A transport of one’s own: Women in contemporary Mexico City’s public transport through the lens of photojournalism

Abstract

This article proposes the use of photojournalism to understand women’s urban mobility practices in contemporary Mexico City. Throughout the analysis, a variety of issues such as economic violence, time poverty and sexual harassment emerge. In general, the article argues that, by analysing the cultural representations that circulate within different media in a specific social and historical context, particular experiences of urban mobilities are made visible, thereby enriching current urban mobility scholarship. Specifically, the article explores how the analysis of material makes visible the various and distinct encounters that women experience when using public transport in Mexico City. The article makes the case that there is already plenty of scholarship within the humanities and cultural studies that could be integrated into existing research on urban mobility practices, enhancing our understanding of how such practices are distinct in particular locations and time periods, and ultimately helping to achieve a more complex and nuanced understanding of them.