Genealogy of a data ecosystem: The digitalisation of planning development and control in Ireland, 2000–2024

In this paper, we document how a data ecosystem emerges and evolves as a socio-technical assemblage over a 25 year period charting its digitalisation as it transfers from a paper-based endeavour to one that is digitally mediated. Our case study is the development and control function (the management of the planning and construction pipeline from planning application, to appeals process, to building control) of the Irish planning system. We propose that how a data ecosystem is constructed and unfolds in practice is through the processes of visioning, articulation, scaffolding, and overwriting. Using this framing, we document the adoption of a set of related IT management systems by planning actors at local and national scale and how they have been stitched together to form a functioning, multi-scalar data ecosystem. Our longitudinal analysis reveals the contingent, relational nature of technology adoption and the construction and evolution of data ecosystems, and the social, political and technical work that continually reconfigures their relations and practices.