Re-thinking Mobility Poverty

Understanding Users' Geographies, Backgrounds and Aptitudes

Tobias Kuttler, Massimo Moraglio, Tobias Kuttler, Massimo Moraglio

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9780367333300
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000289503
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

This book seeks to better conceptualise and define mobility poverty, addressing both its geographies and socio-economic landscapes. It moves beyond the analysis of 'transport poverty' and innovatively explores mobility inequalities and social construction of mobility disadvantages.

The debate on mobility poverty is gaining momentum due to its role in triggering social exclusion and economic deprivation. In this light, this book examines the social construction of mobility poverty by delving into mobility patterns and needs as they are differently experienced by social groups in different geographical situations. It considers factors such as the role of transport regimes and their social value when analysing the social construction of individual´s mobility needs. Furthermore, the gaps between articulated and unarticulated needs are identified by observing actual travel patterns of individuals. The book offers a comparison of the global phenomenon through fieldwork conducted in six different European countries – Greece, Portugal, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania and Germany.

This book will be useful reading for planners, sociologists, geographers, mobility/transport researchers, mobility advocates, policy-makers and transport practitioners.

The Open Access version of this book, available at https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367333317, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

Part I
Social skills and individual aptitudes

1 Learning mobility

Tobias Kuttler and Massimo Moraglio

Abstract

In this chapter, we take a social constructivist approach to mobility poverty. We argue that, for an in-depth understanding of the phenomenon, it is crucial to investigate the contentious relationship of mobilities and immobilities. Whether, when and how people decide to move, or to stay immobile, is a complex process. In this chapter, we highlight the aspect of learning how to be mobile and at the same time point to the factors that limit the learning process. With such an approach, we lay the groundwork for a better understanding of unmet mobility needs along with the interrelation between realised and unrealised mobilities.

Introduction: realised and unrealised mobility – a social constructivist approach

This and the following chapter seek to depart from a classical account of transport disadvantage focusing on material poverty in order to arrive at a more complex understanding of inequality, disadvantage and injustice, which we subsume under the concept of mobility poverty. This considers the increasing variability of lifestyles, attitudes, opinions and values, how they play out on a micro-societal level as well as within the same social stratum, ultimately how this constellation of factors affects people’s mobility. We argue that mobility poverty is not only about a lack or shortage of actual movement. It is about the conditions that presuppose actual realised movement such as individual factors that create a desire, motivation and need to be mobile. Furthermore, mobility poverty is not only about differentiated mobility but also about the liberty to move or not move, or the decision to be mobile or stay immobile.

In this vein, the arguments presented here will allow us to (i) better understand the conjunction between mobility and immobility and (ii) to identify the gap between realised and unrealised mobility, which leads to an investigation of unmet mobility needs.

What exactly is our aim by highlighting the gap between realised and unrealised mobility? This is not immediately self-evident, but, for some social groups, this gap is more apparent and can be identified more easily. For example, this gap can be immediately grasped when studying the mobility of the elderly: both anecdotic evidence and research indicate that there are lower levels of mobility activity than people actually desire. Mostly, mobility is desired to foster social relationships and conduct leisure activities, but also to maintain social reputation and access social resources (Hjorthol 2013, 1194). This desire increases with age. It could also be shown that, with increasing age, meeting basic needs like shopping receive wider significance for a person’s well-being. For example, this boils down to personal assurance to be independent and in control of one’s life, the possibility to meet friends, or just the positive feeling of being out of the house, “on the road” or among people (Hjorthol 2013, 1203–1206). Conversely, the desire for mobility among the elderly often remains unrealised due to inadequate transport options, limited financial means and physical constraints. In addition, often elderly people are reluctant to rely on support from friends and relatives to meet their mobility demands due to internalised norms of self-reliance and independence, hence mobility remains unrealised (Schwanen, Banister, and Bowling 2012, 1320; Ziegler and Schwanen 2011, 777).

In many other cases, the exploration of this mobility gap poses a challenge, which is also eventually a methodological challenge. Research on mobility requirements often relies on the observation of travel that actually takes place. Traditionally with quantitative methods, and increasingly with qualitative or mixed-method approaches, travel behaviour and travel patterns are explored through surveys, travel diaries, GPS tracking, focus groups and in-depth interviews. Although such studies deliver important results on mobility behaviour and patterns and provide a strong basis for transport modelling and demand forecasting, the deeper-lying norms and attitudes of individuals towards their spatial movement often remain hidden. While many studies differentiate between various trip purposes, they do not explore the more fine-grained motivations for being mobile or immobile in one or another way, and thus miss blocked desires (Nordbakke and Schwanen 2015, 1130–1131; Pereira, Schwanen, and Banister 2017, 177).

The definition and identification of mobility desires and unrealised mobility needs could potentially have a strong impact on policy formulation. The way in which mobility needs are defined depends on who participates in the political or agenda setting process. A participative and inclusive process is crucial for the policies and solutions developed. This means that those who do not have access to political decision-making – or are not adequately represented – may not have the chance to express their mobility needs. Especially in the case of socially disadvantaged groups, new policies or solutions often do not address those specific needs or, worse, policies can even further hamper the ability to participate in social life (see e.g. Lucas 2006, 806; Rajé 2007, 66).

In order to analyse the gap between realised and unrealised mobility, and identify unmet mobility needs, we take a social constructivist approach.

Indeed, individual motivations and needs to be im/mobile are socially constructed: the “desire” or “necessity” to move is highly discretional according to social and cultural context. What seems indispensable to one person may be mundane to another. The motivation to move, as well as the ability to move, is closely linked to social norms, values, experiences and socially embedded expectations.

When analysing the gap between realised and unrealised mobility, it becomes necessary to differentiate individual mobility needs and aptitudes on the one hand and the notion of unequal mobilities and mobility justice on the other hand, keeping in mind that for us this goes beyond debates about the distribution of accessibility levels. While these are by no means mutually exclusive approaches, different strands of investigation put varying emphasis on each of them, resulting in different conclusions about what is necessary to achieve what is called a “good” and meaningful life, and subsequent recommendation for policy and technological solutions.

In this chapter, we begin with scrutinising how individual mobility motivations, needs and desires are developed in a setting of established social and cultural norms, values, experiences and socially embedded expectations. While navigating social and cultural settings, mobility is learnt by individuals in a complex and long-lasting process. In this learning process, individual mobility aptitudes and skills are established, which enable individuals in their decisions of whether to move or not in quite different ways.

In order to analyse these concepts, we scrutinise:

• The role of social networks and the significance of being mobile for social purposes.
• The concept of motility in order to shed light on enabling and disabling factors of mobility.
• Then, turning more concretely towards the aspect of “learning”, we focus on the role of socialisation and the process of “learning mobility”.

Fourth, the process of obtaining travel know-how and spatial knowledge will be elaborated.

Lastly, the gap between realised and unrealised mobility will be illustrated by the example of virtual mobilities.

Mobilities and social networks

Especially for groups that are considered vulnerable, the primary attention of decision makers and practitioners is often on securing the basic and formal needs of everyday life: employment, education, health care. However, such a model

rests on a definition of what excluded people should want or need and obscures the role that social networks play in maintaining a ‘good life’ and in structuring the meaning of inclusion and participation. […] This is difficult to achieve, but one method is to focus upon ‘blocked desire’, especially when people cannot meet what they take to be important obligations of co-presence.

(Cass, Shove, and Urry 2005, 551)

Hence, the importance of maintaining social networks for vulnerable social groups and the associated necessities to be mobile need further scrutiny.

The role of social networks for maintaining a “good life” and the associated need for mobility has been widely discussed. John Urry and other scholars (Urry 2007; Urry and Grieco 2011) have described in detail the significance and even primacy of social relations for maintaining a meaningful life in a networked society:

What seems important in contemporary life are overlapping and intersecting social networks – in leisure, friendship, family life as well as in work and organizations. And these networks appear to demand intermittent travel, such travel being crucial to forming and sustaining such networks produced through ‘moments of co-presence’.

(Cass, Shove, and Urry 2005, 545)

This leads us to conceive that social relations for some groups – especially elderly and mobility-impaired people in rural areas with inadequate public transport – are a prerequisite for being mobile, while mobility of these individuals again reinforces the ability for co-presence and hence the stability of social ties (Jansuwan, Christensen, and Chen 2013 for low-income groups; Lovejoy and Handy 2011 for migrants in the United States; Pyer and Tucker 2014 for young people with disability; Rajé 2007 for poor elderly people; Rittner and Kirk 1995). It has also been shown that different socially constructed needs can be in conflict with each other: many older people are reluctant to rely on support from friends and relatives to meet their mobility demands due to internalised norms of self-reliance and independence, with the effect that especially the elderly tend not to participate in social and cultural life if they would need assistance with transportation from friends and relatives (or technical devices) (Schwanen, Banister, and Bowling 2012, 1320; Ziegler and Schwanen 2011, 777). The same attitudes have also been described for members of immigrant communities in the United States (Lovejoy and Handy 2011, 255).

However, it is important to understand both the inclusionary and exclusionary effects of social networks, and that the networked society is a society of inclusions and exclusions at the same time. The exclusionary effects of social networks and the resulting mobility disadvantage will be more thoroughly investigated in Chapter 2.

Figure 1.1 The motility approach.

Source: Authors, adapted from De Witte and Macharis (2010), based on Flamm and Kaufmann 2006; Kaufmann, Bergman, and Joye 2004.

Motility as a key element: individual capabilities and preferences

In order to identify unrealised mobility needs and estimate the gap between actual travel and latent mobility needs, the concept of motility can be employed (Figure 1.1). “Motility can be defined as how an individual or group takes possession of the realm of possibilities for mobility and builds on it to develop personal projects” (Flamm and Kaufmann 2006, 168). Furthermore, motility can be described “as the way in which entities [persons] access and appropriate the capacity for socio-spatial mobility according to their circumstances” (Kaufmann, Bergman, and Joye 2004, 750).

Motility hence analyses the potential of and capacity for movement. The study of potential movement reveals further insights into people’s mobility as well as into its wider spatial and social consequences (Kaufmann, Bergman, and Joye 2004, 749). The motility approach allows us to grasp a better understanding of the contextuality of mobility challenges. It also allows us to analyse and explain how increased travel options do not result in more freedom and mobility for all; this lets us understand that individuals use these options in different ways. In other words, the motility approach provides a useful concept to analyse mobility poverty empirically.

Kaufmann and his team identified three interrelated groups of factors that define the potential to be mobile:

• Access: This describes t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Contributor biographies
• Acknowledgements
• Disclaimers
• Preface
• Foreword: a mobility justice lens on mobility poverty
• Introduction
• Part I Social skills and individual aptitudes
• Part II Geographies of mobility poverty
• Part III Societal roots and impacts
• Part IV The fieldwork
• Findings and conclusions
• Index