CeMoRe Seminar - Mobilities and Social Inequalities

ABSTRACTS

Katharina Manderscheid - Space, mobilities and social inequality - a research agenda

Although there is an observable increase in socio-economic polarizations - both within most (western) countries and between them - the debate on social inequalities lost its former central position within sociology.

By focusing mainly on the economic side of inequalities the debate ignores important cultural dimensions of inequalities, their everyday living implications and the daily practices of movement allowing for access to resources, markets, institutions and options.

In order to overcome some of these shortcomings, I want to suggest a systematic consideration of space, positionalities and mobilities as dimensions and forces of the continuous reproduction of inequalities.

Facing the enormous changes commonly summed up under the label of globalisation, the integration of space and mobilities into the analysis of social inequalities seems necessary to better understand the topologies of the current re-formations of social relations. Therefore, social inequality should be understood as multidimensional and relationally constituted in order to capture its differentiated mechanisms of reproduction and their socio-spatial framing. Further, I suggest to elaborate on the relational character of the socio-spatial world. The constitution of spaces through material practices rests to a large extent on mobilities allowing or denying access to the spatialities of resources, activities and goods. This suggested integration of so far largely unconnected strands in social theory is thought to provide a fruitful frame for further research of the reproduction of social inequalities and their impacts on people's lives.

A corresponding research agenda will be suggested at the end of this contribution drawing on the outlined approach.

Sebastian Ureta - The 'Multiple User' of Transantiago: some preliminary thoughts and findings

On February 10th 2007 a new public transport plan, called 'Transantiago', started in the city of Santiago, Chile. Among its main measures included a complete reconfiguration of the bus routes, the interconnection between networks of buses and Metro, the introduction of a payment card, the replacement of old buses and, in general terms, a new way to administrate and organize public transport in the city. In the development of Transantiago several actors, both public and private, were involved, each of them dealing with different aspects of it: buses, routes, information, money, etc. This presentation, based on an ongoing ethnographic fieldwork started at the beginning of 2007, deals with the multiple ways in which the future users of Transantiago were 'enacted' by these actors in their working practices while developing the plan. Using a combination of both Mobility Research and Actor-Network Theory analytical frameworks the aim is to compare and analyze how these multiple enactments interact with the human beings, mostly low income population, who started using Transantiago for their daily travels in February 2007.