Transitions and Transformations of Urban Mobility Infrastructures and Practices in 20th Century East Asia

There have been repeated calls to move mobilities and transport scholarship “beyond the West” (Cresswell 2014; Steele and Lin 2014). In response, scholars advanced mobilities and transport research in diverse geographical and cultural contexts during the past decade (Lin 2016; McDonald 2014; Rekhviashvili and Sgibnev 2018; Sheller 2021; Uteng and Lucas 2018). However, much work remains to decentralize this scholarship from its focus on the “West” as an analytical and theoretical point of departure. Specifically, scholars have emphasized the need to consider transport in East Asia (Steele 2016). Home to some of the world’s largest and most populous cities as well as the most extensive and heavily frequented public transport systems, urban life in East Asia is characterised by intense mobility, transport, and infrastructure demands. Moreover, East Asia has become a global leader in the export of transport infrastructure. This panel brings together scholars focused on the history, development, and vicissitudes of urban transport systems in the region. Continuing recent work which explored the interconnections between railway systems and cities worldwide (Roth and van Heesvelde 2022), this panel highlights the relationship between public transport infrastructures and mobility practices in East Asian cities. This panel explores how passenger behaviours and subjectivities are constituted or reconstituted in negotiation with the development of transport infrastructure and wider societal changes. Shedding light on alternative manifestations, meanings, and developmental trajectories of mobility systems and practices, the panel advances research on urban mobilities and transport by broadening its geographical focus and analytical perspective.

We invite contributions related to topics including but not limited to the following themes (in the relation to 20th Century East Asia):

· Public Transport, Urban Life, Culture and Economic Activity

· Transport Infrastructures and Society

· Mobility Practices and Experiences

· Historical Transformations of Urban Movement

· Comparative Perspectives

Mobility

For the Mobile Lives Forum, mobility is understood as the process of how individuals travel across distances in order to deploy through time and space the activities that make up their lifestyles. These travel practices are embedded in socio-technical systems, produced by transport and communication industries and techniques, and by normative discourses on these practices, with considerable social, environmental and spatial impacts.

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Movement

Movement is the crossing of space by people, objects, capital, ideas and other information. It is either oriented, and therefore occurs between an origin and one or more destinations, or it is more akin to the idea of simply wandering, with no real origin or destination.

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Please send your abstract (300 words) and bio (100 words) to both cschimk@iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp and bfrogers@princeton.edu by 30th of March 2024. Please do not hesitate to get in touch in case you have any questions.