Contentious Mobilities: Rethinking Mobility Transitions through a Decolonial Lens
The October 2024 issue of Technology and Culture is officially out and with that, a fresh review on the recently published “If Cars Could Walk: Postsocialist Streets in Transformation” ed. by Ger Duijzings and Tauri Tuvikene” by Lyubomir Pozharliev, part of the CoMoDe research group, has been published.
Read an excerpt of the review & get access here: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/940504
We are happy to share that Prof. Waldemar Kuligowski will be joining us as a keynote speaker at the t2m Annual Conference in Leipzig in 2024. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on the intersection of mobility, sustainability, and digitalization. His research interests focus on the theory of culture, reflexive ethnography, anthropology of motorway, festivals and festivalization.
Recently he published Modernizing Localities in Poland: A Never-ending Transformation (Lanham – London – New York 2024) and (with Marcin Poprawski) Festivals and Values. Music, Community Engagement and Organisational Symbolism (Cham 2023). A selection of his critical essays in Serbian under the title “Polish Christ and Serbian Trumpets” is being prepared. As a “public intellectual”, he publishes his essays and articles in leading Polish newspapers and magazines. Recently he has been involved in organizing scientific conferences in a jazz club and at a punk rock music festival.
We are thrilled to announce that Prof. Frauke Behrendt will be delivering the keynote lecture at the t2m Annual Conference in Leipzig in 2024. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on the intersection of mobility, sustainability, and digitalization.
Prof. Behrendt’s current research on social justice includes work with Mimi Sheller on Mobility Data Justice, and exploring the implications of AI for the governance of mobility. Current work on micro-mobility comprises Dutch, UK, South Korean, and Chinese case studies, alongside research on the electric mobility transitions in the Global South, specifically around motorbikes and rickshaws. Frauke Behrendt is also involved in ELEVATE project for which she led the funding application. This project explores micromobility in the UK, in collaboration with Leeds, Oxford, and Brighton University. Her previous research focussed on smart cycling, AI and digital/data society, the musical use of mobile phones, as well as sonic interaction design.
We invite applications for our Visiting Fellows Programme (f/m/d) in the framework of the research project “Contentious Mobilities: Rethinking Mobility Transitions through a Decolonial Lens (CoMoDe)”
Academic and non-academic applicants are welcome to apply for stays ranging from one to six months at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL) in Leipzig. The fellowship scheme is administered by the IfL and financed by the Leibniz Association in the framework of its Junior Research Group programme.
Continue reading “VISITING FELLOWS PROGRAMME”
23–25 September 2024, Leipzig, Germany
Organised by the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography (IfL), and Lancaster University, Leipzig, Germany. Final Conference of the CoMoDe Project (Contentious Mobilities: Rethinking Mobility Transitions through a Decolonial Lens)
Modern societies are experiencing striking technological, ecological, socio-economic and cultural as well as political challenges – with mobility questions at the forefront of these contentions. Actors and institutions across the globe increasingly recognize the need for systemic changes in the ways goods, people, ideas, policies and capital are set in motion – usually framed in the terms of “mobility transitions”. Green deal policies are drafted and “just transition” funds are set up, acknowledging that transition to carbon-free futures will require substantial resources to succeed, but also to avoid uneven and unfair socio-spatial effects on nations, regions, cities, and rural places. Existing research has already criticized mobility transition policies for their narrow normative assumptions, their reliance on large-scale infrastructures and technological innovations, and elaborated on the concepts of mobility justice and commoning mobility as a way of devising collective and collaborative means of shaping mobility transitions (Cresswell et. al 2021; Sheller 2018). It is therefore time to interrogate how and in which ways have “mobility transitions” been framed in different places at different times in their multifaceted histories.
Continue reading “2024 T2M ANNUAL CONFERENCE”
A core member of the CoMoDe team Lyubomir Pozharliev recently published his new book “The Road to Socialism. Transport Infrastructure in Socialist Bulgaria and Yugoslavia (1945–1989)” via V&R unipress. It is accessible as an open source publication supported by the Leibniz foundation.
The book is the first comprehensive empirical study of transport infrastructure in two socialist countries in the years 1945–1989. In the case study of Yugoslavia, the construction of roads was interrelated with building socialist and trans-ethnic identities, uniting all federal republics. In practice, the “Brotherhood and Unity Highway” was an artery linking the capitals of the most industrialized republics, neglecting Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and parts of Macedonia. In socialist Bulgaria existed a clear ideological link between transport and nation building. Bulgarian roads’ disintegrative function was best seen in the example of the “Highway Ring” which, constructed as an inner circle, isolated the border regions and areas inhabited by Bulgarian Muslims and Turks.
Dr Lyubomir Pozharliev is a research associate at the Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde (Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography) in Leipzig. He is working within the Leibniz Junior Research group “Contentious Mobilities: rethinking mobility transitions through a decolonial lens” with a focus on mobility modes in Central Asia and other post-socialist countries. Between 2018 and 2020 he was a postdoctoral researcher within SPP “1981 Transottomanica”. He received his doctorate in history and cultural studies (2018) from Justus-Liebig University, Giessen at the Department of Eastern European History.
The full Open Access PDF can be found here.
A ifl.blog entry by Elene Khundadze
The rehabilitation and fundamental transformation of one of Tbilisi’s main thoroughfares – the Chavchavadze Avenue – sparked debates and conflicts over the city’s new transport policy. Many protested that only one car lane was left and car-parking space was reduced in favor of giving space to public transport, cycling and pedestrian infrastructures. Some found the counter-flow organization of bus lanes dangerous and problematic. Yet, others embraced the reform as a key step towards more socio-spatially just urban and mobility planning. In what follows, I retell the history of the transformation of the avenue. I illustrate how precarious and institutionally challenging the accomplishment of such a street redesign can be. I also suggest that the story of redesigning Chavchavadze Avenue shows that even under unfair political rule and precarious institutional settings impressive urban changes are possible. Continue reading “Reclaiming I. Chavchavadze Avenue”
Sofia, 09–11 October 2023
The history of modern technological infrastructure spans over two centuries and includes heterogeneous phenomena: from railroads, sewerage and water pipes, to telecommunications and digital networks. Its construction resembles a techno-world where modern humans live free from the natural constraints of their existence. This is an environment with very different possibilities, problems, freedoms and dependencies. Large infrastructure projects have a decisive influence on social, economic, technical, societal and administrative processes in modern societies. They shape the relations between sedentariness and mobility, define the rhythms and styles of life, consciousness, self-esteem and identity of individuals and groups.
The development of infrastructures has a key relationship to historical change. Infrastructure projects depend on cultural conditions for their emergence, but they also have important consequences for cultural change. They are an instrument for domination and homogenization of territories, for interaction between anonymous individuals, and for the integration of social groups. Transportation and communication infrastructures transform “imagined modern communities” into a new social and techno-cultural reality. They have a strong integrative but also disintegrative function, contributing to the homogenization of populations, making them technological carriers of power ideologies: Eurocentric, colonial or nationalist.Finally, infrastructure projects have their own history: almost two hundred years of development. The progressivist ideology with which they have traditionally been associated has been criticized and reconsidered. But development has not come to a halt, techno- optimism has not disappeared. New, even more far-reaching infrastructure projects are taking the place of the old ones. The role of digital communication, the Internet galaxy and social networks for the integration and disintegration of late modern society is not yet explored: they offer new possibilities but perhaps also unimagined dangers.
We aim to explore the following topics:
Please send a 250-word abstract and a 50-word bio to L_Pozharliev@leibniz-ifl.de and jdamianova@gmail.com no later than 27th of June 2023.
The conference is free of charge. Graduates, doctoral students and participants with financial difficulties whose submissions have been accepted may apply for travel grants of up to € 250 (in the form of reimbursement). A limited number of grants are available and will be given on an individual basis. Applications should detail the cost of travel and the amount applied for in an email to l_pozharliev@leibniz-ifl.de.
Dr. Lyubomir Pozharliev, Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde Postdoctoral researcher, member of the research group II of the Leibniz Science Campus “Eastern Europe – Global Area” (EEGA), Leipzig
Prof. Alexander Kiossev, Head of the Cultural Centre at Sofia University
Prof. Daniela Koleva, Department of History and Theory of Culture, Sofia University
Dr. Zhana Damyanova, Maison des sciences de l’homme et de la société, Sofia
The fourth annual CASNiG conference, organised by the CoMoDe research group and the Central Asian Studies Network in Germany, will take place in Leipzig, featuring a bright focus on the wide and multifaceted field of mobilities and the emerging global interconnectedness.
Mobility of people, goods, and ideas has been a central feature of research in and on Central Asia – from nomadic societies to post-independence labour migration; from the spread of Islamic religious practices to large infrastructure-led modernisation and connectivity projects, most notably under the Belt and Road Initiative. The Russian Empire and the Soviet Union have deeply shaped the region’s mobility infrastructures and paradigms, as did the post-Soviet period of regional disintegration and economic constraints, as well as recent globalised, financialised and extractivist large-scale development-through-infrastructures endeavours.
For the upcoming conference, we conceive spatial mobility in its broadest terms, and include the multilayered and multiscalar, contemporary and historical mobility of people, goods, concepts, value(s), practices, information and data. Everyday movements, commuting, in- and outmigration, access to and negotiations of mobility regimes, infrastructures which enable or preclude mobility, and biographical approaches to migration decisions are all crucial aspects of what dynamically shapes Central Asian societies, and their interconnectedness within the world. We further address the interdependencies of mobilities and power relations, e.g. with regard to questions of justice, but also the interplay of mobility and socio-spatial processes of inclusion and exclusion, socially embedded norms and gender-specific social practices.
We welcome topics related – but not limited – to the following ones:
Participation in the conference is free of charge. A small contribution to cover catering expenses may be required. The organisers will strive to secure (limited) travel grants and accommodation support.
Please feel welcome to propose scholarly articles and pre-organised sessions, themed workshops, as well as artistic and practice-oriented contributions. We warmly welcome the participation of early career researchers, and will provide space for counselling and networking. We aim to produce a peer-reviewed special issue/edited volume from this conference.
The deadline for submissions of abstracts is 30 July 2023.
Please send the following details as a single PDF file to Stella Marie Köhler (m_koehler(at)leibniz-ifl.de), whom you can also address for all further inquiries related to the conference.
Full draft conference papers should be submitted by 20 October 2023, at the latest.
Priority will be given to an on-site event in Leipzig, to facilitate post-pandemic exchange and network building. Hybrid options shall be evaluated in case of possible travel restrictions. The working language of the conference is English. Please approach us if you would like to hold your presentation in another language.
Wladimir Sgibnev | W_Sgibnev(at)leibniz-ifl.de
Stella Marie Köhler | m_koehler(at)leibniz-ifl.de
During the third weekend of March 2023, the team of the IfL project Contentious mobilities through a decolonial lens (CoMoDe) hosted – jointly with the Ilia State University – a Symposium in Tbilisi, Georgia. The name of the event was “Knowledge Production in Public Transport – Normativities. Actors. Outcomes”. Since Lela Rekhviashvili, a postdoctoral researcher within CoMoDe, had been studying the public transport reform in Tbilisi, her expertise in the field shaped the conceptual framework of the symposium. Furthermore, a former employee of the Tbilisi city hall – Elene Khundzadze – who was a fellowship-holder at IfL – amply contributed with to the conceptual and organisational preparation of the event.
Continue reading “Knowledge Production in Public Transport: Georgian Symposium of the CoMoDe group”