Civic Resilience

Civic Resilience describes the ability of civil society to develop strategies and capacities for enabling sustainability transitions. Our research is concerned about threats to social cohesion, freedom, and economic sustainability. We analyse the impact of economic pressures and resource depletion on maintaining and transforming structures of civic participation and trust, and the formation and fragmentation of social and political ties.

Civil society comprises citizens and neighbourhood initiatives, local and global civil society organisations as well as think tanks, action networks, and national initiatives that work towards strong democratic, inclusive, and sustainable communities. The ambition is to network ideas about sustainable civil society in international collaboration and to enable the transfer of models and practices between research, communities, and policy.

The research focuses on digital communication and networking within local or thematic contexts of policy and practice. Thus, it is relevant to researchers and practitioners interested in the communicative and civil dimensions of sustainability transitions to develop resilience. Our disciplinary input comes from journalism and media studies, social media analysis, social movement research as well as from infrastructure studies.

Contact

Christoph Raetzsch

Associate Professor

M craetzsch@cc.au.dk
H 5335, 234
P +4593522210

Ongoing Projects

Civic Resilience

Infrastructures and Interfaces of Publics in Urban Space

InfraPublics addresses a gap between journalism studies and smart city research, taking the datafication of urban spaces as an opportunity for journalism to go beyond the “informed citizen” model of its audience. The project maps and evaluates approaches to how journalists, citizens, cities, data providers and civic tech NGOs can work together on a local level to shape infrastructures for civic communication in the connected city.

Read more about the project here

Civic Resilience

DEaling with conflicts related to MIgration: NEgotiating social cohesion through communication

The DEMINE European Joint Doctorate (DN-JD) network is a collaborative effort across disciplines. Its primary goal is to enhance Europe’s capacity to address a significant challenge: the rise of various forms of radicalisation and extremism that pose a threat to social cohesion. Through a combination of inter-sectoral mobility and a balanced blend of research and transferable competences, DEMINE develops a much-needed framework on the role and interplay of interpersonal and mediated communication in intergroup relations and conflict related to migration and globalisation, ultimately contributing to social cohesion.

Read more about the project here

Selected Publications

What does “Failure” mean in civic tech? We need continued conversations about discontinuation

Civic tech, also referred to as digital civics in HCI, designates efforts to use technology to bring together citizens, bring governments closer to citizens, or improve public service infrastructure. Such sociotechnical encounters are meant to address public needs and increase interactions and information flows between citizens and/or authorities

Hamm, A., Shibuya, Y., Pargman, T. C., Bendor, R., Raetzsch, C., Hendawy, M., Rehak, R., Klerks, G., Schouten, B., & Hansen, N. B. (2024). What does “Failure” mean in civic tech? We need continued conversations about discontinuation. Interactions, 31(2), 34-38.

Mainstreaming Civic Tech and Citizen Sensing: A Research Agenda on Co-creation Methods, Data Interfaces, and Impact Pathways

In this perspective article, we propose an interdisciplinary research agenda that addresses citizen science approaches embedded in civic tech initiatives and citizen sensing scenarios. The proposed agenda builds on the multi-level perspective framework to inform research on how such ‘niche innovations’ like citizen sensing become mainstreamed in broader socio-technical systems and modes of governance.
Raetzsch, C., Hamm, A., & Shibuya, Y. (2023). Mainstreaming Civic Tech and Citizen Sensing: A Research Agenda on Co-creation Methods, Data Interfaces, and Impact Pathways. Frontiers in Environmental Science, 11.

From Banal Surveillance to Function Creep: Automated License Plate Recognition in Denmark

This article discusses how Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) has been implemented in Denmark across three different sectors: parking, environmental zoning, and policing. ALPR systems are deployed as a configuration of cameras, servers, and algorithms of computer vision that automatically reads and records license plates of passing cars.

Pereira, G., & Raetzsch, C. (2022). From Banal Surveillance to Function Creep: Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) in Denmark. Surveillance & Society, 20(3), 265–280.

What Smartness does in the Smart City: From Visions to Policy

his article examines what smartness does on the ground by examining how its anticipatory media visions have been interpreted and acted on in policy decisions and local implementations since the early 2000s. Using a comparative-historical analysis that draws on fieldwork in aspiring smart cities in the United States and Europe, we argue that the visions of smartness are neither singular nor fixed across time and space.

Baykurt, B., & Raetzsch, C. (2020). What Smartness does in the Smart City: From Visions to Policy. Convergence the International Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies, 26(4), 775-789.

Past Projects

Revised 09.04.2025

Franziska Garms