
Reassembling Digital Placemaking
Participation and Politics
Isabel Fangyi Lu(Author)
Routledge (Publisher)
1st Edition
Published on 20. June 2025
Book
Hardback
132 pages
978-1-032-52704-8 (ISBN)
Description
This book presents digital placemaking as a new testing ground for urban democracy. It explores the participatory practices of digital placemaking and their implications on blurring formal and informal boundaries of decision-making and urban politics.
Drawing on examples from Australia, China and Taiwan, the book examines how contemporary cities are witnessing an era when digitality becomes a mode of placemaking and participation becomes an urban condition. Such developments manifest as urban activism, creative branding, tech placemaking and digital governance that trigger changes in urban engagement and politics. This book views digital placemaking through an assemblage lens to demonstrate how it can be a relational site of contentions and collaborations among civil society, industries and governments without observance of strict boundaries. Contrary to an often binary and zero-sum reading of urban politics, this book advocates for a tripartite assemblage model of urban politics that is neither hierarchical nor deterministic. This book proposes an ouroboros model as a systematic approach that conceptually anchors digital placemaking studies to the nexus of urban institutions and digital technologies. It reconceptualises urban politics as a relational process of nuances, contingency and complexity in the flux of cosmopolitan power movements and inquiries. Ultimately, the book develops the notion of socio-technical natality to counter the myth of tech inevitability and instil a thesis of hope and change.
This book will interest researchers, policymakers and professionals in urban studies, media studies, cultural studies, urban communication, creative placemaking, community engagement, urban advocacy and urban governance.
Drawing on examples from Australia, China and Taiwan, the book examines how contemporary cities are witnessing an era when digitality becomes a mode of placemaking and participation becomes an urban condition. Such developments manifest as urban activism, creative branding, tech placemaking and digital governance that trigger changes in urban engagement and politics. This book views digital placemaking through an assemblage lens to demonstrate how it can be a relational site of contentions and collaborations among civil society, industries and governments without observance of strict boundaries. Contrary to an often binary and zero-sum reading of urban politics, this book advocates for a tripartite assemblage model of urban politics that is neither hierarchical nor deterministic. This book proposes an ouroboros model as a systematic approach that conceptually anchors digital placemaking studies to the nexus of urban institutions and digital technologies. It reconceptualises urban politics as a relational process of nuances, contingency and complexity in the flux of cosmopolitan power movements and inquiries. Ultimately, the book develops the notion of socio-technical natality to counter the myth of tech inevitability and instil a thesis of hope and change.
This book will interest researchers, policymakers and professionals in urban studies, media studies, cultural studies, urban communication, creative placemaking, community engagement, urban advocacy and urban governance.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Postgraduate and Undergraduate
Illustrations
4 s/w Abbildungen, 4 s/w Zeichnungen
4 Line drawings, black and white; 4 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 12 mm
Weight
385 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-032-52704-8 (9781032527048)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
06/2025
Routledge
€60.49
Available for download

E-Book
06/2025
Routledge
€60.49
Available for download
Person
Isabel Fangyi Lu is a Senior Project Adviser at the Department of Education, Victoria, Australia. She is an Honorary Fellow of the School of Culture and Communication at the University of Melbourne. Having obtained her PhD from the University of Melbourne, she pursues interdisciplinary research and public projects at the intersection of technology, arts and built-environments.
Content
1. Introduction, 2. Theorising Digital Placemaking, 3. Activist Assemblage, 4. Organisational Assemblage, 5. Governmental Assemblage, 6. Conclusion: Reassembling Digital Placemaking