Being ‘Platform Citizens’ Today

As software relations have become normalised within a neoliberal framework, typically through mobile apps and their platforms, citizenship itself has become a multiple concept expressed through the occurrences of digitally mediated encounters.One emerging aspect of ‘platform urbanisation’ has been the deployment of platforms for collaborative governance, such as Decidim: this has been conceived by ethical hackers and activists in Barcelona since 2016 and has now become an internationally awarded and replicated project.In this paper we argue that in order to start making sense of platform urbanisation(s) we need to consider seriously the specificity of software, that is, software cultures and relations, and the industry and communities that make software what it is. The ‘soft infrastructure’ around software is one of the engines of platform urbanisation, although often unspoken of. Focusing on the top rungs of the Scaffold of Smart Citizens Participation (Cardullo and Kitchin, 2019), here we present a comparative study around the ‘soft infrastructure’ of Decidim platform as this has been deployed in successful Participatory Budget consultations in Brazil, NYC and Barcelona. The conclusion we draw is that, despite being ubiquitous assemblages of technology and people, platform urbanisation does not happen in a vacuum, by default or symbiotic spreading only. Instead, we need to remain wary of the underlining conditions through which platform urbanisation might evolve in different contexts, provincialising digital technologies further.