Smart Society A Sociological Perspective on Smart Living

Increasingly, we hear of ‘smart’ cities, communities, governance and people as constituting the basis of initiatives by which we might address various social and environmental problems, particularly those connected with sustainability, usually by means of an ‘intelligent’ connection with the ‘network society’. This book addresses the issues raised by the emergence of ‘smart’ dimensions and initiatives in society, critically engaging with questions surrounding the feasibility of what smart initiatives propose and the extent to which they can really offer solutions to the challenges we face. With attention to the notion of ‘smart’ as applied to the individual, the community, politics and the home, the authors consider the interconnections between these various facets of ‘smart living’ and their relationship to the notion of the smart society as a whole. Drawing on a concrete study of an attempt to concretize smart ideas in the design of a smart, solar home as part of an international project, Smart Society offers the first extended sociological engagement with the notion of smart living.

1 Smart society: The critical sense of a world strategy ROBERTA IANNONE2 Smart politics: The political dimension of ‘smartness’ GIOVANNI DE GHANTUZ CUBBE3 Smart people and prosumers: The individual challenge to the Fourth Industrial Revolution ROMINA GURASHI4 Smart community: A new way of being together? ILARIA IANNUZZI5 Home smart home: A sociology of living in the age of reflective materialism MELISSA SESSA6 From theory to empiricism: The challenge to the future of the Sapienza University at Solar Decathlon Middle East ROMINA GURASHI, ILARIA IANNUZZI AND MELISSA SESSA

Roberta Iannone is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Political Science at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. She is author of The social sense of the human experience: Thinking about Vom Menschen of Werner Sombart, and Il capitale sociale. Origine, significati e funzioni (2006).Romina Gurashi isSubject Expertin Sociology at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. She is Managing Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Administration Science. Studies in Theory and Social Research, the author of Pathways of Peace: Philosophy and Sociology of Peace and Nonviolence (2018) and the co-author of From Intractability to Pacification: A Federal perspective for the Abkhaz-Georgian Conflict (2017). Ilaria Iannuzzi is completing her doctoral studies in the Department of Political Sciences at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. She is the author of La fiducia paga. Quando le relazioni generano valore (Trust pays. When relationships generate value) and of several articles in scientific journals. She is an accredited Professional by Italy-Usa Foundation. Giovanni de Ghantuz Cubbe is Ph.D Student and Research Associate at the Institute of Political Science, TU Dresden, Germany. His research interests focus on contemporary nationalism, migration and European radical right parties as well as on structural and conceptual changes of democracy and political institutions in Europe. Melissa Sessa is the best-graduated student of July 2017 in Administration and Organization Sciences. She is currently completing a master’s degree in Political Science. She is the winner of the prestigious prize for adissertation thesis, "Vincenzo Dona", with her work on La smart home nella sua dimensione sociale (The smart home in its social dimension).