignty , sociotechnical system , smart city , inequality , sociology , political science , computer security , business , economics , engineering , law , computer science , electrical engineering , management , finance , algorithm , mathematics , mathematical analysis , internet of things
This article aims to contribute to recent debates on the politics of smart grids by exploring their installation in low-income areas in Kingston (Jamaica) and Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). To date, much of this debate has focused on forms of smart city experiments, mostly in the Global North, while less attention has been given to the implementation of smart grids in cities characterised by high levels of urban insecurity and socio-spatial inequality. This article illustrates how, in both contexts, the installation of smart metering is used as a security device that embeds the promise of protecting infrastructure and revenue and navigating complex relations framed along lines of socio-economic inequalities and urban sovereignty – here linked to configurations of state and non-state (criminal) territorial control and power. By unpacking the political workings of the smart grid within changing urban security contexts, including not only the rationalities that support its use but also the forms of resistance, contestation and socio-technical failure that emerge, the article argues for the importance of examining the conjunction between urban and infrastructural governance, including the reshaping of local power relations and spatial inequalities, through globally circulating devices.