Morality,mobility and citizenship: Legitimising mobile subjectivities in a contested outdoors

In this article, we examine articulations of mobile citizenship produced through the discursive practices of state agencies, drawing in particular on a study of the contested reconfiguration of outdoor citizenship in Norway. Whilst increased participation and diversity in outdoor activities is highly valued and encouraged because of its social benefits, moral landscapes of the outdoors may be part of settling and reinforcing social differences and existing power relations. The article identifies three discursive normativities through which state officials negotiate mobility and outdoor citizenship; knowledge, skills and socialisation; engaging (with) nature; deserving (in) the outdoors. These normativities serve as a basis for a critical discussion of different aspects of outdoor movement, and how social identities interact with the citizen responsibilities assigned to different forms of mobility, such as mountain biking, skiing and walking. The article demonstrates how and why certain outdoor practices, spaces and boundaries of citizenship are both fluid and critically negotiated by the state officials. By bringing together theories of moral landscapes, mobility and citizenship, the article contributes to understandings of the politics of mobility, and particularly the theorisation of how morality works in relation to different dimensions of mobility. It also highlights how the contestation of mobile citizenship is an issue in rural as well as urban realms.     

Citizenship and the embodied practice of wheelchair use

Citizenship has been associated with members of a community that engage in paid work (Painter and Philo, 1995; Desforges et al., 2005). This idea constructs remunerated work as a key determinant of citizenship (Brown and Patrick, 2012). The outcome in terms of mobility is the provision of infrastructure and technologies that potentially privilege the movement of those considered to be ‘productive bodies’ between their workplaces and homes at specific times, while disadvantaging disabled people and their everyday mobility practices (Imrie, 2000). This paper explores the ways in which the formation of citizenship and movement, as embodied and sensory practices, and wheelchair use may be constrained by infrastructures, means of transport and social practices that are often insensitive to the needs of disabled people. In particular, the paper contributes to fleshing out the notion of ‘embodied citizenship’ in relation to women wheelchair users and the role played by their devices and other mobility technologies in their citizenship struggles. The paper is divided into three sections. First, I set out a framework for exploring the relationships between citizenship, mobility and disability with a focus on wheelchair users. Second, drawing on original qualitative research data, the paper concentrates on the embodied mobility practices of women wheelchair users who live in Greater London and Leicestershire, United Kingdom. Here I highlight the prejudices, barriers, discrimination and exclusions that they face, which, potentially, impact on their claims to citizenship. Finally, the paper concludes that an approach based on the subjective experience of the wheelchair user in context is useful in revealing the complexities of citizenship.     

Driving the ‘Starship Enterprise’ through London: Constructing the im/moral driver-citizen through HGV safety technology

The intersections between technology, mobility and citizenship have been relatively neglected in current geographical enquiry. Through qualitative analysis of user, operator and media accounts of retro-fitted safety technology on HGVs (Heavy Goods Vehicles), this paper illustrates the ways in which citizenship as a moral accomplishment is dependent upon the socio-technical worlds into which individual actors are folded. In response to the growing incidence of cyclist fatalities under the wheels of HGVs, various safety technologies have been positioned as reliable ‘intermediaries’ by policymakers, manufacturers and operators seeking to mitigate the risks of the HGV. However, we demonstrate that these technologies are more accurately seen as ‘mediators’, because of the ways in which they distort and translate information, producing and reshaping new tasks and roles for HGV drivers. One of the consequences of this is a shift in responsibility towards the drivers, which increases the potential to construct them as negligent if accidents still occur. Accordingly, we indicate how technologies ‘push back’ on mobile subjects, shaping not only their ability for moral conduct, but broader social identities as citizens.     

Britons abroad or European citizens? The negotiation of (trans)national space and citizenship by British migrants in France

This paper uses the concept of ‘ordinary citizenship’ (Staeheli et al., 2012) to explore the relationship between mobility, citizenship and political space in the European Union. Drawing on in-depth interviews with Britons living in South West France, the paper examines the ways in which citizenship is meaningful to migrants as a complexity of legal frameworks, normative structures and everyday activities. While EU citizenship has been advanced to underpin the formation of a closer Union, we demonstrate that contemporary forms of citizenship among these lifestyle migrants are shaped to a large extent by performances of national belonging, and individual interactions with other people at the local or community level. We argue that a bi-national structure of citizenship, or one based on domicile better accounts for the experiences of these migrants than supranational EU citizenship.     

“One needs to be very brave to stand all that”: Cycling,rational dress and the struggle for citizenship in late nineteenth century Britain

The article discusses changing ideas around citizenship through an analysis of first person accounts of women cyclists in Rational Dress in late nineteenth century Britain. A close reading of personal correspondence provides a sense of how it felt to cycle while dressed in new mobility costumes, such as bloomers, in urban and suburban English landscapes. Such attired and independently mobile women affirmed or unsettled onlooker’s understandings of how middle and upper class women should look and act in public. Some viewers subjected them to verbal and often physical assault. Others, in awe of their socio-technical sophistication were more supportive. Taking a ’bloomer point of view’ provides a unique socio-material way of gaining a deeper understanding of what enabled and also inhibited women’s claims to citizenship and freedom of movement, especially at a time when women were not citizens in a legal sense. I argue that through these richly described accounts we gain insightful glimpses into how individual sensory, embodied and political experiences collectively illuminate the becoming of ’citizen’ as it relates to mobility, gender and landscape.     

Enclave oil development and the rearticulation of citizenship in Turkana,Kenya: Exploring ‘crude citizenship’

Turkana County, located in the arid region of northwestern Kenya, has long been imagined as backwards and unproductive. As a result, successive governments have neglected to provide adequate social services and investments in the county, leaving Turkanas to rely on humanitarian organisations for access to rights and protections traditionally associated with citizenship. Yet when oil was discovered in Turkana in 2012, the county was thrust into the international spotlight. The oil exploration and development activities that followed the oil discovery have already begun to impact life in Turkana. Accordingly, this paper focuses on changing social and political relationships in light of emergent spaces of enclave oil development in Turkana. Our analysis draws from key informant interviews, focus group discussions, and field observations carried out in Kenya between October 2014 and May 2015. Specifically, we demonstrate that the Kenyan state’s historically hands-off approach to governing this region has led some Turkanas to seek recognition, legitimization, and fulfillment for their rights from oil companies, rather than the state. We argue that this is drawing oil companies and rural communities into an uneasy citizen-state-like relationship, altering the experiences and practices of citizenship in Turkana. We conclude that while the presence of oil companies in Turkana may benefit some, it also works to the detriment of others, introducing new forms of inequality and marginalization – a process we refer to as ‘crude citizenship’.     

Giving space: Care, generosity and belonging in a UK asylum drop-in centre

This paper examines the political negotiations which underpin the performance of charitable spaces. In particular, the paper draws upon a period of ethnographic research at a UK drop-in centre for asylum seekers to consider how notions of charity, generosity and the right to give are structured within the daily accomplishment of an environment of care. Through considering the accounts of both asylum seekers and volunteers within this site, the paper outlines how the interactions and relations brought forth in the drop-in centre served to produce a space associated with ideas of welcome and generosity. The political nature of such a space is brought to the fore when considering how practices of care and generosity within the drop-in relied upon, and actively reinscribed, normalised visions of charity, belonging and citizenship. Through highlighting moments of transgression in which positions of giving and receiving are questioned, the paper suggests that the relations of the drop-in centre may reproduce a politically passive and marginalised vision of the asylum seeker within the UK. This reading of an environment of care for those seeking sanctuary has implications for how we understand the spatial experience of asylum itself, and for how we might envision more politically attentive and ethically responsive spaces of sanctuary.     

Migrant pathways to resource access in Lampung’s political forest: Gender, citizenship and creative conjugality

An important theme in studies of enclosure and resource access in Southeast Asian hinges on the concept of the ‘political forest’, a particular constellation of power constituted by ideas, practices and institutions that seek to regulate peoples’ access to resources, providing recognition and legitimacy to some, whilst excluding and criminalizing others. Whilst issues of class and ‘race’ underpin work in this vein, in Indonesia, much less attention has been directed towards the ways in which gender inheres in the regularisation of land and livelihood, and the ordering of upland spaces. Drawing on recent feminist and queer theorizing of the links between citizenship, recognition and hetero-normativity, and on analyses of the social relationships through which resource access is negotiated and realized, the paper presents a feminist political ecology of the gender dynamics inherent in the power plays of resource access as land-poor rural migrants negotiate a shifting landscape of enclosure in Lampung province. Through an analysis of three periods of resource governance and control in the province, the paper shows how the negotiation of resource access is simultaneously a process of self-regulation and subject-making that draws on particular ideas about family and conjugal partnership, inculcating gendered and hetero-normative ideologies of the “ideal citizen”. Through particular representational strategies - positionings - necessary to qualify for resource access, and through the material practices necessary to realize the benefits of resource access, conjugal partnership is reiterated and remade as an important social relationship through which resource access may be realised, for men as well as for women.     

“I’m an imaginary figure”: Unravelling the mobility and marginalisation of Scottish Gypsy Travellers

Gypsy Travellers have a long history of marginalisation in Scotland, but their mobility remains an issue of particular contention. Drawing upon a series of interviews with Gypsy Travellers in the North-East of Scotland, this paper uncovers how power and politics permeate discourses on movement to legitimise the spatial ordering of this traditionally nomadic group. The paper begins by exploring the more hidden and subtle aspects of mobility, such as the emotional and imaginative ties to travel. It then shifts to document how Gypsy Travellers’ geographies have been compromised by discriminatory policies and practices, which demonstrate a misunderstanding of the heterogeneity of their mobility. Consequently, increasingly punitive policies have pushed many Gypsy Travellers to abandon their travelling ways to move into “fixed” housing, while others have been forced into states of perpetual motion. The overall goal of the paper is to unravel the discursive constructions of movement in the context of institutionalised power and to document the spatial ordering of Gypsy Travellers’ lives, whose marginality has been legitimised by laws, ideologically sustained and reproduced in policy documents.     

Mobile policies and policy streams: The case of smart metering policy in Australia

Geographers have become increasingly engaged with the notion of policy mobility. It is argued that in a globalised world policies have become more internationally mobile: we now live in an era of ‘fast policy’. Drawing on core concepts of mobility, neoliberalisation, and globalisation - and with a background primarily in geography and urban studies - policy mobility scholars have developed new ideas about how policies circulate internationally. In the process, however, theories of policy change developed within political science have been rather overlooked. In this paper it is shown how a political science theory with a shared interest in flows – the Multiple Streams Approach (MSA) – is complementary to policy mobilities scholarship. Two issues in particular are illuminated by the MSA: first, what constitutes policy, and, second, the role of the nation state in structuring the possibilities for, and timing of, policy change. In turn, policy mobilities scholarship highlights the different geographies of the multitude of objects, ideas, problems, processes, organisations, and regulations that constitute policy. It also raises questions about the validity of analytically separating politics from policy proposals, as advocated by the MSA. These issues are considered using the empirical case of smart electricity metering policy in Australia, in the period 2000–2015.     

Morphodynamics and sedimentary structures of bedforms under supercritical‐flow conditions: New insights from flume experiments

Supercritical‐flow phenomena are fairly common in modern sedimentary environments, yet their recognition and analysis remain difficult in the stratigraphic record. This fact is commonly ascribed to the poor preservation potential of deposits from high‐energy supercritical flows. However, the number of flume data sets on supercritical‐flow dynamics and sedimentary structures is very limited in comparison with available data for subcritical flows, which hampers the recognition and interpretation of such deposits. The results of systematic flume experiments spanning a broad range of supercritical‐flow bedforms (antidunes, chutes‐and‐pools and cyclic steps) developed in mobile sand beds of variable grain sizes are presented. Flow character and related bedform patterns are constrained through time‐series measurements of bed configurations, flow depths, flow velocities and Froude numbers. The results allow the refinement and extension of some widely used bedform stability diagrams in the supercritical‐flow domain, clarifying in particular the morphodynamic relations between antidunes and cyclic steps. The onset of antidunes is controlled by flows exceeding a threshold Froude number. The transition from antidunes to cyclic steps in fine to medium‐grained sand occurs at a threshold mobility parameter. Sedimentary structures associated with supercritical bedforms developed under variable aggradation rates are revealed by means of combining flume results and synthetic stratigraphy. The sedimentary structures are compared with examples from field and other flume studies. Aggradation rate is seen to exert an important control on the geometry of supercritical‐flow structures and should be considered when identifying supercritical bedforms in the sedimentary record.     

Bed Mobility on the Deschutes River,Oregon: Tracer Gravel Results

Tracers are marked particles introduced into streams to obtain information on the movement of sediment in rivers. On the lower Deschutes River, Oregon, the threshold for bed mobility has been of interest in the relicensing of hydroelectric dams, with cross sections plotted from historical US Geological survey gauging records having shown changes at flows as low as 150 to 200 m³ s-¹ and general mobility at approximately 250 m³ s-¹. To obtain direct, empirical evidence of bed mobility, we deployed exotic gravel tracers (quartz particles) on the reach below the dam over four runoff seasons in which peak flows ranged from 146 to 192 m³ s-¹, close to entrainment threshold indicated by the cross section changes. The observed tracer movements indicated the bed experienced partial mobility (with 0-37 % of particles moving). We found no unique relation between grain diameter and critical flow strength (e.g. specific stream power), suggesting that overall bed texture and structure were more important controls on mobility than individual grain sizes.     

Moving young lives: Mobility, immobility and inter-generational tensions in urban Africa

This paper explores young people’s experiences and perceptions of mobility and mobility constraints in poorer urban areas of Ghana, Malawi and South Africa within the specific context of inter-generational relations. Drawing principally on qualitative research findings from a study involving both adult and child researchers, our aim is to chart the diversities and commonalities of urban young people’s mobility experiences in the everyday - how they use and experience the city - developing a comparative perspective across three urban study sites which links young people’s mobility with the power relations that operate to shape their movements in individual locations. In particular, we consider how positive and negative images of young people’s mobility play out in terms of the inter-generational frictions and negotiations generated by their mobility performances. We also reflect on the developmental implications, in terms of young people’s access to services and income and their participation in the social networks and peer culture which may shape their life trajectories. Three themes are explored in detail: mobility as challenge, mobility as temptation and mobility control.     

The new politics of pastoralism: Identity,justice and global activism

Concerns with the politics and practices of resource rights and access are integral to contemporary debates over environmental justice. Struggles over identity politics, especially the strategic articulation and deployment of particular identities at diverse geographical scales, have recently emerged as important mediators of justice claims in respect of resources rights, but also of recognition and procedural justice. To date, critical, multi-scalar analyses of identity-based claims for environmental justice have focused largely on the indigenous peoples’ movement. In doing so, they have failed to embrace an emergent dimension of identity-based, trans-scalar justice, namely the fledgling global pastoralists’ movement, the empirical focus for this paper. In the early years of the 21st century mobile pastoralists have begun to carve out new global spaces, through which diverse groups have attempted to negotiate common ground and forge common identities in their struggles for justice. In particular, mobile pastoralists have become increasingly visible in conservation politics and contests over land rights as they lay claim to both discursive and material ground as ‘custodians of the commons’ in an era of global climatic change. This paper draws on empirical work amongst pastoralists, NGOs and activists from Kenya, Mongolia and Spain to explore these identities, their implications for resource rights and access and the multi-scalar chains of accountability and legitimacy between global activists and their local constituents.     

Splintered networks: The colonial and contemporary waters of Jakarta

This paper queries the relevance of the ‘splintering urbanism’ thesis to postcolonial cities of the South, and responds to calls for the production of a decentered theory of urbanization through a case study of Jakarta. Drawing on archival and interview data, the paper demonstrates that Jakarta has, since its inception, been characterized by a high degree of differentiation of access to water supply, and of fragmentation of water supply networks. We document the origins of this fragmentation in the colonial era, and trace the legacy of the colonial constructions within the postcolonial city. Moreover, we demonstrate that the introduction of private sector management (in 1988) has not significantly disrupted, and certainly not caused, this pattern. In short, we provide evidence to support our claim that Jakarta’s water supply system is ‘splintered’ rather than ‘splintering’, and demonstrate that this phenomenon was not caused by the rise (or fall) of the ‘modern infrastructural ideal’. In order to explain this sustained fragmentation of infrastructure and access, the paper develops a conceptual framework of postcolonial governmentality that emphasizes the interrelationship between materiality, governmentality, identity, and urbanization, in particular through demonstrating how contested and evolving process of social differentiation are linked to the differentiation of water supply infrastructures and of urban spaces. Although we are wary of any simplistic comparisons between the colonial past and present, we argue that the optic of postcolonial governmentality provides a powerful lens for dissecting the power relations that continue to structure access to water supply and urban space in cities in the South.     

Strategies for forging and sustaining social movement networks: A case study of provincial food networking organizations in Canada

Social movement organizations (SMOs) play an important role in movement building, however, the particular context and structure of a SMO has a direct impact on its ability to foster and sustain collaboration. In this paper I investigate the unique positioning of provincial networking organizations (PNOs) in Canadian food movements and document their efforts to support alternative food initiatives (AFIs) to interact and act collaboratively for food system change. The research draws on a network survey, over 35 in-depth interviews, site visits, and background information collected in three Canadian provinces to explore the ongoing work necessary for linking together heterogeneous elements without central coordinating mechanisms. I describe the ways that PNOs have established a series of common networking strategies to bring AFIs together across sectors, scales and places: (1) the creation of physical spaces that involve direct contact in particular places; (2) the development of virtual spaces where connections are mediated through digital technologies; and (3) the use of scalar strategies that scale-up local projects to address provincial level policy. I conclude by identifying key areas of contention that arise within the networks, and show that the different structures of the PNOs impact their ability to establish and implement networking strategies. I argue that addressing these challenges must be a preemptive focus in order to sustain networking activity. My contention that contemporary structures of social mobilization require novel strategies and support from networking organizations provides insight for studies of SMOs and movement building more broadly.     

Staying connected: Exploring mobile phone use amongst older adults in the UK

In this paper we examine the ways in which mobile phones are becoming integrated into the everyday life of older adults in the UK by drawing on research funded as part of the British New Dynamics of Ageing programme. Specifically we draw on a digital engagement survey and the life history narratives of older men and women resident in the East Midlands of England to illuminate the challenges of remaining digitally engaged in old age focusing specifically on mobile phone use, with particular reference to maintaining social connections with spatially dispersed family and friends. Growing numbers of older adults possess a mobile phone, but the degree to which mobile phone use has been integrated into everyday practices is variable. For episodic users a mobile phone is used to complement a landline, to keep in touch with family and friends when out of the house. For confident users the mobile phone is used in multiple ways, via a range of applications, it is an integral part of numerous aspects of everyday life.     

Development and the Household: Missing the point?

Over the past two decades development has been shifting its focus toward smaller scales and particular problems. As a result, the household has become an increasingly important institution for development, and has come under increased scrunity as development practitioners and scholars seek to better understand this institution’s functions and foundations, trying to ‘get the household right’. These efforts, rather than clarifying the character and the function of the household, have contributed to its indeterminacy by reifying the very institution they seek to analyse. Arguing that these efforts fundamentally miss the point of examining the household, this paper introduces a different framework of analysis that addresses the household not as a fixed object of research, but as a local construction that embodies flows of power and knowledge both within and transcending the local. Using the example of varying constructions of the household in two villages in Ghana’s Central Region, this article illustrates how such an approach allows us to address the various functions of the household as particular embodiments of these flows, an approach that better explains the endurance or ephemerality of these functions. Such an approach provides a stronger foundation for the consideration of how particular constructions of this institution may have troubling implications for issues like gender equity and sustainability.     

Development and the Household: Missing the point?

Over the past two decades development has been shifting its focus toward smaller scales and particular problems. As a result, the household has become an increasingly important institution for development, and has come under increased scrunity as development practitioners and scholars seek to better understand this institution’s functions and foundations, trying to ‘get the household right’. These efforts, rather than clarifying the character and the function of the household, have contributed to its indeterminacy by reifying the very institution they seek to analyse. Arguing that these efforts fundamentally miss the point of examining the household, this paper introduces a different framework of analysis that addresses the household not as a fixed object of research, but as a local construction that embodies flows of power and knowledge both within and transcending the local. Using the example of varying constructions of the household in two villages in Ghana’s Central Region, this article illustrates how such an approach allows us to address the various functions of the household as particular embodiments of these flows, an approach that better explains the endurance or ephemerality of these functions. Such an approach provides a stronger foundation for the consideration of how particular constructions of this institution may have troubling implications for issues like gender equity and sustainability.