Alhassan Yakubu Alhassan
Ph. D. Research Fellow at the Department of Sociology and Social Work at the University of Agder, Norway
Alhassan’s research interests are Digitalization, Social Network Analysis, Sustainable Urban Development, and Quantitative Research. Alhassan holds a Masters Degree in Sociology from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada and a Masters in Global Development and Planning from the University of Agder. Prior to his current position, he worked as Teaching Assistant in Research Methods and Statistics at the University of Saskatchewan. He has also worked as an online tutor at the Department of Global Development and Planning and a Teaching and Research Assistant at the Department of Sociology and Social Work at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana where he obtained his BA (Hons) Sociology and Social Work.
Tell us about your project!
How can we succeed with sustainable transportation planning in big cities? How can social network analysis and digital technologies improve participation in local decision making? My research investigates the impact of digitalisation on the citizen participation and the networks of actors in urban transport planning process. The case study is an urban road expansion project in Kristiansand which has been ongoing for the past ten years. This project is interesting because given the growing population in cities, there is the need for collaboration to ensure sustainable future for our cities. The study makes use of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to map out the networks of actors and how those networks the planning process in the municipality. This will involve the collection and analysis of network data through interviews and online data. From a network perspective, urban planning activities and outcomes can be conceptualised as a system of reciprocal interactions with several actors: network analysis offers a powerful methodological approach to investigate the complex patterns of such relationships. This study contributes to the study planning and implementation challenges at the local level and to our understanding of the challenges of ecological, social, and economic sustainability. It highlight governance problems and issues of inequality, inclusion, and transparency. It also opens up discussions on the possibilities and challenges for using digital technologies to foster citizen participation in urban governance.
“How can we succeed with sustainable transportation planning in big cities? How can social network analysis and digital technologies improve participation in local decision making? ”
— Alhassan Yakubu Alhassan on his research project “Networks, digital technologies and participation in urban planning”