Naturalizing Technology, Technologizing Nature: On the Global Political Ecology of Smart Environments

Integrating sensor-based technologies into urban green infrastructures, such as smart trees equipped with soil moisture sensors in Augsburg, Germany, reshapes and re-politicizes the relationship between humans, nature, and data. While terms like The Internet of Nature frame these practices as neutral means for environmental protection, they overlook the sociotechnical configurations that produce and interpret data. This study argues for understanding such developments as a technologization of nature, where digital technologies are used to artificially maintain ecosystem services amid climate instability. However, this approach isolates and optimizes selected causal relationships, transforming self-sustaining ecological processes into engineered systems. Moreover, the global political economy enabling these smart interventions disproportionately benefits wealthy regions in the Global North, reinforcing inequalities while obscuring the complex social arrangements underpinning technologized ecosystems.

Purwins, S., Pieper, M., & Walter, C. (2026). Naturalizing Technology, Technologizing Nature: On the Global Political Ecology of Smart Environments. DIE ERDE – Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin, DIE ERDE – Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin, Forthcoming Articles. https://doi.org/10.12854/ERDE-2025-728