Dismantling Extractivism in Smart Living

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STOCKHOLM SWEDEN 2020,

Dismantling Extractivism in Smart Living

Radical approaches to sustainability transitions ALEYDA ROCHA SEPULVEDA

KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

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www.kth.se

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Dismantling Extractivism in Smart Living

Radical approaches to sustainability transitions

Aleyda Rocha Sepulveda

Supervisor

Elisabeth Ekener

Examiner

Sara Borgström

Degree Project in Sustainable Technology KTH Royal Institute of Technology

School of Architecture and Built Environment

Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

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Abstract

This thesis is an undisciplinary exploration of the expanding concept of extractivism that has shaped the social structures running in visible and invisible ways through our daily lives. This research work starts with a broad understanding of the histories of extractivism as an embedded practice that articulates modes of being in the world. To address extractivism is to navigate the colonial histories embedded in this concept, thus revealing untapped connections between colonial legacies and current social behaviors present in today’s society. As sustainability transitions studies advance on reframing methods to

socio-technical systems, the significance of these ideas of extractivism becomes more urgent to examine at the city level. The appearance of programs that promise a higher quality of life, Smart Living ^{use of} ICT technologies and data as a resource, therefore raising questions on for who are these initiatives and for what purposes. The research reads, applies, and interacts with the apparatus that conforms

sustainability transitions through a set of intersectional theories across a variety of points of design to demonstrate the complex interactions impacting the development of transitions. To answer these questions the study centers on the Smart City initiative in the city of Vienna, Austria, and explores the possibility of “radical” approaches that prioritize collaboration as a socializing experience challenging the current status quo and unveiling extractive practices embedded in them.

Sammanfattning

Denna avhandling är en odisciplinär utforskning av det expanderande begreppet extraktivism som har format de sociala strukturer som löper på synliga och osynliga sätt genom våra dagliga liv. Detta forskningsarbete startar med en bred förståelse av historierna om extraktivism som en aktivitet som artikulerar sätt att vara i världen. Att ta itu med extravism är att navigera i de koloniala historierna som är inbäddade i detta koncept och därmed ta bort kopplingarna mellan koloniala arv och nuvarande sociala beteenden som finns i dagens samhälle. När hållbarhetsövergångsstudier utvecklas om omramning av metoder till sociotekniska system blir betydelsen av dessa idéer om extravivism mer angelägen att undersöka på stadsnivå. Utseendet på program som lovar en högre livskvalitet, Smart Living användning av IKT-teknik och data som en resurs, vilket väcker frågor om vem är dessa initiativ och för vilka syften.

Forskningen läser, tillämpar och interagerar med apparaten som överensstämmer med

hållbarhetsövergångar genom en uppsättning korsningsteorier över en rad olika designpunkter för att visa de komplexa interaktioner som påverkar utvecklingen av övergångar. För att svara på dessa frågor fokuserar studien på Smart City-initiativet i staden Wien, Österrike och utforskar möjligheten till

”radikala” tillvägagångssätt som prioriterar samarbete som en socialiseringsupplevelse som utmanar nuvarande status quo och avslöjar utvinningsmetoder inbäddade i dem.

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Abbreviations

BIPOC Black, Indigenous, and People of Color IE Industrial Ecology

PAR Participatory Action Research SCWR Smart City Wien Rahmenstrategie

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1. Introduction

“In order to envision a future in which we will all be liberated from the root causes of the climate crisis—capitalism, extractivism, racism, sexism, classism, ableism and other systems of oppression—the climate movement must reflect the complex realities of everyone’s lives in their narrative.”

The above quote is an extract from a statement made on May 4, 2019 by the activist coalition Wretched of the Earth which aims to represent the interests of the Global South in response to climate change . The ¹ statement challenges the public to render these complexities embedded in our systems as closely joint emergencies, that should be centered together. There are rising concerns on the implications of how newly proposed sustainability strategies in the global north, that although aim to phase out extractive energy, remain founded on the current extractive economy which continues to extract value from workers, and communities without fair compensation nor recognition (Byrnes and Collins, 2017). Battling climate change whilst not changing the fundamental extractive practices that currently rule our systems might benefit certain groups while deepening the exploitation of the Global South and continuing a legacy of inequalities (Acosta, 2013).

In the narrow sense, when the word extractivism is mentioned it is common to associate it with the images of a massive industrial complex, an oil refinery, technical labor of digging for natural resources in a faraway geographical area, out of sight from our daily lives (Junka-Aikio and Cortes-Severino, 2017).

Through history extractivism has been linked to severe conflicts, for instance, blood diamonds by the hands of slaves in rebel-controlled mines in Africa (Junka-Aikio and Cortes-Severino, 2017), a conflict that seems distant from the western world. Extractivism exists as a hidden process that is only lived by a few, a series of chained actions that provide the fuel to keep the engine of the systems that rule our lives.

Extraction and extractivism are understood as the set of ideologies and practices of the fossil fuel energy industries and for 500 years this has been the main tool for the removal of natural resources for the further production of energy, thus influencing heavily our cultures (Junka-Aikio and Cortes-Severino, 2017;

Padios, 2017). We live in brittle systems shaped by extractive economies with systemic forms of oppression. Extractive industrial development has shaped the social structures of gender roles, values, inequalities, local identities, economic dependency, and perceptions of health and environmental pollution (Acosta, 2013).

These industrial practices run in visible and invisible ways through our daily lives, how have the

extractive ideologies permeated in our daily doings? Do our everyday actions and decision-making reflect our politics of extractivism? These are some of the questions this thesis seeks to answer by further

1 Wretched of the Earth, “An Open Letter to Extinction Rebellion,” Common Dreams, May 4, 2019 https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/05/04/open-letter-extinction-rebellion.

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studying the everyday practices of extraction and extractivism and its cultural and social repercussions, understandings, connotations, influences, resistances, among others. To talk about everyday practices is to take a look into social relations and consequently to the consumption behavior that derives from them (Miller, 2012; Börjesson Rivera, 2018). Moreover, to talk about extractivism is to address the colonial relations of this term, thus seeking the connections between colonial legacies and current social behaviors.

As the global north moves further into studies of sustainability transitions by reframing approaches to socio-technical systems, the relevance of these notions of extractivism appears more urgent to explore at the urban level (Ceschin, F. and Gaziulusoy, 2016). Especially at new initiatives deployed in cities that are retracing our livelihood with our environment with the use of ICT technologies and data as a resource.

This movement which we will call as a whole Smart Living, consists of programs that promise smarter cities, greener housing, cleaner cities pose the questions for whom have targeted these initiatives and for what ⁽Garcia-Lamarca et al, 2019). Additionally, by exploring how extractivism is interwoven and framed, this research serves as an interrogation and reflection of the function of particular scholarly avoidances and erasures in the field of sustainability transitions, what and whose interests do they serve?

Cities have an important role as political zones for unveiling sustainability transitions (Hodson & Marvin 2010; Bulkeley et al., 2014; Rutherford, & Coutard, 2014, Isaksson and Hagbert, 2020). To achieve this goal, this study focuses closely on the Smart City initiative in the city of Vienna, Austria, as well, the main project leading Smart Living center strategy (Stadt Wien, 2020). The research reads, applies and interacts with the apparatus that conforms sustainability transitions through a set of intersectional theories across a variety of points of design to demonstrate the complex interactions impacting the development of transitions. By defining “radical” as a socializing experience that is done collaboratively, it pushes against the dominant pressure of any given business-as-usual system. Bringing closer the possibility to achieve the thick definitions associated with sustainability. Furthermore, when widening participatory approaches, decision making in economic and environmental widens the possibility of radical change (Vos, 2017). As previously stated by some scholars, research as practices is the form one can test and refine the conceptual orientations of sustainability.

Thus, the thesis assumes a designerly way of thinking sustainability transitions, in which it considers how cities are intended to be consumed, as well as the material conditions within which transitions unfold, and how this materiality is manifested in-use. To put it another way, not only how sustainability transitions are recognized as sustainable, in conjunction with feminist scholar Sara Ahmed who remarks the role of

“usefulness”, in this case, sustainability transitions, how they can be used in manners that were not thought out by those for whom they were not planned (2019). Sustainability transitions have the possibility to reconfigure, manipulate, reproduce, use and misuse according to the conditions of the environment. Therefore, to assume a designerly way of thinking is to unveil new narratives of the meanings of sustainability transitions.

1.1 Research Aims

The main driving force of this research is to identify and evince ‘extractive practices’ in sustainability transition strategies. These practices emerge through enactments of political consensus, legacies of extraction that continue to be replicated through history (Riofrancos, 2017). Taking a particular interest in how these have been manifested, amplified, and mirrored in other settings throughout the history and

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design of sustainability transitions in cities, I look at manifestations of these transitions in the Smart living initiatives surging in Vienna, Austria. Thus, rather than simply evincing the extractivist practices of Smart initiatives, I intercede and negotiate by reading them through narratives and first-person accounts deriving from interactions with ‘movers’ of the city.

These intersections are further complemented throughout a set of methodologies rooted in de-centering, shifting the glance and unearthing narratives that consequently form new knowledge. As sustainability transitions need a broader consensus in society for radical change (Vos, 2007; Isaksson and Hagbert, 2020), this research inclines for practices within the collective experience, applying participatory action research principles combined with design frameworks.

Towards posing broad questions relating to the connection between extractive practices—i.e. resource extraction and consumerism and their cultural, social and political relations and the design of

sustainability transitions as a way of Smart living. The research aims to fulfill the need for reflection on the agency in the design of Sustainability Transitions and the systems they support. Besides asking what is designed, but also who designs, how, and for whom (Fry, 2011). In doing so, this work critically interrogates the rhetoric associating urban spaces and citizenship, as well as the identity structures woven in these initiatives.

Taking into account these epistemologies and the past voices that have led to the bring, the research seeks to answer the following questions.

1. Dismantle how extractivism is interwoven and framed in the histories that have built and led to the present discourses around Smart living conceptions

2. What might be a possible, probable and/or desirable approach for an intersectional sustainability transition in Smart living initiatives?

3. How does a “radical” approach look like in Vienna? Which opportunities exist for said authorities in furthering the creation of an intersectional, just, non-extractive approach in the context of Cities transitioning to Smart living?

These introductory questions are all addressed by this thesis and have evolved from their starting form as a general investigation on extractivist practices of energy transitions, to offer an intervention on the different injustices enacted with and through actions of extraction.

1.1.1 Research Scope and Objectives What is to dismantle?

To dismantle is to take a machine or structure to pieces. In order to understand historical practices of injustice, the identification of policies, activities, language that perpetuate and play a vital role in preserving patterns of oppression is needed.

Furthermore, this research takes Audre Lorde’s work legacy and an iconic declaration that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” on generating genuine change in systems (1984). Lorde continues to question what does it mean when the tools that currently oppressed certain groups are additionally the ones used to examine the fruits of that same oppression? To follow the same tools of

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examination narrows the parameters that could make change possible, thus it only allows a very limited scope of work. This thesis dives into uncommon theoretical frameworks in the search of new narratives as a way to unweave the colonial constructions in Smart Living.

What is a radical approach?

The term “radical” is not a universal experience, it is not possible to define it the same way in every field, location, and political background. However, I consider it important to recognize the historical baggage of this terminology and the political past efforts to define the term “radical”. I draw ideas of the meaning of this from thinkers such as bell hooks, Catherine Cornbleth, Lawrence Stenhouse, and Danah Abdulla, whose one thing in common is their views of “radical” as a socializing experience that challenges the status quo. In the field of Sustainability Transitions, radical approaches must try“to create a broad political consensus concerning the need for a comprehensive societal transformation” (Isaksson and Hagbert, 2020). Thus, combining these notions on “radical”, this research utilizes “radical” to describe positions that demand profound changes to the current system, especially by uplifting the fight for radicality as practiced by others. Nevertheless, radical without thought and collaboration and context is not radical.

The matters of care in Sustainability Transitions

In a way, this thesis also becomes an exercise on care. Sustainability transitions and Smart Cities

initiatives rely on connotations of humanitarian care since their discourse circles around the promise of “a better future”. There are many layers of complexity in understanding the relations of care, policies, and humanitarianism, from the economization of care through technology to automatization of care (de la Bellacasa, 2011). This connects and interrelates with the recent efforts of Sustainability Transitions and the aims of a Climate Smart Living society to integrate care-centric visioning. The recognition of how the field of Sustainability Transitions carries narratives of care and how they rely on empathy with humans and more-than-human sets new possibilities to address inequalities (Houtbeckers and Gaziulusoy, 2019).

In this research work functions as an exploration in understanding the interwovenness of for whom^are targeted these initiatives and for what these narratives are constructed.

Based on the research questions and the positionalities described above, for this thesis, the research objectives are:

1. To understand how the foundations and relations of extractivist practices might be replicated and carry in the everyday lives of sustainability transitions.

2. To explore through a participatory and co-creation process possible practices for an intersectional framework in sustainability transitions.

3. To interpret and discuss results of the above exploration for the development of strategies that consider more just, non-extractive practices.

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1.2 Research Need

1.2.1 Further exploration of injustice practices in sustainability transitions

There is a broad body of research regarding sustainability transitions, as it is a growing niche of study in which a transdisciplinary approach is needed. Sustainability transitions bring together design, sustainable development, urban planning among other disciplines, thus becoming an area of active and agile research.

However, there exists a gap in explorations on how these transitions may still carry extractive practices, patterns of injustice into new sustainability strategies ranging from the design to the social relations and the technologies implicated in these processes. Cultural Studies scholars have urged further analyses on how the processes and articulations related to extractivism create subjectivities and particular ways of thinking and generating certain strategies (Junka-Aikio and Cortes-Severino, 2017).

The study of practices considered “extractive” beyond the fossil fuel industry has recently become publicly more visible in the past 10 years. A movement led by black, queer scholars who are pushing from the margins of academia to bring to light how technologies, especially the rise of AI for surveillance, mirrors other aspects of the injustice of our daily lives (see e.g. Costanza-Chock, 2018; Noble, 2018;

Benjamin, 2019; McIlwain, 2019).

1.2.2 Further analysis of the role of design, its meanings in sustainability transitions

When we approach changes in everyday life and complexities there is a need to address the social aspects, and histories inquiries of the power relations and inequalities are commonly discussed ( Mamdani 1972;

Redfield 2013; Rottenburg 2009; Ticktin 2011; Langwick 2018a). Thinking critically of past extractivism practices naturally requires the problematization of the present ideas of progress and development, so that new ways of being become a reality. Previous research has investigated the gendered and power

structures in certain populations at the household-level (see Hagbert and Malmqvist, 2019; Hagberth, 2020). Public sector change is complex and affected by “everyday realities” which make the structural changes challenging (Bason & Schneider 2014, p.38). Thus, it is valuable to document these realities and their constant change since descriptions can enable and advance the discussion about these developments.

Moreover, this research attempts to demonstrate the urgency of integrating at deeper level social aspects in technical perceived processes. It has been stated previously by other scholars how, for instance, in the field of Industrial Ecology practitioners face difficulties handling the social dimensions of sustainability initiatives (Breetz, 2017). Some of these problems relate to the lack of context of the communities involved. A critical approach might help in the evaluation of societal outcomes of IE-based interventions, understanding elements such as political participation, environmental justice, or sustainable development.

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2. Theoretical and Conceptual Framework

Entre mundos y fronteras Cuestionando lo real El bien y mal

Lo desigual

Lo heredado, lo adquirido y lo impuesto por igual Alma Mestiza - Rebeca Lane ²

The research bridges feminist political ecology, intersectionality, and environmental justice in the multi-dimensional, long-term fundamental sustainability transitions processes. Hence, I find it important to bring voices and concepts that are less in touch with sustainability transitions into dialogue with feminist, decolonial, design theories, and thinking by introducing my translation of them through the case worked on this thesis. This is a contribution to sustainability transitions theory in general and political ecology studies in particular.

2.1.1 Intersectional theory

The approach to design research in this project is inherently intersectional, albeit not directly engaging with the fields of gender studies or intersectionality. A vast body of work by black, feminist, decolonial scholars and activists has instilled knowledge on how methodologies cannot ignore the constructs of gender, race, class, and disability (Sandoval, 2000; French, 2014). As initially introduced by Kimberlé Crenshaw, intersectionality theory demands scholars and researchers to acknowledge the presence of the patterns of oppression happening across vulnerabilities of race, class, ethnicity, ability, gender, among others (1994). As well, Crenshaw (1994, p.97–98) offer the following on applying intersectionality as an analytic sensibility:

“Intersectionality is best framed as an analytic sensibility. If intersectionality is an analytic disposition, a way of thinking about and conducting analyses, then what makes an analysis intersectional is not its use of the term “intersectionality,” nor it is being situated in a familiar genealogy, nor its drawing on lists of standard citations. Rather, what makes an analysis

2 Lyrics from Rebeca Lane’s song Alma Mestiza which are inspired by the works from Audre Lorde and Gloria Alzandua as this thesis is as well. More specifically, Alzandua’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza emphisizes on situating our practices in their historical relations by accounting racial and colonial foundations https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/rebeca-lane-feature

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intersectional—whatever terms it deploys, whatever its iteration, whatever its field or

discipline—is its adoption of an intersectional way of thinking about the problem of sameness and difference and its relation to power. This framing—conceiving of categories not as distinct but as always permeated by other categories, fluid and changing, always in the process of creating and being created by dynamics of power”.

For this research, Crenshaw’s theorization comes handy as it avoids the linearity of structures and "offers a way of mediating the tension between assertions of multiple identities and the ongoing necessity of group politics." Moreover, Kevin Minofu, a former student of Crenshaw's who is now a postdoctoral research scholar at the African American Policy fleshes out further the concept of intersectionality as “not concerned with shallow questions of identity and representation but more interested in the deep structural and systemic questions about discrimination and inequality”. ³

2.1.2 Problem framing

With the assumption of sustainability transitions are a matter of changing complex interactions^where several areas of household-related activities, professions, and sectors meet, the problem framing of this research targets the aspects of ‘social organization’ as a key for change. As previously explored by Charlotte Louise Jensen, Sustainable Energy Consumption Initiatives (SECIs) are often linked to Smart City Initiatives that tackle goals at independent, distinct levels, thus interpreting responsibilities and accountability differently in every city (2019). However, since this research aims to embody an intersectional framework, it makes sense to frame this body of work beyond explorations on individual actions, and ‘everyday life’. Moreover, this type of problem framing fits into Crenshaw’s demands on any research endeavor to come from a place in which the social construction that builds oppressions are recognized and acknowledged in their differences instead of generalizing and committing erasure (1994).

Consumption behaviors occur because of the way society organizes daily life across domains, sectors, and practices. When considering the multiple complex interactions within SEICs and consequently the Smart City, it becomes possible to reconfigure existing structure and enable new forms of engagements.

Additionally, this work assumes that sustainability transitions require “a process of emergence and knowledge production that happens between all actors involved in the initiative or change process” as discussed by Jan-Peter Vos (2006). Thus, actors and change agents are not considered outsiders of the labor implicated in achieving radical changes, but rather acquire a dynamic role within them.

2.1.3 Expanding and politicizing Energy practices from an intersectional perspective

Following these theorizations route, this research considers the historical-material conditions by using as complimentary support the concept of Embodied energy injustices that reveals the remote

socio-environmental effects of energy policy. The concept recognizes the urgency to visibilize the

3 The intersectionality wars. When Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term 30 years ago, it was a relatively obscure legal concept. Then it went viral.

https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/20/18542843/intersectionality-conservatism-law-race-gender-discriminat ion

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linkages of hidden, distant, and upstream injustices arising from the processing, extraction, and transportation of fossil fuel resources. The concept unveils how there is a lack of transboundary

responsibility within decisions concerning energy infrastructure. In that sense, the concept acknowledges the multi-dimensional harms of “energy” from production, consumption, and policy-making. These harms are engendered by material-historical conditions, and more importantly to their relation to racial and colonial subjugation.

Previous research has evidenced the scarcity of work towards the justice implications in energy policies which is majorly attributed to the fragmented energy governance and analyses, alongside a sense of avoidance and minimization of justice claims. Since entire energy systems seldom are governed

systematically, it becomes a challenge to identify and diagnose unequal energy transitions across multiple levels (Jenkins et al., 2014, Jenkins et al., 2016a, Jenkins et al., 2016b, Healy et al., 2019). Moreover, Healy claims that there is an obligation for deeper exploration of how energy justice is currently constructed, so that citizens and other actors can address vulnerabilities across lifecycles, for instance

—supply chains, distribution, means of production, and waste conglomerates, and thus with greater reason, energy system transitions (2017).

Although Healy's theorization claims that at present time, “survivors” of the injustices inherent to capitalist systems have more chances for opposing and developing mechanisms to deny these actions, there is a gap in recognizing the accountability of the ones that impose these injustices. For one, colonial practices in energy are still present in both, the global north and south, and connected to supply chains, thus the actions for change concern all members. Secondly, assuming that the role of so-called survivors is to solve injustices perpetuates oppression and removes people in power of responsibility. Considering this, this project takes into consideration the urgency in exploring the construction of sustainability transitions through design as an effort to visibilize the entanglements across the different actors part of decision-making.

2.1.4 Design Politics

This research work calls for a political understanding of the role of design of sustainability transitions, by questioning the role of design as we practice, discuss, unpack, negotiate and practice the idea of

intersectional sustainability transitions as a cumulus of actions that allows for changing the material history and practices of our societies concerning Smart Living (Tonkinwise, 2014). Through this, it unfolds new possibilities of analysis in which political ecology studies and decolonial thought

communicate knowledge sustainability science inquiries into historical-material conditions beyond the evincing of specific experiences (e.g. segregation, refusal), in addition, it intervenes actively on them with intersectional and embodied energy injustice frameworks. It is important to mention that although

decolonization is an underlying narrative throughout this research work, it is not the outcome. It is not intended to use decolonial as a metaphor for resisting all oppression. Decoloniality is an ongoing process to resist, reflect on, rebuild and dismantle the structures within society that have oppressed people while reflecting on behaviors, perception, and production of knowledge embedded in these structures (Tuck and Yang, 2012).

How extractive is the design process? As shown in figure 2, Shasha Constanza-Chock explores in their book “Design Justice” how design has silently reproduced inequalities throughout history. Policy-makers as well as design practitioners often ignore the "subaltern design sites” as Constanza-Chock mentions, where everyday citizens fight inequalities, counteract and innovate in their environment. Moreover,

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participatory methods tend to benefit at greater level professional firms and “expert" practitioners. Thus, amplifying the unequal outcomes of participatory design and research processes (2020). “Nothing About Us Without Us,” is the slogan coined by the disability justice movement, which applies to how the people most affected must be the focus and at the center in the design of any process.

Figure 2. Analysis of community participation throughout design process (Constanza-Chock, 2020) The term design-politics was coined by Mahmoud Keshavarz as “design politics understands that design and designing is more than the creation of a single thing (an object, a service, or an experience), and it situates and defines all design activity as inherently political activity (2016, 2019).” Furthermore, Keshavarz emphasizes that design and politics cannot be separated for discussion nor developed as separate fields of knowledge, but as interconnected fields.

2.1.5 A transdisciplinary (undisciplinary) engagement

This thesis does not intend to serve any specific discipline or academic department as such but relates and interconnects to specific topics and themes from a transdisciplinary perspective as a challenge to

normatives and structures in what sustainability and it's epistemologies, as John B. Robinson states

”When science is problem-based, integrative, interactive, emergent, reflexive, and also involves strong forms of collaboration and partnership, it can be defined as Undisciplinary because it crosses the boundaries of disciplines and includes not only scholars but also non-scholars (2005, p.2).” ^By coalescing, drawing closer, and making connections of these theories and using their frameworks one stretches the boundaries of what sustainability transitions might mean and who and what takes part of them.

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2.2 The interrelation of perspectives applied to this research work 2.2.1 Intersectional theory

In the illustration shown below in this section (Figure 1), intersectionality theory is positioned as a veil with a ubiquitous present influencing the rest of the theories. Intersectionality as Crenshaw explains, it is not intended as a discipline but as a theoretical stance (1989). For this research work I see

intersectionality as an approach that allows the researcher to move through different strands of thought and a transboundary of a confluence of issues that are related and interlaced to an intersectional matrix that draws in socioeconomic, racialized and cultural junctions, amongst others.

Following Carla Rice et al (2019) position on applying intersectionality as an attempt to manage complexities present on unjust practices and approaches in Sustainability Transitions. Moreover,

intersectional research must retain the focus on positionalities and methods that uplift marginalized voices and focus on the politics that impacts their everyday lives. Moreover, the methods and research

deployments should seek to de-center the experiences of privileged groups.

When developing methodologies for this research intersectionality is not perceived as a framework for division but as an enabler for recognizing difference and the otherness present in everyday lives, as well as in our broader systems (Harris and Moffitt, 2019; Mannarini et al., 2020). While acknowledging differences can ignite conflicts and trigger underlying tension, working in partnerships requires confront disparities, gaps, errors, omissions, and failures (Carla Rice et al., 2019). This is explained further in section 4, on the decision of choosing the Three Horizon methodology as a way to untap past

wrongdoings, differences and perceived failures in the different experiences that conform the urban realm of Vienna, Austria.

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Figure 1. The Theoretical Framework of this thesis

2.2.2 Expanding and politicizing beyond relations to energy practices: to our everyday living and system complexities

The foundations and relations to energy aspects in extractivism are taken as a departing point for this research since it is important to understand how the way industrial systems are constructed have permeated beyond the industrial realm into how we perform, consume and develop further our systems (see Introduction in section 1. and deeper background on section 3). Healy’s theoretical explorations on Embodied Energy Injustices go hand in hand with the material conditions that conform to the apparatus of sustainability transitions. Thus, opening the possibility to apply Healy’s knowledge in this thesis beyond the upstream and/or downstream extraction of energy related resources and extending to social aspects of everydays lives.

Although not explicitly mentioned, Healy does tend to an intersectional framework by perceiving socio-environmental injustices as transboundary confluence of issues related to systemic oppressions.

From understanding and providing the historical background and evolution of extractivism (see section 3) we can analyze how new technologies, initiatives, and strategies pursued and promoted in Climate/Smart

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Living strategies might be pushing for new forms of extractivism and thus, influencing sustainability transitions and our everyday lives.

2.2.3 Design Politics as the backbone of the methodologies and interactions

In the selection and application of the methodology, as well as the planning of interactions. The research process demands a constant reflection on where the participants, literature, resources, and conversations uphold. This by following closely Costanza-Chock’s Design Justice Network principles which try to activate design as a practice to empower communities, prioritize the analysis I interlace Keshavarz’s (2016, 2019) thinking on design being an inherently political activity (see section 2.1.4), with Healy’s call to acknowledge the critical role of politics in the design of sustainability transitions approach (see section 2.1.3).

2.2.4 A transdisciplinary (undisciplinary) engagement

As supported by the previous scholarly body of work (Johnston and Marwood, 2017; Moore et al., 2019;

Williams 2019), this research positions itself as an undisciplinary endeavor by aiming for the application of diverse epistemological perspectives, interests and disciplines to one common object of research. In a way, these explorations expand the paths for further investigation instead of attempting to converge in a pre-defined field. As mentioned on section 1.1 the research aims does not put emphasis on a product nor an specific type of solution as an outcome, rather it inclines to expand the critical approaches to processes and weave different knowledge into a research project.

In regards to how undisciplinary research manages and navigates the involvement of external participants through the research methodology (see further section 4), it follows the foundations of participatory research as an opportunity for community involvement with institutional agents, both collaborating with the same information and briefings with the opportunity for the community to take the lead (Johnston and Marwood, 2017). Also, these shifts discourses in participatory research from “community engagement” to

“community governance” especially since it allows for intersectional theories to unveil through the research process, therefore giving space to acknowledging “shared epistemologies” and uphold local knowledge in the same level as researchers and considered experts (Johnston and Marwood, 2017;

Williams, 2019).

3. Background

3.1 The acknowledgment of histories of coloniality in extractivism and the extractivist logic As Christina Sharpe addresses “the legacies of colonialism and slavery that have traversed oceanic spaces and left residues of bodies, violence, and inequality that continue to cycle through the depths, surfacing and recirculating further material histories of these events.” (2016).

Extractivism has been associated with colonial narratives, such as the extraction of the peripheries, marginalized people, from the core, meaning the central entities and benefactors of the economy. The foundations of extractivism were designed during imperial powers, through violence, theft and coercion.

The mechanism has been perfected through centuries and validated by chartered companies, for instance,

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the British East Africa Company, a precursor to modern-day multinational corporations ((Junka-Aikio and Cortes-Severino, 2017).

Our current economy was forged in the exploitation of raw materials for the benefit and prosperity of only a few, most usually countries located in the global north (Acosta, 2013). Although today’s geographies are much more complex, the persistence of projects that reflect neocolonial extraction by fossil fuel industries in places located in the global south continues to perpetuate the expansion of western capital at the expense of environmental and human catastrophes of marginalized people (Noble, 2016). Mezzadra and Neilson raise a newly expanded grasp of extractivism in their article ‘On the multiple frontiers of extraction’ (2017), where new fronts of extractivism have appeared alongside the crisis and evolution of capitalism. These configurations are maintained and fed by economic, military and political mechanisms.

Extractivism has growth to be defined as a political and analytical concept that trespasses the questions of natural resources or land linked to it and allows for the examination of the complex “underlying logic of exploitation and subjectification” that surrounds the current capitalist system (Junka-Aikio and

Cortes-Severino, 2017). Fundamentally, extractivism is the mechanism through which colonial appropriation happens, it appears in shapes and forms through history, ultimately supporting the

prosperity of the global north by the exploitation of raw materials. Nevertheless, the sustainability of these extractive projects was not taken into account, leading to exhaustion. Thus reaffirming how most of what is produced through extractivism benefits local communities

Although it is a mass scale economical mechanism, rather than benefiting, it follows the ongoing perpetuation of underdevelopment through dependency on extraction. Although many nations will experience an economic boom, ultimately face new crises due to scarcity of resources (Acosta, 2017).

As previously mentioned in the introduction section, extractivism has been firstly related to de-regulated spaces, at the margins, locations where mining, logging, or agriculture take place. However, extractivism has moved to become a principal feature in the complete global capitalist system.

Extractivism is no longer tied to only one activity or industry, it is as well used as a political and

analytical concept to describe the severe exploitation of bodies, subjectivities, experiences fundamentally woven in contemporary capitalism and the colonial project (Medrazza and Neilse, 2017; Padios, 2017;

Veltmeyer, 2020). As time passes by, the number of sectors that are reconstructed to extractivist practices increases. Extractivism cannot only be equated to the mining of natural resources but rather a system of patterns of extraction of value in particular practices that monopolize resources to certain beneficiaries strengthens the relationships between the state and corporations (private capital groups) and consequently devalues labor, capital, land, and nature (Patel and Moore, 2017; Ye et al., 2020).

In his research work, Ye also mentions that extractivism is enabled when infrastructural elements prioritize the mobility of labor or materials to be transported from places of poverty to places of richness which reinforces the control of wealth and benefits to a limited group of beneficiaries. Key sources where contemporary extractive activities draw upon are where people associate with others and form social groups, which Jan Padios amounts to capital’s attempts to convert emotional knowledge and human emotions into lucrative commodities and exploitative resources (2017). Padios presents an extension of extractivism present in the social behavior, where the transfer of resources could be emotional extraction

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such as the labor of care or the use of micro-expression facial theories to conclude a group of people for decision-making (Henley, 2009; Padios, 2017).

The work of Jan Padios centers upon the capital’s increasing attempts to convert emotional knowledge and human emotions into commodified resources. Departing from a vast collection of case studies and academic material from the fields such as marketing, service work, artificial intelligence, management, and neuroscience, her research ‘Mining the mind’ conscientiously touches on and presents the concept of

‘emotional extraction’, paving the way for racial analyses and gendered of the place of emotions in the intensifying resource exploitation (Padios, 2017).

3.2 Extractivism and (Smart) Living

These new forms of extractivism continue to take part in development ideologies which, even when trying to release themselves from neoliberal legacies they remain fixated and nurtured by ideas of progress that historically marginalized and invisibilize certain groups of people (Espinosa Andrade, 2017). Mezzadra and Neilson’s own research has identified sociality and human cooperation as key sources of extraction as contemporary capital to draw upon extractive operations (2017). This is something candid to consider since extractive industries remain anchored to racial logics. Thus, when one talks about the creation of initiatives focused on enhancing quality of life, new forms of living within the community, and

technologies revolving social aspects, the implications of extractivism or the presence of extractive logic has to be considered.

The pervasive presence of extractivist logic has been mentioned to smother other ways of imagining the future since extractivism not only drains resources but also blocks the capacity to create, produce and develop outside the extractive scheme (Wilson and Stammler, 2016). Extractivism hinders the possibility to achieve sustainability since as mentioned by Sustainability Transitions scholars, society should not depend on projections of the present, but rather develop alternative futures to shift current projects and break historical patterns of unsustainable living (Houtbeckers and Gaziulusoy, 2019). Moreover,

decision-making processes in extractive systems tend to go ahead without the direct involvement of local people in that decision. There has been a development in participatory tools, for instance, community perspectives, however, since they are not derived from local cosmologies or norms directly but rather from corporate management systems the result is the legitimization and furthering of extractive activities (Wilson and Blackmore, 2013; Wilson and Stammler, 2016).

3.3 The Smartness of the Smart City

The concept of Smart City might be considered a fuzzy multi-faceted concept, since its use changes and adapts according to the goals, visions and ambitions of the one that applies it (O’Grady and O’Hare, 2012). Although the first appearances of the term signified the novel introduction of ICT technologies in the infrastructure of cities, as years have passed the Smart City’s components and aspects have expanded to consider different aspects that conform and shape urban life. Moreover, a set of six components have been associated with Smart Cities, the first one is economy, people, mobility, governance, environment and living (Lombardi et al., 2012).

Although all components intersect and influence each other, there is a greater body of work on the presence of ICT as a central point in Smart Cities. On the other hand, other researchers have proposed

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four types of Smart City present in major city plans from countries around the world. They classified them in Essential Services Model which enhances already well developed communications infrastructures through mobile networks, the Smart Transportation model which encompasses strategies for managing the mobility of goods and people, focusing on initiatives for traffic control with the use of ICT technologies, followed by the Broad Spectrum model which centers on urban services such as waste management, pollution control and water. Also this model inclines for higher civic involvement. Finally, the business ecosystem model, which potentializes ICT technologies to ignite economic activity (Teng et al., 2019).

There has been increasing criticism of the disconnections between the promises of what Smart Cities are envisioned to be and its actual deployment (Shelton and Lodato, 2019). The smart City discourse is populated by visions of economic development, community engagement, technology-based mobility and overall improvement of well-being of people. Nevertheless, researchers have pointed out how the Smart City reinforces historical spatial inequalities while pushing cities to compete for limited resources in a technology-centric driven urban realm (Kitchin, 2015).

As pointed out by Shelton and Lodato, Smart City initiatives work around the presence or absence of people in city processes, thus, tracing new meanings that configure the concept of citizenship and engagement (2019). However, most initiatives still fail to include average voices of citizens in their decision-making processes, thus compelling more layers of complexity on the city living experience. And as Fainsteins states, the solution is not as simplistic as to include some number of citizens in planning processes, but rather examine which groups and narratives are affected structurally from decision-making positions and opportunities (2000).

In the context of Europe, the discourse of the Smart City is normalized in the policy agendas of European cities. The discourse however as Evans et al. state has inclined for a solutionism approach dependent on technologies with very little reflexivity (2016). In response, conversations have shifted from the urban infrastructure to the role of citizens in the success of the Smart City programs, in the uses of data ownership and tech sovereignty. Such is the case of the city of Barcelona, which is a city that is positioning with a cutting edge digital transformation agenda, but also rising questions on the future of General Data Protection Regulation in the European Union. The algorithmic innovations or disruptions might reveal further questions in data control and ownership and the impacts in the search of sustainable and liveable urban futures (Calzada, 2018).

3.4 Smart Citizenship and Data Governance

Cities are surging as the preferred sites for the deployment of extractive strategies from the tech sector with the rise of Smart City projects. The shift from using data as the ultimate resource to be extracted takes forms of urban projects initiated by tech corporations such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft (Fard, 2016). These companies offer their capital and predisposed extractive practices as services, thus transforming urbanism into a tool for grounding the ambitions that concentrate power in the hands of a few (Fard, 2016). What started as initiatives based on the notion of sharing that promoted a shift of redistribution of the agency to the masses (Acosta, 2017), models such as the gig economy have further the concentration of wealth and increased inequalities by removing certain accountability from the platform developers.

The exponential growth and implementation of information and communication technologies (ICT) might enable the possibility of further practices that allow the right to dispossess certain groups of people,

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exploit them, and suppress them. Thus, the extractivism embedded in ICT initiatives for smart cities might aggravate as well complex patterns of inclusion and exclusion already present in the urban realm (Bauman, 2004; Ye et al., 2020).

Henry Lefebvre previously explored the idea of “The Right to the City” of what it means for people to occupy and use the urban space and consequently shape the space according to their needs (1996). The question is continued with the appearance of Smart Cities, how occupying space changes with the new invisible flows of data and behavioral changes that aim for more sustainable lives (Kitchin et al., 2018).

Cowley et al. (2018) question how citizens are position within the smart city project, they identified four modalities: the service user which frames them as consumers, entrepreneurial in which they are part of co-creation of economic endeavors, political in which citizens take part of decision making and civic in which they are part of grassroots oriented activities. However, in Cowley’s study, they found most initiatives tend to navigate on the service user spectrum and when governmental bodies and corporations mentioned the deployment of a citizen-focused strategy, in practice, communities were excluded from policy-making areas (2018).

When citizens are turned into consumers ‘general citizens, an homogenization of the broad community part of a city, citizens become absent and invisibilize when they hold different values, identities that the standardization of experiences englobe in the consumer citizen. Overall, these strategies highlight how certain actors perceive citizens as consumers and data providers. However, data availability does not equal a more knowledgeable urban structure, nor greener and prosperous. As Tung-Hui Hu states, “the cloud is a resource-intensive, extractive technology that has the potential to damage the environment in unprecedented invisible ways.” (Hu, 2015).

3.5 Smart Living tight relations to everyday life for Design for Sustainability Transitions

“Specialist expertise…. compartmentalizes human experience into boxes marked “economics,” “social policy” and so on, each with its own lore, whereas what is required is an openness to how human experience constantly breaks out of these categories” (Geels and Schot, 2010, p. 35).

This fixation on cities, as distinct from conventional sustainable urban design and planning that focuses on liveability, urban form, urban growth, place-making, energy efficiency, and walkability separately and sustainable architecture. This has its foundations in theoretical framings of cities as complex adaptive systems (Portugali, 2012). Cities have been perceived as key sites for sustainability transitions because of the many urgent issues they tackle on a daily basis, but also as they have many emerging sustainability initiatives and interventions (Fuenfschilling et al., 2019).

Drawing upon cities as complex adaptive systems need to consider the interrelationships between ecosystems, social, technologies, and city governance and cultural practice in design decisions (Marshall, 2012). To accomplish this, design for system innovations and transitions integrates different theoretical domains that might be relevant to cities as well as employs a multiplicity of supportive design approaches such as speculative design, design futures, and participatory design.

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Many of the design approaches that are considered more inclusive, participatory, and democratic actually serve an extractive function (Costanza-Chock, 2020). The present mission of sustainability strategists, as Begay implies, is to get away from that cycle that continues to impose extractive storytelling in

sustainability work (2019). The term “Design for Sustainability Transitions” was popularized by Terry Irwin, and it works around the transformation of socio-technical systems through organizational, technological, social innovations and has the goal to ignite change without centering technology development as a pre-established principal actor (2015).

Sustainability Transitions have been also understood as experiments, methods and processes that seek institutional change (Fuenfschilling and Binz, 2018).The consideration of Everyday life aspects has become a foundational aspect in sustainability transitions, especially since as many scholars argue, it raises questions on how people seek to satisfy their necessities and how in an unsustainable system, satisfiers are exogenous. Thereupon, communities do not have the agency to satisfy their needs (Kossoff et al., 2015).

Design for system innovations and transitions centers its works on the shift of socio-technical systems through social, organizational, technological, and institutional change. On this subject, it embodies design for product-service systems that aims to transform production-consumption systems through business model innovation and design for social innovation which aims to assist with social change without seeing technological change as a premeditated of this. Nowadays, design research efforts have started to be focused on cities (Ryan et al., 2016), which are essentially systems of socio-technical systems (Ceschin, F. and Gaziulusoy, 2016).

3.6 The case of smart living in Vienna

Within Europe, for the past years, the need to approach a sustainable city became a joint key goal for the future. The European Union has committed to many different types of programs to foster environmentally conscious initiatives either oriented to a competitive global market or to social inclusion. However, these are complex goals with many layers of difficulty to reach, and aiming for sustainability can turn into a vague task with no real social dimensions imposed (Baker, S. 2006; Boström, M. 2012).

Smart City initiatives have been criticized for influencing a form of economically inclined green competitiveness, while social aspects are limited in resources and focus in decision-making agendas (Dillard, Dujon and King 2009). Themes such as social inequality, justice, and inclusion have been given less consideration and investment into European sustainability research (Boström, 2012), and replaced by more abstract and less measurable discourses such as the benefits of social networks in sustainability transitions (Colantonio 2008).

Austria is known for having a government structured where all nine Austrian provinces as well as the federal state share executive, financial and legislative responsibilities based on the Austrian constitution.

The capital, Vienna, possesses legislative power, therefore, influencing regional planning and the conservation of nature. Moreover, another aspect to consider is the social partnership in the Austrian political system which is a form of a formal dialogue between four social partners, the Austrian Trade Union Confederation and Chamber of Labor representing the interest of employees, and secondly, the

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Chamber of Agriculture and the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber representing the interests of the employers.

Ultimately, Vienna has been under the government of social-democratic mayors currently in coalition with the Green Party. At first sight, these structures give a sense of favorable conditions for the introduction of strategies that include environmental and social matters. With these circumstances the project Smart City Wien Rahmenstrategie (SCWR) was initiated, it is a continuation of the first Smart City project started in 2011 which had a heavy focus on technological development. At the moment, the SCWR strategy works as a set of long-term strategies for the development of the city through

participatory processes.

Literature evidence about the smart city of Vienna appears in 2012 by Madreiter and Haunold (2012), who describes its launch in 2011 and context, while Cohen (2012) ranks Vienna 1st among 100 cities according to a combination of indexes measuring local innovation, ICT and quality of life. The project consortium is led by the municipality with the support from TINA VIENNA municipal company and contains several local and scientific partners. The initial project portfolio mainly focused on energy efficiency and innovation enhancement, while today a strategic vision for 2050 (Vienna City

Administration, 2014) leads several initiatives that vary from new district development (Seestadt Aspern (He et al., 2015, Siemens, 2015) and district renovation; to climate change adaptation and sustainable living (Gaiddon et al., 2016); and to education and research. Moreover, the city's website offers information, services, and access to mobile apps for residents, visitors, and businesses.

The strategic orientation and goals of the Smart City Vienna are based on the preceding work developed in 2014 and further have adapted frequently according to the present urgencies. The targets attempt to follow the main three guidelines stated by the city of Vienna for quality of life: ambitions for the radical stewardship of resources, a focus on systemic change, and innovation as the drivers for sustainable development, and contribution to the quality of life and social inclusion. Recently, the strategy has integrated new topics such as the impacts of climate change and adaptation to these consequences and circular economy were included in the latest version of the strategy (Wien Stad, 2014).

Austrian researchers have regarded the SCWR as an abstract strategy that still has to address the political conflicts that might present when dealing with conflicts between economic, environmental, and social issues. As a result, the strategy inclines to favor social and economic concerns with no auditing procedures suggested. It is unclear what do policy-makers consider a holistic strategy for the city of Vienna, nor how the design of it may come into fruition. There is a noticeable gap between theory and practice. Within Austrian literature one can distinguish two principal criteria for SCWR: the green economy, advocating for the application of soft political inclined methods and technological developments for an ecological conscious perspective within the current economic system, and the degrowth model, questioning the prevailing growth-centered economic system (Wien Stad, 2014; Bradl and Zielinska, 2020).

3.6 Post-extractivist responses in Smart-Living

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It has become a joint labor between different actors and sectors to counteract the extractivist logic present in our day to day, especially the ones involving industrial activity. The goal of many researchers has focused on initiating debates on questions about the relationship between economic growth, development, and extractivism (Acosta, 2017). Some offer that through the involvement of local community shapes and shifts the “social license to operate” therefore assigning a new layer of accountability to the industries by focusing on the shared livelihoods of locals and the environment (Wilson and Stammler, 2016). However, this brings inquiries on the focus in which power flows through these engagements. Thus, a shift to better represent power structures, conflicts, and tensions inherent in the systems in which design operates (Wilson and Stammler, 2016).

Scholars have introduced inquiries on how urban experimentation might enable systemic changes, especially in the ones concentrate in fostering new interactions networks and knowledge (Fuenfschilling et al., 2019). Experiments contemplating power, micro-politics, and agency in the process of fostering sustainability transitions have been recently explored, and it is believed to have the potential to get under the skin on how struggles and negotiations between different actors unfold and the accessibility of resources connected to these interactions(Acosta, 2017). In other words, this elevates political questions on matters of social justice and exclusion, for instance, who is to participate and who is left out and why?

Who decides on who participates and what are the impacts? (Shove and Walker, 2007; Senger et al., 2019)

As Mezzadra and Neilson state, to understand the entanglements between the travel of extraction as the action of removing raw materials and extraction as an expanded meaning, it is necessary to trace the ruptures and continuities of these relationships that form contemporary capitalism. Furthermore, Laura Junka-Aiko and Catalina Cortes-Severino, suggest that the mapping, translation, and encounter of counter-extractive struggles, such as movements, organizations, activists help to visibilize the conceptual expansion of extractivism (2017).

Furthermore, new horizons disjoint from capitalist systems will provide a structural solution to move towards a post-extractivism society. What does “living well” mean, moreover, what does Smart living mean and it is understood from different perspectives? Alberto Acosta asks these questions and affirms that in order to build new perspectives, we must also recognize which are the limitations of the current conventional economy (2017). This can be achieved by understanding what represents ecological justice and social justice for the community and employing border-thinking, which is the use of alternative knowledge traditions and alternative languages of expression (Alzandua, 1999).

4.Research design and Methodology

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4.1 The need for new approaches to facilitate transformation

In a way, this research applies methodologies and frameworks that do not represent an unfamiliar

approach to sustainability nor design. However, it is the combination of discourses and interwovenness of these theories that challenge the current delimitations in narratives set by the academic fields. Different studies on transdisciplinarity point to the importance of co-creation and more specifically, of participatory design for the early interaction of different stakeholders, disciplines and citizens in research initiatives, experimentation and policy-making (see Jull et al., 2017; Wilson et al., 2018; Hemström and Palmer, 2019).

As mentioned in section 3.6 (Fuenfschilling et al., 2019), scholars have advocated for the implementation of interactions that foster the intersections of different knowledge networks for systemic changes. To fulfill the research objectives proposed, it is important to consider, as read through section 3, the meanings and complexities of extractivism are not compelled to a single action. Instead they are a set of principles and practices embedded and present in the social fabric of society. Thus, instead of looking for a set of tools that “audits extractivism” as a whole, it is approached as a way to get under the skin on how struggles and negotiations become methods for reflection in tensions, struggles and differences (see section 3).

This thesis attempts to follow a process of dismantling (see section 1.1.1) to be able to answer and explore the research questions and objectives. By taking a part the apparatus of Sustainability Transitions into pieces by first through a literature review understanding the historical practices of extractivism that have built into our everyday lives and later on applying methodologies through multiple theoretical

frameworks.

Moreover, this research follows a methodology that also considers how a “radical” approach to the objectives would be a socializing experience that challenges the status quo of the City of Vienna SCWR strategy. The activities become a response to academia urges for the expansion of critical approaches and reflexivity to processes as a way to weave different knowledge into a research project (Robinson, 2005;

Evans et al., 2016). Therefore, it is most suitable a methodology that allows participants to discern current actions and its relations to different initiatives that conform Sustainability Transitions.

4.1.1 Action Research

The research design is developed following the practices of Participatory Action Research (PAR) with the aims of conducting research processes with the groups of people whose whole lives are principally impacted within the city and actors that are already engaged in decision-making in the city of Vienna, although not necessarily connected between each other (Chevalier and Buckles, 2013).

Chevalier and Buckles, present Participatory Action Research (PAR) as three basic components:

participation which contemplates life within society, action which involves engaging with lived

experiences and their histories and research which aims for new epistemologies (2013). PAR should not be seen as a static body of steps, but rather as a pluralistic iterative process. For this reason, PAR became the most suitable methodological approach for this thesis because it sees research as an ongoing set of cycles for reflection and iteration from multiple actors, thus not only the researcher grows in knowledge

Dismantling Extractivism in Smart Living

Dismantling Extractivism in Smart Living

Radical approaches to sustainability transitions ALEYDA ROCHA SEPULVEDA

Dismantling Extractivism in Smart Living

Radical approaches to sustainability transitions

Table of Contents

Abbreviations

1. Introduction

2. Theoretical and Conceptual Framework

3. Background

4.Research design and Methodology