“Mobility Justice’’: a new means to examine and influence the politics of mobility

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis essay examines two recent texts that embrace and extend the kinopolitical lens of the new mobilities paradigm by creating a framework for assessing the fairness of (im)mobilities: Mimi Sheller’s 2018 monograph, Mobility Justice, and Nancy Cook and David Butz’s 2019 edited collection, Mobilities, Mobility Justice and Social justice. Both books build upon theoretical accounts of rights to space and transport by promoting a holistic valuation of (im)mobilities through the development of the concept of ‘mobility justice’. This concept combines the theoretical repertoires of the new mobilities paradigm and political philosophies of justice. In doing so ‘mobility justice’ employs a mobile ontology, which is essential to examining the constitutive processes of (im)mobilities, together with a sensitivity to the fairness of movements in terms of rights, freedoms, capabilities, distribution and domination. The concept of ‘mobility justice’ is employed through the books in a diverse range of contexts. This is particularly the case for Mobilities, Mobility Justice and Social justice, in which authors examine local political battles in terms of how fair the on-the-ground (im)mobilities are. In contrast, Sheller’s book seeks to define the ethical elements of ‘mobility justice’, in order to develop a moral and theoretical framework that can not only be used to further knowledge of real world mobilities, but also to promote more equitable mobile environments. This research and theoretical development is timely because it identifies the multi-scalar nature of mobility injustice, and subsequently connects local battles for specific mobility rights to global movements for ‘mobility justice’.