The design, experience and justice of mobility

Abstract

The central argument of the ‘mobilities turn’, that sedentarist frameworks have dominated social sciences for a long time, which has limited our understanding of mobilities (e.g. Cresswell 2006, 2010; Hannam et al. 2006; Sheller & Urry 2006; Urry 2007) – also applies to the spatial disciplines, andhumangeography in particular. Ofcourse, themovementandtransport ofgoods and people have always been on the agenda of the spatial sciences. However, these mobilities have mostly been analysed from the position of fixed points. In mainstream transport research, mobility has typically been perceived as ‘merely’ a derived demand, warranting study only as a connector between desired activities. In line with this conceptualisation, movement between places is, either implicitly or explicitly, considered as friction and a loss of time that has to be limited. Equally so, the push-pull models of migration studies presented the mobile part as a static point-to-point movement without any further social meaning or transformative power. From the position of fixed points, mobilities have thus been perceived as ‘residual death time,’ ‘friction’ or ‘empty spaces’ (e.g. Cresswell 2006; Urry 2007). Scholars who engage themselves in the mobilities turn approach spatial interaction and mobility differently. First of all, mobility is seen as a process and a motor of change. Both places of origin and places of destination change through the movement of people, goods, money and information from one place to the other, and thus mobility is seen as a major factor in space- and place-making. This goes beyond the traditional geographical approach, which focuses primarily on changing spatial structures as a resultant of spatial interaction potentials. Second, these mobilities researchers explicitly explore how people, as well as other material and immaterial objects of exchange, change themselves through the process of relocation, something which has largely been ignored in the spatial disciplines, and mainstream transportation research in particular. While this new mobilities’ research is an interdisciplinary debate bringing together, among others, geographers, anthropologists, planners, political scientists and sociologists to re-think the role of mobility in different societies (Hannam et al. 2006, Urry 2007), authors strongly share these basic starting points. The emerging new mobilities literature, we argue, has the potential to substantially enrich mainstream transportation research. However, this requires transcending existing boundaries and bridging the divide between the world of ‘transport mobility’ – perceiving mobility a way to overcome the friction of distance and a functionalist force and (re)structuring the urban landscape – and the world of ‘practice mobility’ – approaching mobility as a transformative power opposing the fixity and boundedness of space and place (Massey 2005; Cresswell 2006; Sheller & Urry 2006). The differences are not only to be found in terms of disciplinary jargon and research topics, but also in terms of methodology and conceptual frameworks. To create a common ground for debate, we have identified three potential bridging concepts that may help evoke a border-crossing debate. These dimensions are: designs, experiences and justice. Before discussing the extent to which the different contributions in this special issue invoke these bridging concepts, we first articulate the ways we think they can bring both sides of the divide closer together.