Forum Play as a tool for exploring more-than-human relations in the smart city

Current discussions in the smart city literature have introduced the concept of the more-than-human, attempting to uphold the needs of human and nonhuman residents. We argue that these justice-based claims require deeper understandings of academic assumptions regarding not only who decides, but also how they decide on these desirable futures. This study therefore explores perspectives of more-than-human relations of academics working with the smart city. Using more-than-human Forum Play as an exploratory research method, we facilitated 3 workshops with n = 37 participants including students and researchers knowledgeable on smart cities. We found that participants wrote plays that fell into 2 overarching metanarratives: “I need space!” and “I am here!”. These metanarratives help explain the kinds of agency performed through more-than-human relations in the plays. Forum Play also allowed participants to find generative boundaries between themselves and their characters, where they were unable to fully embody the realities of that character. We discuss the potential of this method for expanding possibilities for relating with others beyond empathy. Overall, we find that incorporation of the more-than-human in smart city research requires further examination of the kinds of just relations that researchers aim to create through inclusion of the more-than-human, as well as the inclusions and exclusions that are required to achieve futures perceived as desirable.