SOUTHERN DIARIES

The future of mobility in the world’s capital of scooters

Huê-Tâm Jamme

21/02/2022

With more than 10 million inhabitants, Ho Chi Minh City is not only the economic powerhouse of Vietnam; it is also the world’s capital of scooters and other motorized two-wheelers (“motorbikes” for short). Less than ten years ago, in 2014, nearly all households (83%) owned at least one motorbike according to a large survey conducted by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Today, riding a motorbike remains the most convenient way of traveling the narrow roads and alleyways that cut through this particularly dense city. While a rising number of cars is making motorbike mobility increasingly uncomfortable, difficult, and dangerous, motorbikes might soon become a memory of the…

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

NEW VOICES

Why teenage girls have fewer real opportunities to ride a bike than teenage boys

David Sayagh

02/02/2022

By combining several methods, this sociology thesis shows that urban, mobility and sport socializations are highly gendered during adolescence, leading to generally more limited real opportunities for girls to practice cycling. The analysis of variations between young people of the same gender illustrates how cycling both reveals and helps to construct social relations based on sex, age, class and territory. This thesis was awarded the New Voices Award in 2021.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

SOUTHERN DIARIES

Santiago's “Plurinational Cycling Revolution” - cycling as a tool for multiple demands

Matthieu Gillot, Patrick Rérat

02/02/2022

Cycling movements have multiplied in South America, particularly in Santiago de Chile, where their scope has brought together all kinds of demands: social, feminist and ecological. Matthieu Gillot and Patrick Rérat followed this "plurinational cycling revolution" which brings together several thousand people every week.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

NEW VOICES

The work of mobility, between parking lots and particles. The space-times of work under pressure

Meike Brodersen

06/12/2021

Within two mobile occupations - university research and road haulage - tensions emerge between contemporary mobile norms, the way they translate into work control and professional ideals. Meike Brodersen’s thesis draws on an ethnographic study of time and space to show how workers resist, attach themselves and adapt to these mobile occupations.

RESEARCH NOTES

Is it possible to know how many workers live in mobile housing?

Arnaud Le Marchand

03/12/2021

Mobile housing, in its many forms, is inherently invisible in statistics. However, it is part of a way of life that has become essential for many workers in certain professional sectors. For these workers to be understood and properly taken into consideration in public policies, they must first be counted. For this, Arnaud Le Marchand combines statistical traces, observations of living spaces and interviews, in this exploration of workers living in mobile housing. Illustration : Ferjeux van der Stigghel

Thematics : Lifestyles, Theories

NEW VOICES

Cycles of Violence: Analysing media discourse in the newspaper reporting of bicycle users and road fatalities

David Fevyer

22/11/2021

How are cyclist and pedestrian deaths depicted in newspaper reports, and how do these reports help shape understandings of cycling, walking, driving and road safety? This is an important question because reporting of bicycle rider and pedestrian fatalities shapes public and political understandings of what problems exist, what the causes are, and therefore what policies and interventions might address them. In his research for his Masters dissertation David Fevyer found that current news reporting of cyclist fatalities was narrowly focused upon the cyclists themselves rather than institutional or infrastructural factors that might account for such incidents.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies, Theories

NEW VOICES

Flying Through a Perfect Moral Storm: How do Norwegian environmentalists negotiate their aeromobility practices?

Johannes Volden

25/10/2021

How do Norwegian environmentalists negotiate their own air travel? Rather than focusing on whether or not flying is justifiable, this thesis regards air travel as a social practice and places the emphasis on what aeromobility means for consumers, why they continue to fly, and how aeromobilities change and become (un)sustainable. The research shows that air-travel is not only a practice in its own right, but part of other practices. The implication of this is that achieving more sustainable mobilities requires attention to both the modes of transport in question and the wider social practices of which different mobilities are part.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

RESEARCH NOTES

Lahti: The first carbon rationing experiment applied to local journeys

Mobile Lives Forum

04/10/2021

The City of Lahti in Finland was the first to experiment with a carbon trading scheme among its inhabitants to reduce transport-related emissions. Based on a mobile app that measures the emissions of each daily trip and let users manage their individual carbon allowance, this system was voluntary, incentive-based and participatory. Could this pioneering initiative, financed by the European Urban Innovative Action fund, be replicated in other European cities?

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

SOUTHERN DIARIES

How the health crisis disrupted daily mobilities: testimonies from the inhabitants of Bogotá and Lima

Jérémy Robert, Vincent Gouëset , Florent Demoraes, Jimena Ñiquén, Hernando Sáenz, Omar Pereyra, Daniela Rodríguez

30/09/2021

The residents of Lima in Peru, and Bogotá in Colombia, saw their daily mobilities greatly disrupted during the lockdown that lasted from March to July 2020. As part of the ANR Modural project on sustainable mobility practices, a study was conducted, through family accounts and remote interviews, to examine how individuals and their families were impacted by the lockdown in their professional activities and private lives, as well as the strategies they adopted to cope with it.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

OPINIONS

The Trinity of walking, cycling and public transport must be at the heart of ecological transition policies

Claude Soulas

28/09/2021

While emissions from the transport sector remain at a very high level, all hopes are currently pinned on the “magic Trinity” of electric cars, shared cars and connected cars, which are soon to become “autonomous.” However, everything suggests that this focus on cars will be insufficient, considering that their rebound effects and various nuisances (consumption of space, transformation of land through infrastructure and car parks, direct and indirect pollution, etc.) are largely underestimated. Consequently, a different Trinity will be necessary: walking, cycling and public transport, in creating new synergies.

Thematics : Policies

OPINIONS

Strasbourg, an example of a cycling city

Frédéric Héran

27/09/2021

Strasbourg is the leading bicycle city in France and a constant source of inspiration for all French cities that want to promote cycling. With a modal share of 11% for the Metropolis and 15% in the city centre, it remains however somewhat below Europe’s leading cycling cities, but still ahead of Bordeaux or Grenoble, two cities which are progressing rapidly. How has the Strasbourg bicycle system developed? And can it serve as a model for other French cities?

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies, Theories

OPINIONS

In the post-Covid world, have we forgotten about walking again?

Jean-Marc Offner

05/07/2021

Between lockdowns at home, limited travel perimeters and social distancing, the health crisis has made us think about the different ways we move around. As mainstays of urban proximity, cyclists and pedestrians were once the kings of the road. Year after year, bicycles have become the symbol of ecological aspirations in terms of mobility, benefitting from increasing political support, as seen with the recent “corona lanes” (dedicated bike lanes established in Paris during the Covid-19 pandemic). But walking… no!

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies