Search

This paper explores a crucial aspect of sustainable mobility: the production of social inequality in mobility systems. The approach taken is to focus on how, as new transit infrastructures create alternative ways of travelling into and accessing the city, they create changed conditions for the formation of subject identities. New types of travellers are realized in the newly engineered spaces of mobility. The paper argues that this focus on emergent mobile subject types can be useful in investigating the social inequalities that can result from the introduction of new infrastructures. This approach is illustrated in a case study of one urban transit system: the BTS Sky Train, Bangkok, Thailand. The analysis reveals the subtle hegemony of an elite mobility system that slowly becomes not only the 'norm' but increasingly the desired mode of mobility, emphasizing how mobile elites are constructed and how social inequality is materially produced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Swiss Journal of Sociology / Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)