Governing Urban Futures Through Entangled Temporalities of Smart Urbanism

Short Abstract This commentary examines how smart urbanism governs urban futures through practices of placemaking, using Mauritius as a postcolonial backdrop. Drawing on the concept of entangled temporalities, it argues that contemporary smart city developments reproduce colonial legacies by aligning re‐imagined pasts, curated presents and controlled futures within narratives of modernisation and sustainability. In doing so, the commentary reveals how seemingly inclusive and transformative urban futures remain shaped by selective forms of access, visibility and socio‐spatial exclusion.