Chapter published in:
Developing New Identities in Social Conflicts: Constructivist perspectivesEdited by Esperanza Morales-López and Alan Floyd
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 71] 2017
► pp. 204–226
Chapter 10. Posthumanism and the city
The construction of identity and ideological conflict in discourses regarding the new technological self
In this paper, I discuss the underlying ideological conflict behind the concept of the “Smart City.” Sometimes naively praised and embraced as a great technological achievement, the Smart City is a very controversial concept, particularly if we interpret it within the context of posthumanist thinking, which discusses the ways in which technology may forever alter our daily lives, our bodies, our minds and, in the end, the whole identity of human beings.
Within the theoretical and analytical framework the constructivist rhetoric offers, my main goal in the paper will be a reflection on the discursive setting of both posthumanism and the Smart City, along with the analysis of a corpus of political discourses describing the “smart” concept regarding the city of Barcelona.
Keywords: Smart City, Barcelona, constructivist rhetoric, technology, posthumanism, identity, ideology
Published online: 26 July 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.71.10mol
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.71.10mol
References
References
Albaladejo, Tomás
2008 “Textualidad y comunicación: persistencia y renovación del sistema retórico (La rhetorica recepta como base de la retórica moderna).” Rhêtorikê: Revista Digital de Retórica 0: 1–19. (http://www.rhetorike.ubi.pt/00/pdf/albaladejo-textualidad_comunicacion.pdf).
Amartin-Serin, Annie
1996 La Création Defiée. L’homme Fabrique dans la Littérature. Paris: PUF.
Austin, John L.
1962 Cómo Hacer Cosas con Palabras. Barcelona: Paidós 1982.
Ballesteros Llompart, Jesús
2012 “Más allá de la eugenesia: el posthumanismo como negación del homo patients
.” Cuadernos de Bioética, XXIII: 15–23. (http://www.aebioetica.org/revistas/2012/23/77/15.pdf).
Barcelona en Comú
2015 “Programa electoral municipals 2015.” https://barcelonaencomu.cat/sites/default/files/programaencomu_cat.pdf. Accessed March 25, 2016.
Billig, Michael
1991 Ideology and Opinions. Studies in Rhetorical Psychology. London: Sage.
Bostrom, Nick
2005 “In Defence of Posthuman Dignity.” Bioethics (19) 3: 202–214. (http://www.nickbostrom.com/ethics/dignity.html).
Bou, Enric
2013 La Invenciò de l’Espai. Ciutat i Viatge. Valencia: PUV.
Brunel, Pierre
(ed.) 1999 L’Homme Artificiel. Paris: DIDIER-CNED.
Capra, Fritjof
1996 La Trama de la Vida. Una Nueva Perspectiva de los Sistemas Vivos. Barcelona: Anagrama.
Colado, Sergio, Gutiérrez, Abelardo, Vives, Carlos J. and Valencia, Eduardo
2015 Smart City. Hacia la Gestión Inteligente. Barcelona: Marcombo.
Colau, Ada
2015 “De lo primero que haré será convocar a la banca.” La Vanguardia. Meritxell M. Pauné. http://www.lavanguardia.com/local/barcelona/20150511/54431132978/entrevista-ada-colau-elecciones-municipales-2015.html. Accessed March 25, 2016.
Colom, Agustí
2015 “La ‘smart city’ baja al suelo.” El Periódico. Barcelona. Carmen Jané. http://www.elperiodico.com/es/noticias/barcelona/barcelona-inicia-smart-city-expo-reorientando-estrategia-4677666. Accessed March 25, 2016.
Damasio, António
2010 Y el Cerebro Creó al Hombre. Barcelona: Destino.
De Cillia, Rudolf, Reisigl, Martin and Wodak, Ruth
1999 “The Discursive Construction of National Identities.” Discourse & Society 10 (2): 149–173. (http://www.sagepub.in/upm-data/40470_13b.pdf).
Delgado, Manuel
2015 El Espacio Público como Ideología. Madrid: Catarata.
Dreyfus, Hubert L.
1992 What Computers Still Can’t Do. A Critique of Artificial Reason. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Erroteta, Peru
2015 “La estafa inteligente de la Barcelona de Trias.” El Triangle. http://www.eltriangle.eu/es/notices/2015/04/la-estafa-inteligente-de-la-barcelona-de-trias-3641.php. Accessed March 25, 2016.
Fish, Stanley
1992 Práctica sin Teoría: Retórica y Cambio en la Vida Institucional. Barcelona: Destino.
Fukuyama, Francis
2002 Our Posthuman Future. Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution. New York: Picador.
Gadamer, Hans Georg
1960 Verdad y Método I. Salamanca: Sígueme 2003.
Garnier, Jean Pierre
2006 Contra los Territorios del Poder. Por un Espacio Público de Debates y… de Combates. Barcelona: Virus editorial.
Graham, Elaine L.
2002 Representations of the Post/Human. Monsters, Aliens and Others in Popular Culture. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Goatly, Andrew
2007 Washing the Brain. Metaphor and Hidden Ideology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 
Halberstam, Judith and Livingston, Ira
1995 “Introduction: Posthuman Bodies.” In Posthuman Bodies, ed. by Judith Halberstam and Ira Livingston, 1–20. Bloomington – Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Haraway, Donna J.
1991 Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. The Reinvention of Nature. London: Free Association Books.
Hayles, N. Katherine
1999 How we Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Herbrechter, Stefan
2013 Posthumanism. A Critical Analysis. London – New York: Bloomsbury.
Hughes, James
2004 Citizen Cyborg. Why Democratic Societies Must Respond to the Redesigned Human of the Future. Boulder, Co: Westview Press.
Kass, Leon R.
2003 “Ageless Bodies, Happy Souls: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Perfection.” The New Atlantis. A Journal of Technology and Society, spring number. (http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/ageless-bodies-happy-souls).
Kurzweil, Ray
2000 The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence. New York: Penguin Books.
Laclau, Ernesto and Mouffe, Chantal
1985 Hegemonía y Estrategia Socialista. Hacia una Radicalización de la Democracia. Barcelona: Siglo XXI 1987.
Lakoff, George
1987 Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
1996 Moral Politics. How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2002.
2004 No Pienses en un Elefante: Lenguaje y Debate Político. Madrid: Editorial Complutense 2007.
Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark
1980 Metaphors We Live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lausberg, Henri
1960 Manual de Retórica Literaria. 3 vols. Madrid: Gredos 1975.
Mansilla, José
2015 “Algo va mal con las smart cities
.” Diagonal. https://www.diagonalperiodico.net/global/25633-algo-va-mal-con-smart-cities.html. Accessed March 25, 2016.
Maturana, Humberto and Varela, Francisco
1998 The Tree of Knowledge. The Biological Roots of Human Understanding. Boston: Shambhala.
Menzel, Peter and d’Aluisio, Faith
2000 Robo Sapiens. Evolution of a New Species. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Molpeceres, Sara
2011 “La imagen del político como líder. Su construcción retórica a través del discurso y su efecto persuasivo.” In Entre Olózaga y Sagasta. Retórica, Prensa y Poder, ed. by José Antonio Caballero López, José Miguel Delgado Idarreta and Cristina Sáenz de Pipaón Ibáñez, 155–164. Logroño: Instituto de Estudios Riojanos.
2014 Mito Literario y Mito Persuasivo. Bases para un Análisis Retórico-mítico del Discurso. Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid.
Montesano Montessori, Nicolina and Morales-López, Esperanza
2015 “Multimodal Narrative as an Instrument for Social Change: Reinventing Democracy in Spain- the case of 15M.” CADAAD. Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines, 7 (2): 200–221. (www.cadaadjournal.com).
Morin, Edgar
1990 Introducción al Pensamiento Complejo. Barcelona: Gedisa.
Pentland, Alex
2012 “Reinventing Society in the Wake of Big Data. A Conversation with Alex (Sandy) Pentland.” Edge.org. https://www.edge.org/conversation/alex_sandy_pentland-reinventing-society-in-the-wake-of-big-data. Accessed March 25, 2016.
2013 “How, Exactly, Is Big Data Going to Change the World? M.I.T. computer scientist Alex Pentland explains.” Scientific American. Seth Fletcher. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pentland-how-exactly-is-big-data-going-to-change-the-world-video/. Accessed March 25, 2016.
Perelman, Chaim and Olbrechts-Tyteca, Lucie
1958 Tratado de la Argumentación. La Nueva Retórica. Madrid: Gredos 1989.
Pisarello, Gerardo
2015 “Barcelona En Comú presenta su plan para hacer una ciudad ‘más justa, más humana y más democrática’.” Eldiario.es. Arturo Puente. http://www.eldiario.es/catalunya/politica/Barcelona-Comu-presenta-ciudad-democratica_0_381462113.html. Accessed March 25, 2016.
Pracontal, Michel de.
2002 L’Homme Artificiel. Golems, Robots, Clones, Cyborgs. Paris: Denoël.
Pujante, David
2003 Manual de Retórica. Madrid: Castalia.
2016 “Constructivist Rhetoric within the Tradition of Rhetorical Studies in Spain.” Res Rhetorica 1/2016: 30–49.
Ramsbothan, Oliver, Woodhouse, Tom and Miall, Hugh
2011 Contemporary Conflict Resolution. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Ricoeur, Paul
1969 Le Conflit des Interprétations. Essais d’Herméneutique. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
Rifkin, Jeremy
2014 La Sociedad de Coste Marginal Cero. El Internet de las Cosas, el Procomún Colaborativo y el Eclipse del Capitalismo. Barcelona: Paidós.
Rorty, Richard
1983 La Filosofía y el Espejo de la Naturaleza. Madrid: Cátedra.
Schäffner, Christina and Wenden, Anita L.
2004 “Introduction.” In Language and Peace, ed. by Christina Schäffner and Anita L. Wenden, XV–XXV. London/New York: Routledge.
Schöpflin, George
1997 “The Function of Myth and Taxonomy of Myths.” In Myths and Nationhood, ed. by Geoffrey Hosking and George Schöplflin, 19–35. New York: Routledge.
Searle, John R.
1969 Speech Acts: an Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990.
Somers, Margaret
1994 “The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach.” Theory and Society 23: 605–649.
The Invisible Committee
2015 “Fuck off, Google!” https://alirahebi.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/fuck-off-google-1.pdf. Accessed March 25, 2016.
Tiqqun
2015 La Hipótesis Cibernética. Madrid: Acuarela & A. Machado.
Trias, Xavier
2011 “Barcelona tendrá un Smart City Campus para definir las ciudades inteligentes del futuro.” La Vanguardia. http://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20111129/54239526718/trias-barcelona-tendra-smart-city-campus-definir-ciudades-inteligentes-del-futuro.html. Accessed March 25, 2016.
2015a “Ciudad inteligente, la tecnología al servicio de las personas.” In ¿Humanos o Posthumanos? Singularidad Tecnológica y Mejoramiento Humano, ed. by Albert Cortina and Miquel-Àngel Serra, 318–319. Barcelona: Fragmenta Editorial.
2015b “Xavier Trias exigeix que el govern d’Ada Colau accepti mantenir el lideratge public en el sector de les Smart Cities”. CiU Barcelona. Grup Municipal de CiU a l’Ajuntament de Barcelona Webpage. http://ciu.cat/barcelona/noticies/xavier-trias-exigeix-govern-dada-colau-accepti-mantenir-lideratge-public-sector-les-smart-cities. Accessed March 25, 2016.
van Dijk, Teun A.
2004a “Discourse, Ideology and Context.” In Caminos de la Semiótica en la Última Década del Siglo XX, ed. by David Pujante, 47–77. Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid and Centro Buendía.
2004b “Discourse Analysis as Ideology Analysis.” In Language and Peace, ed. by Christina Schäffner and Anita L. Wenden, 17–33. London: Routledge.
van Eemeren, Frans H. and Grootendorst, Rob
2004 A Systematic Theory of Argumentation. The Pragma-dialectical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Vidal Tejedor, Narcís
2015 La Smart City. Barcelona: UOC.
Wagner, Wolfgang and Hayes, Nicky
2011 El Discurso de lo Cotidiano y el Sentido Común. La Teoría de las Representaciones Sociales. Barcelona: Anthropos.
White, Hayden
2003 El Texto Histórico como Artefacto Literario. Barcelona: Paidós.
Wilson, Eric G.
2006 The Melancholy Android: on the Psychology of Sacred Machines. New York: State University of New York Press.
Wodak, Ruth
2014/2015 “The Discursive Construction of Strangers: Analysing Discourses about Migrants and Migration from a Discourse-historical Perspective.” Migration and Citizenship 3 (1), winter: 6–10.
Žižek, Slavoj
2012 Organs without Bodies. London: Routledge.