14th T2M Annual Conference 2016 – Mobilities: Space of Flows and Friction – Mexico City – October 27-30 2016

14th T2M Annual Conference 2016 – Mobilities: Space of Flows and Friction in Mexico City, “Quinta Colorada”, Chapultepec Park

Date : October 27-30 2016

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This is the first time that the association will have its Annual Conference in Latin America, after having met in Asia (India), Europe, and North America. We are excited to meet new colleagues from Latin America and learn more about transport history and mobility studies in this locale.

The overarching topic “Mobilities: Spaces of Flows and Friction” aims to highlight the relationships between mobility and space, its temporality and production. These multiple relationships have been expressed in ideas such as territorialisation and de-territorialisation, movement-space, space-time and claims that state space is an effect of motion. Mobility studies and mobility history help us to think about space as dynamic, relational, open, in-process, networked, and therefore, as made of and making possible motion. At the same time, space can help us to think of the ways in which mobility is not just an abstract movement but takes (and makes) “place”, that is to say it has physical geographies, historical rhythms, and occupies concrete socio-technological constellations that include durable infrastructures, vehicles, corridors, gates, or barriers.

Beyond its materiality, spaces of mobility may take shape as social, cultural and embodied relationships. Moreover, space can be seen not only as made up of flows but also of congestion, as moments of friction or stillness from national borders to bus stops. Flows and frictions not only show us the importance of mobility in the production of space but also how mobility is “spatialized.” Focusing on how those spaces were and are materially, socially and symbolically constructed, helps us to see how mobility is uneven – shaping and shaped by power relations, hence always political. Frictions’ histories remind us that mobility has not always been smooth and spaces of mobility tend and have always tended to (re)produce geometries of power since flows are conducted, regulated, controlled and governed. Frictions make spaces of mobility more visible and transparent, helping us to understand conditions such as design, social and material configurations, potentials for rearrangement, and user adoption or rejection.

We hope to trigger new debates on space, time, and mobility, especially considering that our city venue itself will be a challenging, multilayered, massive and over-congested network of flows. Mexico City with its 24+ million inhabitants, besides being one of the largest cities in the world, is also one of the busiest transportation hives of the planet. Its “mega-mobility” connects to urban and transport policy mobilities across Latin America, and beyond, as permanent urban growth generates huge investments and new infrastructure. What kind of spaces are we producing through time? Can a new perspective, wherein mobility is central to understanding space, help us to re-write the ways in which those spaces were produced and re-think how they are lived?

Urbanism now extends beyond cities to include “operational landscapes” of agricultural hinterlands, mining and extraction enclaves, and even ex-urban touristic natural parks and preserved wilderness. Urban metabolism includes the circulation of energy, water, foods, and other “eco-system services” that may connect (or not) to the regional, national or global networks. Finally, at an international scale, the vicinity of Mexico with the USA naturally triggers questions about borders as spaces of flows and friction, the interaction of the continent with remote places through legal and illegal trade and traffic.

Pascal Fort

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