Digital platforms and territories (konference)

Prestižní pařížská univerzita Sciece Po pořádá konferenci o digitálních platformách a moderních městech. Zajímá vás ják Uber, Airbnb či amazon ovlivňují rozvoj města, pak je to akce přímo pro vás. 

The Sciences Po’s Cities and Digital Technology Chair, in partnership with the Center for European Studies and Comparative Politics, organizes on May 3, 2018 an international conference on “Digital platforms and territories”. Digital platforms, defined as intermediation and digital services companies, have developed for few years into several urban policy sectors: transportation (Uber, Lyft, Waze, Blablacar), housing and tourism (Airbnb), logistics (Amazon, Deliveroo), etc., disrupting the system of actors and their regulatory modes. This conference aims to interrogate the relation between territories and these new actors of the digital economy.

Based on empirical investigation, the conference welcomes proposals from various social science disciplines (political science, sociology, geography, economics, socio-technical studies, urban planning, law, etc.) and could answer one or several of the three following axes.

1. Digital platforms and urban governance
   To what extent digital platforms transform the urban governance? How have some of these actors become major players of urban policies? Do they become ungovernable due to their digital activities? What are the regulatory processes designed by national states and local governments? Who are the actors contributing to contestation and/or regulation of these services? Do regulatory tools directly target digital platforms or their users? On the other hand, how do digital platforms lobby from some norms and rules? How do they mobilize their users as a political force to claim for favorable regulations and legal changes? As a result, do we observe distinct localized modes of governance of digital platforms’ activities?
2. The platforms’ strategies for setting up
   This axis questions the local strategies of globalized digital platforms. What are the territorial development strategies of digital platforms? Do they offer similar services all over the world or do they adopt differentiated strategies depending on localities? To what extent local institutional arrangements shape the market potential and the standardization of their services? What are the local arrangements between platforms and public authorities?
3. Representations and practices of the space
   What are the territorial impacts of the use of the services provided by these platforms? Platforms are used in various ways: who are platforms’ users? To what extent some areas or social groups are valorized or put aside? What part platforms’ digital services play in processes of metropolization?

Calendar:

• Submission deadline: February 28, 2018
• Assessment of the proposals and choice: March 10, 2018
• Conference: May 3, 2018 in Paris

The one-page proposals, either in French or English, should be sent to Antoine Courmont (antoine.courmont@sciencespo.fr) before February 28, 2018. They should set out the topic of the paper, the research question, the methodology and the data used.