On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World was recently published in Korean. The following is the English version of the Preface I wrote for the book.
In On the Move my exploration of the role of mobility in the constitution of society started with a definition of mobility as socially produced movement, or, more precisely, as a combination of physical (geographical) movement, meaning, and mobile practices. Together, I suggested, they formed characteristic constellations of mobility that marked particular times and places. In addition, I sought to link forms of mobility across scales – from the micro mobilities of bodily movements to global migration. In the final chapter I brought these all together in the context of the space of the airport. There is a political intent behind these formulations too. Just as Henry Lefebvre argues that any dominant group must imprint its rhythm on society, so is the case that mobility forms part of a project of dominance. Mobilities, including patterns, routes, speeds, frequencies and rhythms of movement, narratives and ideologies of mobility, and the various ways in which we move (mobile practices), are a central way in which the spaces and times of society are produced, reproduced and contested. Any imagined and enacted future world will have to include a new constellation of mobility as part of the plan.
This has all become abundantly clear during the current novel coronavirus pandemic. Temporarily we have seen the sudden formulation of a constellation of mobility for covid times. Mobility is at the heart of both the spread of the virus and the various reactions to it. A virus is essentially immobile without help. It is a passenger that needs to form assemblages in order to move and survive. The novel coronavirus – SARS-CoV-2 – causes the disease COVID-19. It spreads predominantly through airborn mobilities – as we cough, talk, sing, shout or sneeze – in the form of droplets or in aerosols. We immobilize it by wearing masks. It arrives in human bodies thanks to different kinds of movements – the penetration of areas formally relatively sparsely populated by humans in order to expand the voracious reach of capitalism into new spaces of capital accumulation – new roads into the forests. Once in human bodies a new network of mobilities opened up to it – commodity supply chains and global air travel networks that took the virus from China to Thailand and then the world. The connectivity of global capitalism performed like a giant sneeze – spreading the virus in all directions. The world needed new metaphorical facemasks and borders started to close, air travel diminished to 10% of its previous levels in a remarkably short period of time as rich countries (where air passengers still predominantly live) closed down their borders. Airports emptied and the skies cleared. At a more local scale governments started to impose lockdowns and quarantines. Streets emptied in Wuhan and Milan and then in cities across the global North. Maps showed the dramatic reductions in air pollution over China as internal combustion engines shut down. Active transport – walking and cycling – increased in popularity as people were urged to work from home. The spaces for pedestrians and cyclists were expanded and improved in many cities. Sales of bicycles in India went through the roof. Meanings of mobility changed too. Instead of being seen an index of economic wellbeing and productivity, travel by car began to be used as a measure of success in the fight against the virus. The emptier the roads, the better. International air travel was seen as a dangerous and unnecessary practice, academic conferences as an unneeded luxury. Global, regional and local patterns of movement dramatically and suddenly changed. The stories we told about mobility changed. The ways we moved changed too. In other words, in reaction to a perceived and real threat, a new constellation of mobility took was enforced.
For many this begged the question of why such a transformation had not happened earlier. Afterall, we were already living in a global emergency which is killing and impoverishing millions of people – the slower, but ultimately deadlier, emergency of global heating. Given that fossil fuel powered mobility contributes about 25% of global green house gas emissions and that these emissions are the prime cause of global heating, why had governments not acted in such a decisive manner to address this emergency? The reaction to COVID-19 has proved it is possible to realign patterns of movement, meanings of mobility and mobile practice in a stunningly short period of time. The COVID constellation of mobility also raises other issues. As is often the case, the turbulence caused by this unexpected, yet inevitable, vital mobility has revealed the stark inequities of the pre-COVID constellation of mobility. Just as relatively wealthy employees in the cities of the Global North were being encouraged to work from home, refugees and asylum seekers crowded into detainment facilities around the Mediterranean were unable to escape the ravages of the disease. In the United States, President Trump focused his efforts on labelling the virus “the China virus” or “Wuhan virus” in a way that pathologized anyone with an east Asian appearance in a majority white context – thus repeating centuries of similar histories of portraying immigrant mobilities as pathology. In India, the government institutionalized lockdown rules overnight, forcing hundreds of thousands of informal labourers to walk hundreds of kilometers back to the rural villages they came from – actions sure to increase, rather than control, the spread of the virus. In the United Kingdom workers in key sectors were unable to isolate or work from home and suffered disproportionate rates of COVID and death. Delivery drivers, public transport workers, and care workers, for instance, all included disproportionate numbers of people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. The same people were also more likely to live in crowded homes and denser neighbourhoods. Both globally, and locally, COVID, and the responses to COVID, dramatically revealed the lack of mobility justice in the “old normal” as well as the need to link issues of social justice to the constellation of movements, meanings and practices in any possible “new normal”.
So, as we work towards a new constellation of mobility the current situation has been instructive. It has taught us that, with enough political will, it is possible to imagine and enact new movements, meanings and practices in response to an emergency. My hope is that this book, with its largely historical focus, can help to provide some of the conceptual groundwork for the imagining, planning and enacting that urgently needs to be done.
Tim Cresswell
Edinburgh, December 2020.
