Jennifer Gabrys

Citizen Sense: Remaking urban social life through sensor practices

Citizen-sensing practices of using low-cost and digital sensor technologies to monitor air quality and changing urban environments can generate distinct forms of data that bring different perspectives to urban problems. This presentation documents work from the Citizen Sense project, which investigated how communities undertook urban sensing of air quality in Southeast London to make claims about urban environments related not just to pollution, but also to development, displacement and dispossession. What collective potential arises from citizen-led modes of sensor-based monitoring, and how do these practices remake the possibilities for urban social life?

Jennifer Gabrys is Chair in Media, Culture and Environment in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge, and Visiting Professor in the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her work can be found at citizensense.net and jennifergabrys.net.