Actually existing smart forests: A proposal for pluralizing eco-technical worlds

Abstract

The “actually existing smart city” is a familiar figure and concept within smart environments research. Usually, “actually existing” analyses challenge the often-hyperbolic proposals for smart cities by grounding research in built urban conditions. Cities are not exemplars of digital interconnectivity and seamless functioning, many smart cities researchers note. Instead, they are complicated sites of uneven urban development. Such research places speculative urban visions in contrast with empirical conditions to reflect upon and re-evaluate smart city proposals as they hit the ground. Building on this critical research, this article considers how smart environments are proliferating beyond cities to other milieus, including forests. By first reviewing “actually existing” smart cities literature along with “actually existing” references in social and political theory, we consider how to update and advance the “actually existing” analytic by revisiting the perceived rift between speculative and actual environments. Drawing on interviews with smart forest stakeholders, the second part of the article develops three examples of “actually existing” smart forests that demonstrate how inseparable the envisioning, making, and sustaining of smart environments can be. Even more than empirical conditions counteracting fantastical visions, we propose the “actually existing” analytic can be updated and mobilized to examine how plurality, contestation, and democratic participation are at stake not just in the lived conditions of smart environments but also in the abstract and provisional contours of computational technologies as they shape and transform milieus. We suggest that engagement with the plurality of speculations, material conditions, and practices is crucial for ensuring “actually existing” eco-technical worlds and relations are attuned to equity and environmental flourishing.