“What is a smart solution supposed to mean anyway?” Quiet smartness and the recognition of rural smart development as a question of knowledge production

Starting from the critique of a lacking conceptualization of smart rurality and urban-rural hierarchies in smart development debates, the paper examines how dominant understandings of smartness are translated, interrogated, and reworked in rural contexts. Drawing on the concept of hierarchical knowledge production, the paper argues that the underlying challenge of rural smartness is less about technology itself than about who defines problems, sets benchmarks, and gains recognition as “smart.” Based on a qualitative interview study, the analysis focuses on rural meaning-making of dominant discourses surrounding smartness in Estonia, a country widely seen as a digital frontrunner. The findings show how dominant smart discourses not only universalize urban norms but impede rural agency to participate in the knowledge production surrounding smartness by limiting non-urban areas to the position of being “less smart” and failing to recognize already existing “quiet smartness” attuned to rural needs. By highlighting the limitations of dominant understandings alongside the potential of alternative conceptualizations of smartness, the paper contributes to an evidence-based knowledge production on smart development that is more inclusive to rural realities.