More than A to B: Cultures of mobilities and travel

In this chapter the underpinning idea is that mobility is more than movement from A to B. Or in the language of transportation research; mobility is more than a ‘derived demand’. The analytical and theoretical perspective claiming such an understanding is located within the broadly defined and cross-disciplinary
‘mobilities turn’ that has emerged within the social sciences during the past decade or so. The chapter will present key ideas from this field in juxtaposition to transportation research. Transport may be about movement from A to B, but ‘mobilities’ will take us beyond this and into the realm of culture, norms, emotions, and the like. The chapter will put emphasis on the dimensions
of identity formation, social interaction, and cultural production as important but
less explored areas of transportation research. However, the chapter does not claim that these cultural dimensions have been neglected all together by transportation research, nor that everything coming out of the ‘mobilities turn’ is new and completely unknown to transportation research. Rather the relationship is seen as a ‘two-way street’, where both perspectives have something to learn from each other. The chapter will illustrate this by reference to specific examples of research oscillating between urban transportation
and mobilities research. Put very simply, one might say that transport research is related to how, why, and where something moves, whereas mobilities research in addition to the same set of questions would inquire into how it feels and what it means to cultures and identities that entities/things move. The movement of people, goods, and information shapes the cultures, powers, and norms that create societies and social networks. Therefore we need to add this perspective to our analysis. One way of doing so, is by engaging with the ‘mobilities turn’. The structure of the chapter is as follows: the introduction (section 1) presents the main idea behind the chapter; namely that mobilities is more than the movement from A to B. In section 2, a quick overview of key positions within transportation research and the ‘mobilities turn’ is presented. Due to the confinements of this chapter these are only outlined in rough contours. In particular it will be shown how the ‘mobilities turn’ may
open up the agenda for seeing mobilities as related to issues of culture, identity formation and emotions. Section 3 presents examples of empirical research where the hallmark has been some sort of interaction between research perspectives and agendas related to transportation research as well as to mobilities research. The chapter concludes with a few pointers for future research.