Where does digital sovereignty lie in building the Brazilian smart city?

This study aims to analyze how digital sovereignty— understood as self-determination over technologies, data, and digital infrastructures— is either fostered or neglected in the development of smart cities in Brazil. The notion of digital sovereignty emerges from the interplay of social experiences such as food sovereignty, digital activism from the Global South, and the Indigenous Data Sovereignty movement. Additionally, this study seeks to bridge critical perspectives on smart cities with theories of digital and data colonialism. To this end, it conducts a document analysis of frameworks related to data governance and digital infrastructure in four key policy documents guiding Brazil's digitization and datafication processes. These include: the Brazilian Strategy for Digital Transformation (2022–2026); the Smart Cities Handbook linked to the National Internet of Things Plan; the Brazilian Artificial Intelligence Strategy; and the Brazilian Charter for Smart Cities. The findings reveal that the documents' content does not reflect a technological development agenda that promotes digital sovereignty. In the medium and long term, this gap is likely to deepen the country's technological dependence by erasing alternative, collectively built territorial frameworks and prioritizing the market dynamics of the global data economy.