RESEARCH NOTES

Time, leisure and mobility

Benjamin Pradel

23/03/2022

This report aims to contribute to the Mobile Lives Forum’s research on mobility and rhythms of life from the standpoint of leisure and to open new research avenues. This report, which combines elements of a summary, an analysis, and some surprising discoveries, questions the concept of leisure as a social activity in its relationship to time and travel. Of general scope, it probes a part of the literature that mixes the sociology of time, leisure, and mobility. It combines existing concepts and attempts an exploratory study on the importance of mastering one’s time, especially leisure time and free time, in the construction of well-being, through the idea of "rhythmic capability" and …

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies, Theories

NEW VOICES

Sexual harassment in the metro: the experience of violence on the move

Sian Lewis

09/03/2022

This article focuses on research that explored experiences of and the policing of sexual harassment on the London Underground. It highlights that the research took a qualitative approach in the form of interviews with victims and the police. Using a novel conceptual framework built around the concepts of space, mobilities and rhythm, temporalities and knowledges, this research opens up a new perspective at the intersections of feminist research on gendered violence and a mobilities perspective. This thesis as a whole makes an important contribution to our understanding of a particular form of gendered violence happening within the transitory space of an underground in a major Western…

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

RESEARCH NOTES

The Flone Initiative tackles sexual harassment and violence against women in Nairobi

Mobile Lives Forum

09/03/2022

In Nairobi, Kenya, an association is mobilising to tackle sexual harassment against women in matatus, the thousands of informal minibuses that provide public transport in the city. Their goal : to integrate the issue of gender inequality into transport policies and the training of professionals in the sector, in order to remove obstacles to mobility and the emancipation of women. How successful has it been?

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

NEW VOICES

Emotions, entrepreneurship and globalisation: the petit capitalism of migrant women between China and Taiwan

Beatrice Zani

08/03/2022

On the backroads, hidden inside a suitcase, invisible to border controls, a fluorescent orange bra made in a textile factory in Southern China crosses the Strait and arrives in Taiwan. There, it wanders and circulates, on physical and digital platforms, and then returns to its place of production in China. Studying the mobility of this particular object allows us to interrogate the social and emotional journeys of its producers: young female workers from rural Chinese regions who first migrate to towns within China for work, and then marry in order to travel to Taiwan for work later.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Theories

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