Techno-communicational sovereignty for a new social contract in the post-pandemic city: citizen participation and public policies in Barcelona

Abstract

The project proposes to analyze the new moment of the cities, especially smart cities, considering a post-pandemic cut - understanding that SARS-Covid-29 from 2022 on will be endemic in contemporary society - and therefore citizen participation and intelligence, together with digital tools will be crucial in the processes of social inclusion/exclusion. The host city for the study continues to be Barcelona, since we have already accumulated some expertise with previous studies from which we must highlight the particularities of the Catalan regional sociopolitical context, in which, the uses and public policies in access to technologies felt the effects of the pandemic throughout the process. In addition to the Barcelona experience, this research also intends to extend the reflections with joint works in the Academia de Ciencia Política del Departamento de Política y Sociedad - CUCIÉNEGA in Jalisco/México and in the Dipartimento di Geografia dell'Università di Trieste/Italy. These partnerships are justified by the possibility of increasing knowledge about smart cities, since different areas of knowledge on different continents, added to our South American experience, will provide subsidies for a critique of neoliberal models of smart cities and the social relations engendered. A possible north we have is the proposal of Francesca Bria of a New Social Contract for the digital society and the emergence of smart green new dial we can move towards a more democratic society based on a humanistic technical project that denounces neoliberal initiatives such as greenwashing, green clothing of industrial activities; open-washing, a fictitious transparency of marketing or empathy-washing, the way big data companies take advantage of humanitarian crises to accumulate. This reinforces what Milton Santos, has already denounced of the lack of moral commitment of big companies to the territories. The general objective is to verify how the digital transition has affected the various groups in a smart city, the demands that have arisen, and the lessons learnt in the post-pandemic city. To achieve this goal, we follow the mixed methods, developed since previous researches (FAPESP 2016/23386-0 FAPESP 2019/08256-0) considering that the data survey, both quantitative and qualitative, is necessary. Concepts already worked as Territorial Media and Smart city continue being updated for a greater understanding of the theme of contemporary urban communication. (AU)