Abstract
The expansion of digital infrastructure is often framed as a catalyst for urban transformation, promising to drive regional development. However, this study critically examines how such infrastructures reshape environmental governance and professional temporalities—accelerating certain tech careers while destabilizing public sector professions and diminishing human expertise. Using a case study in Sweden, this paper explores how global digital infrastructures development, influence environmental governance practices. While investments in digital infrastructure and renewable energy supposedly generate predictable economic opportunities—those directly engaged in these developments experience time as fragmented and precarious. Professionals in environmental governance struggle with administrative bottlenecks and funding delays, while tech developers face legal constraints and context specific challenges. Meanwhile, local governments, rather than strengthening human knowledge and long-term expertise, prioritize the expansion of digital infrastructure as a symbolic marker of progress, masking deeper inequalities in access to resources and opportunities. The Swedish case highlights how globalization, through the expansion of digital infrastructures, deepens temporal inequalities—subsidizing high-tech start-ups while leaving other professionals in a state of perpetual contingency. This paper add into current understanding by offer empirical in which professionals contest dominant narratives of economic progress. By building on critiques of data-driven economies, it argues that data infrastructure time is neither neutral nor uniformly progressive; rather, it amplifies uncertainty and precariousness under the guise of innovation. By centering local experiences within a global-local framework, this study challenges the hype around digital tools for sustainable development and calls for a critical reassessment of the social and temporal costs of digital economies.
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
KEYWORDS
HUMAN GEOGRAPHY, DIGITAL ECONOMICS, INEQUALITY, DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE, TENSIONS
