The Production of Smart Space
An Analysis of Urban and Rural Smart Agrifood Technology
Master’s Thesis by Mari Fujiwara, 11707461
Research Masters Media Studies Graduate School of Humanities
University of Amsterdam
Supervisor: dr. Alex Gekker Second reader: dr. Bernhard Rieder
Fujiwara 2 Abstract
The word ‘smart’ has been used as a buzzword, and often discussed and marketed as urban. Many scholars have discussed smart cities in relation to technology as an approach to achieve sustainability. However, these studies have not adequately addressed smartness in relation to rural space. In fact, rural space is increasingly mediated by smart technology, especially in the sustainable food and agriculture field, for example by real-time soil monitoring. Currently, there is little research on how spatiality is being produced by smart agrifood technology, and how developers of such technology are envisioning space, despite those factors having a big impact on lives in such space. Hence, my research addresses how urban and rural smart food technologies vary in their co-construction of spatiality. I will look at Lefebvre’s triad of space as physical, mental, and social to understand the relationship between rural and urban space, and to illustrate the conceptual gap the developers may have when intervening a physically and conceptually distant space. I will discuss smart space following Cook and Das’s concept of smart environment and technology as a mediating role in the production of space. In the empirical part, through a qualitative interface analysis of four smart agrifood services, and by interviewing six developers and owners of smart agrifood technology, how they produce their technologies, and ultimately, how they aim to transform space will be revealed. Three
conflicts are found and discussed: empowerment and restriction, integration and exclusion, and advancement and privilege. In the end, I conclude that smart agrifood technologies offer both solutions and problems in both urban and rural spaces. The companies have a good intention to empower the vulnerable; however, the technologies remain to be at the site of social struggles and exclusion, as social conditions and environments influence how the companies operate their technologies.
Keywords: smart agrifood technology, smart space, spatial production, Lefebvre, human geography
Fujiwara 3
Acknowledgements ... 4
1. Introduction ... 5
1.1. Agriculture and Technology ... 5
1.2. Developer’s Position ... 10
1.3. Structure of the Thesis ... 13
2. Making Space Smart ... 15
2.1. Lefebvre’s Space: Various Layers of Space ... 15
2.2. Rural and Urban Relations ... 18
2.3. Conceptual Gap within Space ... 20
2.4. Space Mediated by Smart Technology ... 22
2.5. Food and Smart Space ... 26
3. Methodology... 29
3.1. Positioning of the Researcher ... 29
3.2. Interview ... 31
3.3. Qualitative Platform/Interface Analysis ... 33
3.4. Organization and Presentation of Data ... 34
4. Smart Agrifood Technology as a Social Milieu ... 36
4.1. Empowerment and Restriction ... 36
4.2. Integration and Exclusion ... 44
4.3. Advancement and Privilege ... 51
5. Conclusion: Is Smart ‘the Solution’? ... 56
Works Cited ... 62
Fujiwara 4
Acknowledgements
My thesis writing has been a challenging but rewarding journey, and there are some people who were an important part of this journey. First of all, I cannot express enough thanks to my family — thank you for letting me do everything I have ever wanted to do, and always giving me your full support regardless of the distance and time zones.
My research could not have been even come up without the opportunity I gained at my internship at Thought For Food. I would also like to express my special thanks to all the interviewees. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your insights and experiences with me. I simply admire all the work you have put into your projects, and sincerely hope for a better food system in the future.
The completion of this project could not have been accomplished without the support of my classmates and friends. Joost, Keely, Marcie, Tara, and Yannick — thank you so much for proofreading my work, and giving me intellectual as well as emotional support.
Last but definitely not least, my deepest gratitude goes to my supervisor, dr. Alex Gekker. Thank you so much for your willingness to always help me, and your very thorough feedback. My ideas could not have been put together without your help.
Fujiwara 5
1. Introduction
1.1. Agriculture and Technology
It’s impressive how [farmers] manage so much land without data, all the natural resources and all the production without information to make decisions. But when we bring data, it changes the scenario completely. So, to me, it’s impressive to know how it was one year, two years ago for them, and how it changed over the years. (Lucas)
Our living space is increasingly mediated by smart technologies. Buildings use sensing technologies to monitor rooms to make temperature, lighting, and ventilation adjustments based on real-time data of the rooms, rather than relying on the estimates or average
(Aamidor). Smart parking, smart lighting, and real-time information apps are embedded into the social fabric (Coletta and Kitchin 2). Nowadays, rural space is no exception. There are devices monitoring the farmland, collecting data about crops and climate, and enabling “farmers to remotely judge when it's time for harvest” (Bryce). They are what I call smart
agrifood technologies that are transforming food production with digital information, and thus
changing the ways in which people interact with agricultural space. In this example, farmers do not need to be at the farm physically to observe and collect information about the crops and climate. Instead, they can stay at home getting quantitative data that is being collected by sensors.
The smart movement and technologies are often associated and marketed as an interest in urban space, rather than rural space. One clear example is smart cities. Many governments, states, and organizations are trying to make cities smarter to make energy usage,
transportation, and people’s lives more efficient (Ferrer et al. 8). UNECE and ITU term smart sustainable cities as “an innovative city that uses information and communication
technologies (ICTs) and other means to improve quality of life, efficiency of urban operation[s] and services, and competitiveness, while ensuring that it meets the needs of present and future generations with respect to economic, social, environmental as well as cultural aspects” (Economic Commission for Europe 3). Scholars have talked about smart cities increasingly in relation to sustainability (Haarstad, 2017; Manitiu and Pedrini, 2016; Marceau, 2008; Newton, 2012). However, there has not been an active discussion around smart rural movement in academia even though we rely heavily on rural space, as the large
Fujiwara 6 amount of the food is still produced by smallholder farmers in rural areas (Lowder et al. 16). They are in a vulnerable position since one billion of them globally are living under poverty and also because of the environmental impact from climate change (Smallholders, Food
Security and the Environment 6).
“Cities were shaped by food”, says architect Chris Precht who is working on global projects to reconnect nature and architecture in Dezeen, the award-winning architecture and design magazine. Humans gathered where there was food. However, technology such as transportation and infrastructure, and the development of the market changed this foodscape as they detached urban space from food (Precht). As a result, people in the city could live far from food production site and became dependent on food delivered by corporations.
Accordingly, urban space has been neglected in the food production process and especially food security challenges (Crush and Riley 47). Innovative agricultural technologies are needed to overcome food security challenges, which are a priority of smart rural space.
This thesis attempts to fill this research gap: to overcome the underemphasis of the rural in the discussion of smart technology, and to include urban space in the discourse of food. In the food and agriculture industry, we can see a significant involvement of smart technologies in both urban and rural areas. Smart agrifood technologies are generally developed in the hope of combatting worldwide challenges such as the pressing environmental issues and the
growing global population to feed (Walter et al. 6148; Fourtané; Bryce). Climate change poses a threat to feed our rapidly growing population (Lipper et al. 1068), as today 815 million people are hungry, which will only increase if agricultural productivity does not change (Transforming Food and Agriculture 4).
Digitization of the data of space is relatively new in rural areas, even though such data has always been collected manually (Bronson and Knezevic 1). Knowing the condition of the farming site is vital to be successful. Data allows farmers to make better decisions about their activities. Today, finally “farming is undergoing a digital revolution” (1). The volume of information, storage, and the analytic capability have been scaled up with the smart
technologies, digitization of data, and Big Data, which enable more precise prediction about the future events and processes (Bronson and Knezevic 1; Carbonell 1; Whitaker 45).
For example, Agrosmart, located in the city of Campinas northwest of Sao Paulo, Brazil, offers the digital agriculture platform “to enable farmers [to] use the power of data to explore the maximum potential of each seed and dollar invested” (“Our Technology”). On their platform, users can access real-time information crossing different variables “such as in
Fujiwara 7 field sensors, satellite imagery, meteorological, seed genetics and field notes” (“Our
Technology”). They enable soil, climate, and atmosphere monitoring in each farm by automatic data collection using sensors in the fields. Agrosmart interacts with farms and farmers, on site and remotely: The team goes to the field to implement their device and do soil analysis, and afterwards they follow up remotely and in-person (“Why Choose Agrosmart”). They monitor soil moisture or climate conditions such as rainfall and wind speed to give users irrigation recommendations, without requiring internet or mobile coverage (“Soil Smart”). Based on these pieces of information, customers can plan their farm activities: farmers can “set the right day and time for the entry of machinery into the field… avoiding soil
compaction and rework” (“Soil Moisture”). They also offer an overview of crop health with a simple visualization which enables to “identify problems in advance, prioritizing applications and measures to avoid loss of productivity” (“Orbita”). With these approaches, Agrosmart provides farmers with the tools to make data-driven decisions to optimize their farming activities and crops.
Another example of rural smart agrifood technology is offered by Cultivando Futuro based in the capital of Colombia, Bogotá. They offer an agribusiness platform which does not only provide information about crops, but also connects key players to each other to facilitate fairer trade. Hence, their service is not merely aimed at farmers, but also producers,
organizations, and buyers who are also an important part of the agricultural food chain, so that all these actors are enabled to make “better decisions based on key information” (Bickerton). For example, buyers are able to purchase items directly from producers without having to rely on intermediaries and find direct suppliers without having to visit farms; farmer organizations, who need to manage their producers, can gain information about their producers’ farms
immediately to make their strategy more efficient (“Cultivando Futuro”). By providing all of these actors in the food chain with these data to make more informed decisions, Cultivando Futuro helps smallholder farmers achieve their full potential (“About”) and is “making buying, producing and management of agriculture fairer and more efficient at every stage” (Bickerton).
Smart cities strive to better manage natural resources and energy, as this is a big part of what smart technologies promise. As agriculture utilizes a lot of these scarce resources, smart agrifood technologies are slowly being incorporated in urban space as well. These
implementations include components such as wireless sensor networks and analytical capability, which are believed to be a solution to resource management (Neirotti et al. 28).
Fujiwara 8 Vertical farming is one of the smart agriculture techniques to combat the urgent demand of food security. In vertical farms, the growing process is largely automated: from monitoring to adjusting the amount of water and the temperature to optimize growth in a controlled
environment agriculture (Despommier 388). These kinds of farms are typically located in or
close to urban areas, and have been implemented since 2010 (388).
Figure A. Inside of Future Crops' vertical farm from "Future Crops." Future Crops, https://www.future-crops.com/. Accessed 16 Apr. 2019.
One of the largest vertical farms in Europe is Future Crops, located five minutes away from the Hague, the Netherlands (see figure A). They try to produce high-quality products stably in “the most balanced, natural way” (“Future Crops”). They provide ideal conditions to each plant in the fully automated environment, using LED lights and sophisticated irrigation systems, which allow “minimum human intervention from seeding to harvesting” (“Future Crops”). This also leads to less resource consumption, because they provide the precise amounts of necessary water, light, and nutrients. Since they have nine custom climate zones that are designed for each plant which makes it “completely independent of environmental or other external factors” (“Why Us”), they can offer the products consistently all year round. They do not use pesticides because they have a negative influence on flavour and people’s health, and they believe that the consumers should “know what they’re really eating” (“Why Us”). Because they produce in vertically stacked layers, they can grow significantly more food per square meter compared to a conventional farm (“FAQ”). Since their manufacture is fully controlled, they can grow “anywhere, anytime globally” (“Benefits”).
Fujiwara 9 There is also a small-scale version of vertical farming for individuals. Agrilution is a company in Munich, Germany, that develops and sells a personal vertical farming device called the Plantcube. This product is one step further than orthodox vertical farming in cities, but rather lets the users grow and harvest their own vegetables “in your kitchen” (“Plantcube Inspiration”). The system does not rely on soil, but instead employs a hydroponic cultivation system which uses water as a base. The water circulates in the cube, and uses only ten percent of the water required for conventional cultivation (“Plantcube Functions”). The Plantcube gives the right amount of resources automatically, including water, nutrients, and light with Agrilution’s LED Plant Light (“Plantcube Functions”). It is accompanied by the Agrilution App that is a “smart control system for your Plantcube” (“App”). Via the app, the users get the information about growth and the process from germination to harvest. In this way, Agrilution offers “an intelligent home greenhouse” (“Story”) that makes planting and
harvesting much more effortless in your living space, and accordingly attempts to establish a relationship between people and food.
By making space quantitatively retrievable, a media theorist, Bernhard Siegert argues that these techniques are used to modulate physical space (Siegert 96). As a result, these technologies that refer to and capture space have the capability of changing our understanding of space. A new media scholar, Carlos Barreneche discusses that the way they organize space “should be understood as essentially geodemographical in as much as at play is the sorting of places according to the cultural capital and collective desire attached to them” (337). It means that the way technologies represent space is not neutral, but rather, is presented specifically the way companies design it. Consequently, our basic understanding of space is altered based on the representation they provide to us which is crafted “from one perspective or knowledge system” (Schuurman 377).
Agribusiness corporations are in a privileged position because it is a new technology that offers useful insights that were impossible to acquire without their technologies (Carbonell 1). There have been some studies about inequalities between rural farmers and large agribusiness, focused largely on the ethical aspect of data collection and distribution, and the vulnerable position of the farmers (Bronson and Knezevic, 2016; Carbonell, 2016). Usually, they emphasize the fact that big corporations have complete control over the accessibility of data, and that they do not have an obligation to make data available for the public (boyd and Crawford 674). Consequently, this gap between “technology developers and agricultural producers” implies a social reorganization of agriculture where “ownership and
Fujiwara 10 control over agricultural production [are] expropriated from farmers and diverted to
corporations” (Pechlaner 292).
Cultural bias against farming is one of the main criticisms that these big agribusiness corporations receive. They usually aim to transform backward farming into what they think is more rational and structured (Kneen 17; Bronson and Knezevic 3). In doing so, they offer high technologies as a solution, which may be beyond an individual farmer’s capacity to use (Carbonell 2). As a result, smaller-scale farms and non-industrial farms usually do not use smart technologies because these services are “mostly tailored to monoculture industrial farms” (4). Together with their potentiality to take over decision making through their technologies (Chun 67), it is plausible that companies that offer high technologies capable of changing the sector like the food and agriculture that matters to many people, have certain power and control over the actors and the food system. This suggests that the potential of such smart technologies is being limited by their accessibility, simultaneously intensifying the intentions of corporations.
There has not been much research done about these smaller agribusiness startups, which are great examples of smart technologies used by individuals and organizations in both rural and urban spaces. Thus, focusing on them allows me to discover smart technologies in rural space, where such a discussion usually happens in relation to urban space. Moreover, this allows me to compare how smart technologies interfere with our lives and living space - both in urban and rural. My interests here lie not only in the implication of agriculture data
collection, but also in the production of technologically mediated space. In order to fill these research gaps and fulfill my interest, I developed my research to investigate smart agrifood technologies offered by smaller companies in both urban and rural spaces to study how they are shaped by, and shaping such technologies.
1.2. Developer’s Position
The position of actors who own smart technology needs close consideration. Let me first clarify why these smart technologies need attention in our understanding of space. Smart technologies are a gateway to better understand space as they shape the production of space, spatiality and how space is governed (Coletta and Kitchin 1–2). Today, our life is more and more mediated digitally (4). Technology does this in a manner that feels natural to us (Kitchin and Dodge 233). As a result, it actively transforms the mode of surveillance and reshaping people’s behaviours. In this manner, it subtly shapes our thinking process: “That is, the crucial
Fujiwara 11 half-second of pre-conscious decision-forming processes whereby we literally ‘make up our own minds’ is today subject to the unregulated and aggressive targeting of the programming industry” (Berry 211). In other words, our thinking process has been commodified by the companies and we let machines think for ourselves unconsciously. Thus, David Berry, a digital humanities scholar, argues that technologies and high-tech companies become the centre of knowledge today (181).
Since smart technologies are interwoven in space and our daily life, we should not be treating them in a techno-deterministic way, but rather socioeconomic, cultural and political way (Thatcher 1777). It is easy to fall in the former because an approach like big data seems to bring about a better, deeper, and new knowledge of our life and space without context and qualitative implications when the numbers “speak for themselves” (Anderson). It is supported by a belief that more information provides more knowledge (boyd and Crawford 663). In this case, the significant value is placed on quantification and computational prediction.
Nonetheless, social environment is what gives meaning to technology, and thus, shapes the development of technology (Bijker et al. 12). It is because the interaction between technology and people co-constructs the social and environmental consequences. Digital technologies are not merely providing information to people, but rather directing and creating the conditions for our behaviour and thoughts (Berry 176), while simultaneously, they have co-emerged with social, economic, and political situations (Jagoda). Hence, approaching smart technologies as both science and system will allow researchers to investigate already spatially embedded facts and meaning.
“Social reality had been manipulated to generate findings for those looking down from above” (Davies ch.7). The way companies or organizations collect data influence how we behave, and this is also supported by a new media and computer science scholar, Philip E. Agre in his famous work Surveillance and Capture. Since space is social (Lefebvre, The
Production of Space 116, Elden 109-12, Farman 85) (this will be discussed in detail in chapter
2.1.), our behaviour directly has an influence on the production of spatiality. Everyday practices of humans and space influence and produce each other. Technologies that mediate rural and urban areas are changing the way people interact with space by giving information and advice on the food production process. Thus, technology plays a key role in constructing spatiality in both areas.
What is more, the way users are able to use a specific technology is very much framed by its owners. And the owners have the authority to decide who can use their services. In
Fujiwara 12 other words, technology is unequally distributed, which depends considerably on the division of wealth, that corresponds often with that of location (urban or rural) a lot of the times (Pratt 34). Are the owners allowing diverse groups of users or do they limit to those who have access to the Internet? Moreover, David Harvey, an anthropologist and geographer, discusses that space is shaped by the developers’ desire “who are backed by finance, corporate capital and an increasingly entrepreneurially minded local state apparatus” (33), and that they have a different image of a place than that of a social movement (38).
There is a gap that is not to be ignored. A gap between two different spaces: space that is practiced and space that imagines the former. In the above example, those are farmland and
office space. Developers in the latter space imagine and envision the former. For example,
Cultivando Futuro’s office is located in the capital city of Colombia, while their technology is delivered to farmers in rural Colombia. The developers conceptualize what their experience and problems are, and envision how they want to tackle them. Regardless of their team’s visit to the rural villages, there seems to be a distinct conceptual separation between farmland and the imagined space that is conceptualized by the technology owners. This can be illustrated well with the concept of imagined or intended use in new media that is used often when studying apps and interfaces. For example, the discursive interface analysis and the walkthrough method can illuminate intended use that developers assume by looking at the layout and the design of a specific interface (Stanfil 1062; Light et al. 9). Developers’ imagination about how and where the technology will be used, and who is going to use it is reflected on the interface and websites. Conversely, farmland and the users influence the process of developing the technologies, as they are designed and perceived within a culture that shapes and is shaped by them (Light et al. 7). Since it is a business that makes profit and needs to attract customers, what such space and people do and demand is a factor which effects the developers in the office.
Another important reason to focus on the developer’s side is to bring awareness of the materiality of new media technologies. There is a tendency to perceive that virtual networks and systems are immaterial. This is represented by our everyday language such as ‘cloud’ and ‘virtual’ which we use to express new media objects and experience. However, they are actually supported by physical infrastructures and material networks (Mattern x). Media studies can gain from infrastructure studies for that reason to reveal the complex networks of media space (Parks and Starosielski 19). Moreover, spatially uneven distribution of new media production is found as certain hubs such as ‘Silicon Alley’ in New York and
Fujiwara 13 ‘Multimedia Gulch’ in San Francisco exist (Pratt 35). This is counterintuitive in a way that there are hubs (i.e., physical locations) that produce new media which is seemingly
immaterial. There are some actors who have control over the product (smart technologies) at a specific physical space (office space). The gaps I tried to illustrate so far is the problem that drives this thesis. In the thesis, I explore what kind of implications smart agrifood technology has in constructing spatiality of specific places, where it may be urban or rural, through qualitatively analyzing interfaces and conversation with the developers and experts. They are smartenizing agriculture in both spaces providing different approaches to food production. Hence, the companies’ imagination of specific places, how they want to change particular activities in given areas, and how they plan to expand are interesting and relevant for new media scholars when thinking about spatiality, sustainability, and technology.
Driven by these gaps, my research question is “how do urban and rural smart agrifood technologies differ in constructing spatiality?” In my thesis, I attempt to answer this question through a qualitative interface analysis of the four companies listed above, and qualitative interviews with CEO’s, marketeers and any people who are involved in developing smart agrifood technology which is shaping specific spatiality in both urban and rural areas. This allows me to find out how exactly they envision and imagine space where they claim to improve and promote sustainability. Moreover, talking to these people directly allows me to discover how specific technologies came to be — what kind of specific problems in rural space they are trying to address, and what it takes for their technology to operate in specific areas, which cannot be simply found through an app analysis. In this way, I can study how office space is intervening in their imagined places and vice versa, wherever it may be.
1.3. Structure of the Thesis
In chapter two, I discuss the notion of space, mainly following various works from Lefebvre, which is necessary before moving to the discussion of smart space. The aim of the chapter is to better understand the notion of space, in terms of urban and rural, and discuss how both of them are interconnected in producing spatiality. Urbanization has a big impact on the
production of rural space as the logic of urbanization is present and the rural is being commodified for and by the actors in the city. Smartness is explored in relation to space, mainly following Cook and Das’s concept of smart environment, highlighting differences of smartness between urban and rural space. Lastly, I will contextualize smart agrifood
Fujiwara 14 technology in relation to space in order to comprehend the environment and conditions where smart agrifood technologies are being employed.
In the third chapter, which explains the methodology of my research, I discuss
interviewing techniques and Stanfill’s interface analysis method. A qualitative interview does not follow an approach where an interviewer objectively observing interviewees or objects. Rather, it is an intersubjective activity where both interviewers and interviewees engage in the conversation to reveal their versions of events in question. Therefore, the positioning of myself as a researcher is carefully considered in this chapter, following Crang and Cook’s understanding of subjectivity.
In the fourth chapter, I present and discuss the outcomes of both the interviews and interface analysis of the four companies I mentioned - Cultivando Futuro, Agrosmart, Future Crops, and Agrilution to compare urban and rural smart agrifood technologies. Analyzing and inductively categorizing the findings reveal great contradictions around smart agrifood
technology. I argue that studying how urban and rural smart agrifood technologies differ in producing spatiality reveals three main conflicts they bring about: between empowerment and restriction, integration and exclusion, and advancement and privilege. The first conflict points out that smart agrifood technologies in both urban and rural spaces are empowering food producers by offering data-driven personalized advice to optimize the growing process. However, the way in which they may act around the technologies is rather restricted within the framework of the technologies set by the companies. Second, these technologies
contribute to strengthening and creating communities around them. Nevertheless, they are simultaneously excluding certain actors, and particularly enforcing rural and urban divide. Third, people, organizations, and countries that have access to these technologies will become more advanced; however, the companies’ decision of market expansion likely determines the accessibility of the technologies, which may further promote the social digital divide that is already embedded in our space. I conclude that smart agrifood technologies offer both solutions and problems: As social conditions and environments have impacts on how the technologies are operated, they remain to be at the site of social struggles and exclusion, even when that the companies have a good intention to empower the vulnerable.
Fujiwara 15
2. Making Space Smart
First, I am going to discuss what space and spatiality are in order to later dive into how space is mediated in the ‘smart’ environment. Space, often used as ‘outer space’ or ‘universe’ in casual conversations, refers to our living space in my paper. However, it is not merely the material area, but also a social and mental space. I will discuss this complex concept of space based on a French philosopher and sociologist, Henri Lefebvre’s notion of the production of social space.
2.1. Lefebvre’s Space: Various Layers of Space
Lefebvre was pioneering in the discussion of social space. He begins his book The Production
of Space by noting that the term space usually had the tone of mathematics or science in
academia (Lefebvre, The Production of Space 1). Instead, his claim pays attention to the abstractness of space as well as the material. He famously claims that space is socially produced, and is itself social: “space is neither a 'subject' nor an 'object' - but rather a social reality - that is to say, a set of relations and forms” (116). Space should not be regarded as a box that is filled by things and our bodies, but instead should be seen as something co-constructed essentially with bodies. However, there is a tendency that “divides space up into parts and parcels in accordance with the social division of labour. It bases its image of the forces occupying space on the idea that space is a passive receptacle” (89-90). In other words, perceiving space as socially constructed enables the exploration of the idea of space as such, that is not represented by things or objects in space. Therefore, space should not be discussed separately from its social dimension, otherwise, it is only partially understood on the surface level.
This is a good moment after a quick introduction of the concept of space as social to bring up the background of Lefebvre’s idea. He builds primarily on Marx’s ideas of capitalism, labour, and production often in his works. A central notion is how labour, as a social process, is concealed in the form of commodity (Marx 176). We do not know how or by whom a certain object is being produced merely by having the end product in our hands. Even though the object exists upon such a process, we are simply incapable of seeing the process in the object, i.e., commodity. The material world is both an object and a process although the latter is usually hidden (Merrifield 520). Lefebvre applies this thinking to his idea of space: it is “embodied in material processes” that are human activities (520). Social space for him is an explanation of a material process and is a force of production itself:
Fujiwara 16 “Space is a means of production: the network of exchanges and the flow of raw materials and energy that make up space also are determined by space” (Lefebvre, “Space: Social Product and Use Value” 188). Furthermore, even space of nature is “reduced to materials on which society's productive forces operate” (187). All the lands are considered as materials or resources that have the capacity to produce. Therefore, the production of space is a process and the outcome of the process (i.e., the produced social space) in the age of capitalism.
Inspired by Marx, Lefebvre proposes three conceptual layers of space: spatial practice, representations of space, and representational spaces. Space is considered also in three dimensions, namely, perceived, conceived, and lived. This gives rise to the interconnectivity between physical, mental, and social space (see table A).
spatial practice perceived physical
representations of space conceived mental
spaces of representation (representaional spaces)
lived social
Table A. A table that summarizes Lefebvre’s three moments of space.
The first dimension, spatial practice “embraces production and reproduction, and the particular locations and spatial sets characteristic of each social formation” (Lefebvre, The
Production of Space 33). In other words, this dimension is mainly concerned with the
perceived physical space and places, and how they are produced and reproduced. In addition,
spatial practice “ensures continuity and some degree of cohesion” (33). Some scholars explain this passage that spatial practices structure everyday life and reality (Merrifield 524). It is because people’s perception determines their everyday reality in how they use space. That is why in this dimension, spatial practice is highly associated with the perceived and the physical. This is space that is generated and used through personal everyday activities.
Secondly, representations of space are “conceptualized space” (Lefebvre, The
Production of Space 38). They “are tied to the relations of production and to the 'order' which
those relations impose, and hence to knowledge, to signs, to codes, and to 'frontal' relations” (33). It is the space of knowledge, maps, and so forth. On this account, it is the space of urban planners and social engineers who identify and conceptualize space (38). There are a lot of objectified representations such as architecture or roads used and developed by these agents.
Fujiwara 17 In this dimension, it is the space as a mental, imagined construct (Elden 111), which
nonetheless translates, clashes with, and feeds-back into the perceived space of the first dimension. It is this loop that is evoked in the interplay between the office and field in my thesis.
Thirdly, in representational spaces, space is “directly lived through its associated images and symbols, and hence the space of 'inhabitants' and 'users'” (Lefebvre, The Production of
Space 39). This sounds similar to the first one, spatial practices; however, this third one is not
merely physical and perceived because it is a space as produced through its use. This is where real and imagined intersect: It is the “space which the imagination seeks to change and
appropriate. It overlays physical space, making symbolic use of its objects” (39). This is the space of everyday life where planners’ imagination is simultaneously present: “the producers of space have always acted in accordance with a representation, while the 'users' passively experienced whatever was imposed upon them” (43). This, in my opinion, contradicts with his claim that space is fundamentally social. In social space, what people experience and perceive also reflect on the production of space. To illustrate this, consider the discussion of mapping as an example.
Maps, as Lefebvre says, are a representation of space constructed by a cartographer. There has been a separation between the cartographer and the user. Moreover, “the map communicates information to the user from the cartographer” (Crampton 237). However, maps are also a social construction, and careful reading reveals the intersubjectivity of maps (242-244). This is a turn away from the idea of maps as a mere record of a landscape and as “stable, knowable, essential outputs” (Kitchin, Gleeson, et al. 484). Maps do reveal the power relations that are inherent within their representation (Harley 14); however, mapping is also “produced and read as a collaborative artefact and emerges through an unfolding set of
practices and context” (Kitchin, Gleeson, et al. 483). The users of maps are, hence, not merely passively being exposed to the cartographer’s presentation. Del Casino and Hanna, human geographers, examined how tourists’ interaction with a place was formed by their engagement with mappings as a way of meaning-making of space, based on the idea of consumption as production. Because maps are always in the process of becoming (Gibson 641), mapping is also a continuous project and is being done by tourists, co-constructing space which they experience and remember (Del Casino and Hanna 50). From these studies, it is demonstrated that maps are social, rather than a mere representation, and that active users of maps and active reading of them also co-produces maps and ultimately space. If we apply this to the
Fujiwara 18 discussion of space (especially after establishing that space is social), then, space is also experienced and remembered from the users and inhabitants through their activities and practices in space, and they are co-producing space. In short, the production of space is not done by a single group of agencies, nor one-sided, but rather, it is also co-constructed by inhabitants.
This conceptual triad reveals the complex interaction between the different aspects of the process of production of space. To summarize:
Is space a social relation? Yes, certainly, but it is inherent in the relation of property (the ownership of land, in particular), it is also linked to the productive forces that fashion this land. Space is permeated with social relations; it is not only supported by social relations, but it also is producing and produced by social relations. (Lefebvre, “Space: Social Product and Use Value” 186)
From this, space is not merely social, but space certainly also has an impact on the production of social relations. The production of space, therefore, owes as much to conceptual and social realms as to physical activities. By embracing these complex layers of space, my analysis of smart agrifood technologies attempts to explore how they are co-constructing spatiality.
Lefebvre’s triad of space illustrates the gap of space between the developers of certain technology and space where it is in practice. The analysis of this interplay of different layers and actors of space “must account for both representational spaces and representations of space, but above all for their interrelationships and their links with social practice” (Lefebvre,
The Production of Space 116). He further suggests that the analysis of the production of space
should thus be accompanied by these questions: “‘Who?’, ‘For whom?’, ‘By whose agency?’, ‘Why and how?’” (116). I add ‘where’ to this list to illuminate whose space I am observing. This is useful in keeping myself as a researcher aligned with the complex interrelationality of space. With regard to my specific case studies, for example, for [agency] Agrosmart, [who] the developers and the owners of [how] smart soil moisture sensoring technology is
transforming the way in which [for whom] its users (farmers) plan and do farming activities [where] at their farms. With the interviews, I attempt to gain knowledge about the ‘why’ (why they operate in certain areas, why they include specific approaches) and ‘how’ (how the technology is being used, how their decision-making process is shaped).
Fujiwara 19 As there is no straightforward explanation of the concept of space, there is no simple contrast between urban and rural spaces (Halfacree 25). Lefebvre attempts to focus on the relationship between urban and rural, that is mediated by industrialization and technology to engage with them conceptually. He criticizes the overemphasis on the urban (Lefebvre, Introduction to
Modernity 345–46), and instead highlights the importance of the interrelation of the rural and
urban space. For him, the city has a relationship to the rural space over which it holds sway (Lefebvre, The Production of Space 234–35). This can be interpreted that the rural space is produced as a part of urbanization. Development of urban space and lives in urban, it exploits the rural in the form of labour and resources. For example, organizing and regulating
agriculture is a part of it: using farmers to produce food which is important supplies for people living in the urban space. This creates “a hierarchy of centres...and a main centre - i.e., national capital” (112) because the relationship between the urban and the rural in the
capitalist system is based on a market that is complex commercial networks, and it subordinates local markets to the national one. In this manner, the city-state develops and establishes a centre “a privileged focal point” (235) as well as gathering surrounding environments. Thus, “urban space is reflected in the rural space that it possesses and... [the urban space] contemplates itself in the countryside that it has shaped - that is to say, in its work” (235).
Lefebvre’s understanding of urban and rural space is quite urbanistic as he discusses the rural in relation to and from the position of the urban. It is understandable considering the time he was writing his works (around from the 1970s to 1990s), the development of technology was outstanding in the urban areas. Lefebvre states that “since technology only produces an ‘environment’ in the city and by the city; outside the city technology produces isolated objects: a rocket, a radar station” (Lefebvre, Everyday Life in the Modern World 50). It seems like he fails to realize how technology has an impact in producing urban as well as rural space. As Bruno Latour famously argues in his work We Have Never Been Modern, it is inappropriate to consider culture and nature independently: these two spheres “must not be taken separately… They were created together. They reinforce each other” (31). This kind of binary thinking has a limit. Think about global warming. Is it human or nature? Latour says that it is both because it is our work, but simultaneously, not our doing (50). It is a false dichotomy between technology and nature, and thus, technology that is human creation and nature are fundamentally intertwined and must be considered together.
Fujiwara 20 Even though smart technology is intervening both urban and rural spaces and it is important to consider them as an interconnected relationship, urban development has likely transformed the spatiality of the rural to a bigger extent. As Harvey discusses in his famous work, the Right to the City, it is the ‘urban process’ that is “increasingly dominating the countryside through phenomena ranging from agribusiness to second homes and rural tourism” (28), not quite the other way around. This is a significant tendency especially
because the production of space is a highly capitalistic activity, as capital has achieved growth “by occupying space, by producing a space” (Lefebvre, The Survival of Capitalism 21). That is why production of rural space is also a part of urbanization, largely for people in the city, and especially small groups of elites who have control in shaping space. Harvey notes that they are policymakers, developers and planners of the city who are backed by capital and finance to shape space based on their desire (38). That may lead to an urban bias: higher authorities like governments tend to prioritize the well-being and prosperity of urban
population and space, where most of the votes are from, over those of the rural space (Dixon and Richards 199). Thus, it is convincing that not only urbanization itself, but also elites (principally in urban space) have more impact over the production of rural space. This motivates me to interview developers of smart technologies used in both urban and rural spaces in order to understand the implications of such technologies in constructing spatiality.
Nonetheless, there are some initiatives to get out of this spatial binary. Social
movements have a capacity to overcome isolation and reshape the city differently from how the elites have been producing (Harvey 33). Especially in the agriculture sector, “non-corporate food provisioning approaches connecting urban consumers with rural producers” (Dixon and Richards 192) is increasingly flourishing. For example, Cultivando Futuro is one of them. By connecting buyers and producers on a single online platform to make a fairer and more efficient trade for both sides, they are trying to close this social gap within rural and urban spaces. The reason why talking about the production of space is important is that “urban process has undergone another transformation of scale. It has, in short, gone global” (Harvey 29). Informational technology, which is widely used in smart agrifood technology is transforming landscapes at a rapid and large scale.
Fujiwara 21 In this chapter so far, based on Lefebvrian concept of space, I have discussed what it means to produce rural and urban space. I am now going to delve into why my thesis addresses the conceptual gap in space through smart agrifood technology.
Scholars have argued that visual representation such as maps is useful in studying the experience of space. For example, a British geologist, Martin Rudwick, discusses that it is important to study how visual language is being used and practiced among people even though such images are an expression and reflection of experts (Rudwick 150–51). Furthermore, the urban theorist Kevin Lynch emphasizes the importance of tracing the representations of “a physical object which gives it a high probability of evoking a strong image in any given observer” (Lynch 9). Based on these approaches, Janet Vertesi, a
sociologist of science and technology, studied the London Underground Map (Tube Map) to understand how people rely on the map representation to enframe the city above ground and address the gap “between the iconic, abstract London Underground Map, and users’ stories and practices of navigating, experiencing, and representing the city of London” (Vertesi 9). By considering the map as a technology of representation that is “in everyday practices of interaction” (12), mediating between space and people, Vertesi explores how “the
visualization constructs the object for interaction” (11).
Now, recall Lefebvre’s conceptual triad: spatial practice, representation of space, and representational spaces. This triad addresses the unity of the physical, intellectual (mental), and social spaces. Developers’ imagination or concept of space tend to stay in the realm of the representation of space; however, the physical and the social dimension of space is where the experience of space can be observed. Vertesi’s research likely coincides with the triad: she uses the representation of space (the map) to study how it is being practiced and lived among people (the commuters). In my thesis, there is no clear representation like a map as a case study, since the interfaces of the systems that support a smart space is made rather invisible or hidden (Shrobe xiv). However, no visual representation does not mean that it does not
mediate between space and people. This way of thinking about space reveals the conceptual gap between the experts (developers) and the users (food producers), and allows me to explore how agrifood technology, as a representation in which developers’ image of a certain space is embedded, constructs spatiality of the physical world by shaping people’s experience of the space. It is exactly this complex relationship between representing and intervening that this thesis tries to investigate.
Fujiwara 22 I have thus far discussed different layers of space and established that space is physical, mental and social, followed by Lefebvre. In producing space, these different layers and different actors in each layer are complexly interwound and co-constructing each other. In the next section, I am going to discuss smart space in order to narrow down my focus from merely talking about space in a broad term to space mediated by technology that promotes smartness. Since my thesis deals with the production of both urban and rural space, I am going to distinguish smart space from mere smart cities.
2.4. Space Mediated by Smart Technology
It has typically been the case, as mentioned in chapter one, that technology was considered and marketed as a product for and by urban space, despite the recent development of agricultural technology in rural space. In the discussion of ‘smartness’, this tendency is still predominant. Nonetheless, agricultural technology is nothing new. Humans have always been developing and using farming tools that make agriculture more efficient, such as hoes, stone mills, and chemical fertilizers. In the recent decade, however, agricultural technology has advanced in a smart way. From small drones remotely monitoring tropical forests (Paneque-Gálvez et al. 1482) and Agrosmart’s interface giving advice based on their 24/7 soil
monitoring of each farm, to Agrilution’s vertical farming in the city, these smart-sounding technologies are prevailing in both rural and urban space. Now, what makes space smart?
Smart Environment
Since I have established that rural and urban space needs to be considered together, I will first discuss what smart space is and then, I will go into specific smartness or smart features of urban and rural spaces.
Diane Cook and Sajal Das, computer science scholars, discuss different technologies and approaches employed to make smartness available, not constrained to specific space like smart cities, by bringing the term smart environment in their book Smart Environments:
Technology, Protocols, and Applications. For them, smart means the competence to
autonomously gain, exercise and apply knowledge, while environment is our surroundings. Therefore, they define a smart environment as “one that is able to acquire and apply
knowledge about an environment and also to adapt to its inhabitants in order to improve their experience in that environment” (Cook and Das 3). One of the main goals of making space smart is to improve the lives of people residing, by utilizing knowledge gathered and applied autonomously about such space.
Fujiwara 23 In order to achieve a smart environment, Howard Shrobe, a computer scientist, as a foreword of Cook and Das’s book, argues that “we must provide the systems with extensive knowledge of the human world. In particular, these systems must be capable of reasoning about how we think of space” (xiii). For example, different activities are likely to take place through smart technologies when I am sitting at a desk or when I am out in a parking lot. The former would likely result in writing an email, while I would unlock my car in the latter case. These examples illustrate that humans have a distinct concept about what they do in specific environments. The smart system needs to learn about people and their environment to be better responsive to humans and their environment. Then space plausibly shapes the system and vice versa. The system may come to existence partly due to technology, and technology shapes space as discussed earlier. Such a system and space are, thus, highly socially
interconnected because the smart approach is usually catered to human concerns to improve their lives. Smart environment is “an attempt to create a human-centered system that is embedded in physical spaces” (Shrobe xiii).
Cook and Das focus on technology while discussing smart environment. Some of the features of smart environments in relation to technology are: remote control, device
communication, information acquisition, enhanced services by intelligent devices, predictive and decision-making capabilities (Cook and Das 3-7). These features are present in smart environment, in other words, they are the approaches that make space smart. The features of the technology today in smart environment are: they never stop working; various devices like sensors are embedded in the physical space with which they interact constantly; and
“ubiquitous computing revolution involves constant human-computer interaction” (Shrobe xii). If we focus primarily on the technology, “interactive computing systems [are] designed to change people’s attitudes and behaviors” (Fogg 1). In the case of smart environment, it is typical that the technology is almost invisible as it is integrated into our everyday life (3). However, it is not only one way — what the technology does is also shaped by human behaviours, their demands, or situations (6). Therefore, it is never simply technical that the computer is gathering information, but rather it is capturing in a socio-technical way (Agre 748). For example, one feature of information acquisition that is characteristic in smart environment is that the system acquires information and makes low-level decisions. “As a result, environments can provide constant small adjustments based on sensor readings and can better customize behaviors to the nuances of the inhabitants’ surroundings” (Cook and Das 6). The interaction between computer and human co-constructs each other.
Fujiwara 24 In order to make this interactivity smooth and subtle, “techniques to restructure the human-computer interface along human-centered lines” (Shrobe xiv) are required. The goal is to make the interaction as natural as possible in a smart environment (xiv). In this process, smartness becomes profoundly integrated into our everyday life. The less obvious the technology is, the more natural the interaction between humans and technology becomes. In doing so, “a smart environment will be able to control and manage all of its various
networked devices… such as computers, sensors, cameras, and appliances, from anywhere and at any time through the Internet” (Cook and Das 8). A smart environment is, therefore, to be considered as an “organic whole” (Kanter and Litow 2) — as a network. By making the interaction less obvious and by utilizing different technological approaches like remote control, connectivity beyond the spatial obstacle plausibly makes space smart.
Smart Technology As Social Mediation
In smart space, Claudio Coletta and Rob Kitchin, human geographers, argue that computation is embedded in the fabric of space and infrastructures (1-2). In such a space, “it is not
intelligent in the classical sense of producing devices and environments that have consciousness, and can socialize on some higher level with people, but smart in that it is aware and responsive” (Kitchin and Dodge 221). Technologies and mediated space become aware and responsive to the environment, humans and other actors. According to a new media scholar, Tarleton Gillespie, all digital technologies are “algorithm machines” (Gillespie 167) and they solve problems efficiently, automatically, and effectively, and integrated and entangled in a wider network of practices and infrastructures (Dourish 2–3). Due to these qualities, our everyday life has been increasingly mediated, governed, and produced by these technologies and the networked systems (Coletta and Kitchin 4). Since the interaction
between technology and humans is increasingly becoming “natural, spontaneous, [and] human” (Greenfield 1), in this process, smart technology is becoming able to function and make decisions without relying too much on, or even “any human input or interaction” (Docherty). For example, wearable devices like fitbit or smart watches are somewhat natural as one wears them all day without having to think of actively engage with them.
Despite the fact that humans do not give data to the devices attentively, they collect data from humans and environments actively. As a result, as mentioned in chapter one, they are subtly transforming our thinking process and the way we understand our environment. Management of our thinking process requires a certain environment. It works best in a closed system where there is no uncertainty and freedom which can be achieved by incorporating the
Fujiwara 25 environment into the system (Hughes 53). In doing so, smart technologies are shifting
governmentality from disciplinary forms to a more social one: “rather than governmentality concentrating on molding subjects and restricting action within spatial enclosures, it seeks to modulate affects and channel action across space” (Kitchin, Coletta, et al. 16). Embedded in the fabric of our living space, they create some forms of emotional relationships with them in people. In other words, they govern people and space socially and emotionally. In this sense, they may be considered as infrastructures, for instance, because they cause significant emotional reaction in people when they do not function. Thus, they create a normalized condition of our everyday life (Parks and Starosielski 12).
Smartness in Urban and Rural Spaces
Below, I aim to explore different and similar aspects of smartness that engage with urban and rural spaces. I am not concerned with the definitions of smart city per se, but rather interested in the various aspects of what makes different spaces smart, and the notion of “smartness” altogether, as applied to spatiality.
In the smart city discussion, there are three components of smartness (Nam and Pardo 284), which can be applied to different locations like rural space, that is, technology, people, and institution/community. Some emphasize technologies such as smart computing
technology or infrastructure of technology (bridges, water, communications, etc.) that “better optimize its resources” (Hall 634) as a foundation of smart city (Washburn and Sindhu 2; Adonina et al. 2), while others highlight the combination of social aspects from education to economy (Giffinger et al. 10), or pay more attention to the institutional aspect “as urban planning based on governance with multiple stakeholders is pivotal to smart growth, smart city initiatives necessitate governance for their success” (Nam and Pardo 286). In all aspects, “the production of sophisticated data analytics for understanding, monitoring, regulating and planning the city” (Kitchin 12) is important. In the city where many people live, it is possible to gain so much data to make a meaningful analysis of its people.
There are various focuses smart cities have, one of which is quality of life. Information and communication technologies are high on the agenda “to improve the efficiency of urban management and the quality of life” (Adonina et al. 1). Moreover, to make living smart, social infrastructure is essential and smart city lies in the intersection of education, culture, and business (Nam and Pardo 285; Giffinger et al.10). On the other hand, environmental
sustainability is another important concern that smart city tries to improve (Newton 88). The European Commission considers that a smart city is for “the benefit of its inhabitants and
Fujiwara 26 business” (“Smart Cities”). Hence, it is likely that a smart city is often concerned with urban liveability. In other words, a smart city seems to be an attempt to make urban life socio-technically more efficient and sustainable within the urban space.
In rural space, digitization and connectivity are an outstanding feature of smartness. However, what is unique about smart rural is that it is more looking beyond its spatial boundary. Consider the following two quotes: “Digitisation can help to ensure equal opportunities, regardless of where people live in the country” (Smart Countryside Study:
Finland); “Smart villages are adept at tailoring digital technologies to better serve the local
community… They are about thinking beyond the village boundaries. Many initiatives taking place involve the surrounding countryside, groups of villages, small towns and links to cities” (European Commission et al. 3). They are concerned with space in a much broader sense, compared to that of smart city. Although what is similar to the features of smart city is that smart rural is also about improving the quality of life: smart villages are “vibrant and attractive places to live and work” (Thorpe et al. 3). One of the prioritized areas of
development within smart rural is agriculture. In order to make rural space smarter and more lively, enhancing farm viability and competitiveness is vital. In doing so, they need to bring in “innovative farm technologies and the sustainable management of forests” (“Smart and
Competitive Rural Areas”).
In sum, smartness in urban space attempts to improve urban liveability within its own space. On the other hand, connectivity to broader areas seems crucial for smartness in rural space. By expanding networks, it aims to improve the quality of life for citizens in rural space and overcome the inconvenience they may have for living rather remotely. A resemblance is that both areas are focused on improving the well-being of their own citizens.
2.5. Food and Smart Space
So far, I have discussed the concept of space and the relationship between urban and rural spaces, and presented the discussion of smart space followed by specifications of smartness in both urban and rural spaces. In chapter 1.1., with my unique cases of the agrifood startups, I have demonstrated that food technology is intervening both rural and urban spaces and the actors. Now, let’s situate smart agrifood technology in relation to space to wrap up this chapter.
As briefly mentioned in chapter 1.1., industrialization made the distance between people in the city and food greater. In the process of urbanization, it became the norm that urban
Fujiwara 27 residents do not see how their food is grown and how they are being transported. In other words, food became the end product and the process of agriculture is not typically visible in the city. This view resonates with Lefebvre’s concept of the production of space as it hides the process of products.
Nevertheless, food still shapes our living space. In the cities, Agrilution, for example, utilizes hydroponics to produce vegetables in limited space such as in the home kitchen. Hydroponics “uses space very efficiently, allowing agriculture to develop even in densely-populated urban areas” (“Global Hydroponics Market”). Vertical farming or rooftop farming also use the space efficiently, by transforming the space that is not originally meant to grow food into the food production site. In urban space, it seems important to optimize the limited space to produce food efficiently. On the other hand, in rural space, it is more dynamic in scale - the Internet of Things is a prominent component in smart agriculture today that “collect and use data to optimize crop yields” (Waters 42). For example, Agrosmart and Cultivando Futuro provide the services that collect data about farms and the surroundings so that the systems can make decisions on actions to limit production loss as much as possible, using remote control and device communication technologies. Thus, incorporating “aspects of technology, diversity of crop and livestock systems, and networking and institutions (i.e. markets and policies)..., [smart agrifood technologies] can make agriculture more profitable for the farmer. Decreasing resource inputs will save the farmer money and labor, and
increased reliability of spatially explicit data will reduce risks” (Walter et al. 6148). In these ways, smart agrifood technology is transforming how space is used and how people behave and work, and thus, ultimately space itself.
I would like to consider once again that technology is not everything. In the discussion of smart space, it tends to incline towards techno-utopian view; however, technology itself does not solve any issue at hand (Manitiu & Giulio Pedrini 1768). Technology is necessary, but not sufficient: “IT infrastructure and applications are prerequisites, but without real engagement and willingness to collaborate and cooperate between public institutions, private sector, voluntary organizations, schools and citizens there is no smart city” (Nam and Pardo 286).
Currently, urban and rural smartness do not seem to cross paths as both of them are mainly concerned with the smartness within their space. Despite that, all actors need to be connected to collaborate, which presumably suggests that smart movement is not limited only in urban space, but rather ought to consider rural and urban space as a network. This connects
Fujiwara 28 back to Lefebvre’s discussion of urban and rural relations as they should be treated as an interconnected system. His triad of space also helps researchers to explore the
socio-technological and political perspective on smart technology as it forces us to think different actors’ dimensions in relation, and how the gap between the developers and users influence the framework of technology. In order to gain a “comprehensive understanding of the
complexities and interconnections among social and technical factors of services and physical environments” (Nam and Pardo 288), this thesis focuses on smart agrifood technology
Fujiwara 29
3. Methodology
[R]esearchers must embrace, not shun, messy empirical reality. (Parkhe 240)
3.1. Positioning of the Researcher
This thesis attempts to explore the complex layers of space, analyzing smart agrifood
technology as a gateway. Let us remind ourselves once again that space is intrinsically social as Lefebvre famously discusses in The Production of Space. This suggests that in order to study space, it is crucial not to ignore the social aspect and cultural implications. As I discussed in the previous chapter, there is value in investigating the experiences and
impressions of the developers, owners, and other actors who are involved in developing smart technology. They have the authority and technology to shape their users’ behaviours (Harvey 38) which in turn has a potential impact on the production of space. This leads me to conduct empirical research, namely, qualitative content analysis and qualitative ethnographic work - interviews with those who take part in developing smart agrifood technology. Using multiple methods brings about more complexity; however, they complement each other and lead to valuable comparisons which may provide an important understanding of social life and space (Neuman 17). Unlike the quantitative approach, the qualitative approach constructs social reality and cultural meaning, by focusing on the interactive processes, that are inevitably situationally constrained, where data and theory are integrated with each other (17).
This kind of qualitative empirical study is rather ‘messy’ (Parkhe 240; Marshall and Rossman 21). However, with the aim of embracing the inherent messiness of research, I am not taking the common “read-then-do-then-write model” (Crang and Cook 17). My project is, rather, conducted in such a way that reading, doing, and writing take place at one and the same time from the early stage. In this manner, the research is guided through this process. This is by no means to say that the traditional, rather linear, academic approach is necessarily inferior. However, adopting a non-linear process allows the researcher to cope with surprises better: “they’re often much smaller, easier to respond to and should help to shape research that’s simultaneously interesting, relevant and doable” (17). In this manner, all the aspects of research are “informed and critiqued by one another” (27), allowing research to take shape through the process of interpreting theories, collecting data, analyzing them, and writing. This prevents the researcher from predefining concepts and prematurely deciding outcomes and conclusions. Instead, this “rather free style of research” (Glaser and Strauss 152) allows more
Fujiwara 30 attention to be given to the rich personal experiences of the interviewees, and interesting, and perhaps unexpected, themes to emerge.
In such a process of qualitative ethnographical research, researchers must also reflect on their own experiences. In other words, the positioning of the researcher in relation to the research requires careful consideration. Crang and Cook’s concept of a researcher as a subject suggests that there is no such thing as a detached researcher and objective truth (7-16). The researchers’ identity and background are part of what constructs the social relations they study, as ethnographical research is almost equally about the culture of the studied and the researchers’ culture (Herbert 563). This is because many aspects of a researcher’s identity have an impact, both on how they perceive the objects in question, and consequently on the conclusions they draw (Cook and Das 9). This conversation within the researcher brings about the reconciliation of the researcher with themself and allows them to “reappropriate the
practical relation to the world more completely” (Bourdieu 292). By not attempting to isolate themselves from the research objects to gain the ‘objective’ truth, but rather, by
acknowledging themselves as a component of the social relations of the research, researchers can then better explore “the complexities of different people’s experiences of everyday social and cultural processes” (Crang and Cook 7).
Following this logic, self-reflexive accounts on one’s involvement with a particular field or project are part of the methodological consideration when reporting on it. As I entered this Master’s Program in New Media and Digital Culture, I began my internship focusing on social media management and strategy at Thought For Food, an accelerator program that supports startups in the food and agriculture sector under their mission to solve the food security issues. Being immersed in the materials, the language, businesses, startups, and people in this sector gave me advantages in developing and studying my research. Before the start of my thesis project, I therefore already had a general overview of the specific social relations around smart agrifood technology through communication with community
members. In spite of this, a critical distance to the field itself was maintained due to my main focus being on the social media management. As Crang and Cook suggest, ethnographic projects often are constructed through connections (23), and this thesis was no exception. The opportunities gained through my internship and my linguistic competences, amongst other elements, contributed to shaping such connections and thus the approach of my research. This will be further made clear in the following section on interviewing. I started my research as somewhat of an insider, which opened the door to investigating this subject matter and being
