Smart Communities and Knowledge Sharing as Main Tools to Achieve Common Purposes

Abstract

As reaction to globalization and the loosing of landmark caused by the huge data and information availability in the “net” and by the mass media proliferation, the research of an identity and the need of a feeling of belonging is stronger and stronger in today society. The information and communication technologies (ICT’s) - which initially helped to erase socio-territorial boundaries and to strengthen a feeling of belonging to a single community in which we are all interlinked and interdependent – have now become the main tools for building local, and smart, communities. These, in addition to being places of confrontation, are also and above all places for sharing subjective and objective knowledge (and therefore for continuous learning). There are several experiences going towards this direction (i.e. creating shared spaces built around shared values that emerge to deal with problems felt as “public”) ranging from analytical, investigative, critical and vindictive dimensions to proposals, monitoring, evaluation, deliberation, on the most varied topics: from the abandonment of public buildings (such as confiscated property), to security and the protection of territories. These are thus defined spaces in which, through self-organization and civic hacking dynamics, problems that are perceived as public are discussed and public goods are co-produced. These last are intended not as goods produced or owned by a public administration, but as the result of a process of social interaction. Digital technologies in this contest are tools by which social practices of re-appropriation and collective redefinition of public goods are nourished.

This paper is the result of the joint work of the authors. For Italian evaluation purposes Luigi Mundula takes responsibility for Sects. 2 and 4, and Flavia Marzano for Sects. 1 and 3.