Contested Mobilities: Bodies, controversy, and exclusionary design in the city

This paper engages the notion of ‘controversy’ as it may surface within the domain of mobilities. Often mobilities infrastructures and policies are subject to contestation and dispute. However, in this presentation we will explore how the human body may become the pivotal focus of contested mobilities. We are drawing on critical disability research and research into social exclusion by design. The latter is fx when people in homelessness and unhoused are dismissed in public spaces by the design of leaning benches, metal spikes, and other forms of exclusionary artefacts and design. The former relates to humans with cognitive and physical challenges who are misrecognized by the design of mobilities landscapes, technologies, and infrastructures. The paper explores the cross-field between critical mobilities research, multisensorial ethnography, critical disability studies, urban design, controversy studies, and postphenomenological thinking. It is predominantly conceptual and theoretical with the empirical themes as smaller touch points, vignettes, and illustrations.