Politics of knowledge and non-knowing in just mobility transitions

Session organisers:
Anna Nikolaeva University of Amsterdam A.Nikolaeva@uva.nl Ersilia Verlinghieri University of Westminster and University of Oxford e.verlinghieri@westminster.ac.uk Irene Gómez-Varo Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona irene.gomez@uab.cat
Climate change, congestion, air pollution and persistent inequalities in mobility and accessibility have highlighted the need for societies to transition to low-carbon and more equitable mobilities, often conceptualised as 'just mobility transitions'. Questions around what knowledges count in such transitions are key to ensure that they are actually just. This is especially important as the established high-carbon mobility regime systemically excludes certain groups and their knowledges from participating in the governance of transitions, rendering certain values, worldviews, needs, and behaviours invisible. This session aims to contribute to enriching and further developing the recent debate on epistemic knowledge in mobility transitions. Recent works started highlighting how, for example, car-centrism generates not only peculiar politics of knowledge but also ‘politics of non-knowing’ through creating, maintaining and mobilising in political debate particular kinds of ‘ignorance’. Authors considered how the use of smart technologies, ‘big data’ and AI in mobility governance may produce new invisibilities, hypervisibilities, biases and inequalities. Similarly, they highlighted how the predominance of quantitative methods in transport research and planning, insufficient questioning of Eurocentrism in the field as well the underrepresentation of minoritised groups among mobility ‘experts’ and policy-makers further necessitate attention to the epistemic dimension of transitions. This session joins these calls, inviting for a more careful focus on the role of knowledge in transitions, especially acknowledging that there is still a dearth of fine-grained, situated accounts of the processes of knowledge production that should be uncovered. These can help show the multiplicity of understandings of what constitutes ‘useful’ knowledge in specific contexts, and reveal the epistemic struggles around contested mobility policy goals. There is also a need to bring together discussions in the fields of planning and geography on both the roots of epistemic mobility injustice and on the ways of transcending epistemic marginalization of certain groups and communities.
We invite papers that engage with the above discussions. Themes may include, but are not limited to, the following: • Epistemic (in)justice and just mobility transitions • Epistemic (in)justice and transport controversies • Politics of knowledge and ignorance in mobility transitions • Epistemic consequences of car-centrism • Intersectional invisibilities in low-carbon mobility transitions, related to class, gender, race, sexuality etc.

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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If you are interested in participating in this panel, please provide a max. 150-word statement and max. 100-word bio (including affiliation and e-mail address) to us at A.Nikolaeva@uva.nl, e.verlinghieri@westminster.ac.uk and irene.gomez@uab.cat before 21st February 2024. The session is planned to be in person. However, in case you can only participate remotely, please let us know and we will try to organise a hybrid session. Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.