‘We Can All Just Get on a Bus and Go’: Rethinking Independent Mobility in the Context of the Universal Provision of Free Bus Travel to Young Londoners

This paper uses qualitative data from interviews with 118 young Londoners (age 12–18) to examine how the universal provision of free bus travel has affected young people’s independent mobility. Drawing on Sen’s capabilities approach, we argue that free bus travel enhanced young Londoners’ capabilities to shape their daily mobility, both directly by increasing financial access and indirectly by facilitating the acquisition of the necessary skills, travelling companions and confidence. These capabilities in turn extended both opportunity freedoms (e.g. facilitating non-‘necessary’ recreational and social trips) and process freedoms (e.g. feeling more independent by decreasing reliance on parents). Moreover, the universal nature of the entitlement rendered buses a socially inclusive way for groups to travel and spend time together, thereby enhancing group-level capabilities. We believe this attention to individual and group capabilities for self-determination provides the basis for a broader and more child-centred view of independent mobility than the typical research focus upon travelling without an adult and acquiring parental permissions.     

社会分层与社会和谐

一、社会分层与社会和谐:社会学永恒的话题在所有的社会中,人们一生下来就面对着不平等,即缺少平等的途径以得到社会所提供的满足欲望的物品(戴维·波普诺,1999:239)。因此,在所有的社会中,都如同地质结构一样,存在着高低有序的等级层次,即社会分层。社会分层是社会学永恒的话题。自社会学的经典时代起,就形成了马克思和韦伯两种传统,此后,关于社会分层的研究就从未脱离西方主流社会学的视线。1在国内学界,社会分层研究也是方兴未艾,其态势正如边燕杰(1999)所言,“制度转型时期的社会分层研究成为近年来社会学研究的一个热点,也是社会科学、…     

Long-term care in Spain: Difficulties in professionalizing services

The aim of this article is to analyze the difficulties in professionalizing the long-term care system in Spain. Since 2006, the new Spanish law has recognized care as a subjective right, and regulations are being designed to create a framework for its professionalization. Nowadays, family remains the most important group of providers who care for their elders, and women remain the main informal caregivers. Why do families resist using public long-term care services and professional carers included in the new law? The hypothesis highlights sociocultural factors as an obstacle to professionalization of long-term care services in addition to political and economic factors. The results show qualitative data about expectations, preferences, and discourses that women caregivers have in relation to their responsibility. The empirical material includes 25 interviews with different profiles of caregivers and six focus groups with family caregivers. The article suggests that the Spanish ideal of care is a problem for the professionalization of services because the family remains as the main provider of care—without specific skills, knowledge, and abilities.     

Exclusion and vulnerability on public transit: experiences of transit dependent riders in Portland,Oregon

In urban areas, the inequitable distribution of transit systems and services has been shown to reproduce safety and environmental risks – potentially exacerbating preexisting inequities. Thus, how vulnerable populations access and utilize public transportation is of critical concern to urban scholars. This paper utilizes focus group data to explore how transit-dependent (particularly low-income) riders engage with the public transit system in Portland, Oregon. We illustrate specific ways in which transit-dependent riders experience marginalization and exclusion. We find that certain groups, particularly mothers with young children and those with disabilities are not well served by a public infrastructure oriented toward an ‘ideal rider’ who is an economically stable, able-bodied, white, male commuter. We conclude that a public infrastructure meant to serve all riders equitably, yet which fails to consider the unique experiences of marginalized transit users risks further amplifying existing social vulnerabilities and reinforcing gender, racial, and class inequalities.     

Mobility of ‘the defeated’: internal migration and social advancement in a post-civil war society

The article examines the relationship between the movement across space and social mobility by analyzing the conditions for internal migration in Spain during the years of the Franco regime. Specifically it reflects on the ways in which migration from the countryside into self-constructed shantytowns in the greater Madrid area was perceived by migrants themselves, and on the strategies that enabled migration to be carried through. By focusing on the challenges that internal migration posed to the spatial practices and mobility regimes of the dictatorship, the article also explores the relationship between spatial movement, social mobility and political repression within the context of a nationalist dictatorship.     

Mobility and Professional Networks in Academia: An Exploration of the Obligations of Presence

This article explores the obligations of presence behind work-related mobility for academics in internationalizing higher education systems. By further developing John Urry’s concept of ‘meetingness’, the article reveals how academics depend on corporeal and virtual mobility to create and maintain a networked professional life outside their own institution, which is crucial in the context of changing work conditions. Our insights are drawn from original qualitative research (42 interviews) in a Flemish and Danish context. The data reveal obligations of presence associated with an interrelated mix of functionality, and the construction of dense and sparse social networks that together support career success and work at the frontiers of academic knowledge. Despite the now well-recognized costs of corporeal mobility, obligations of presence result in virtual and corporeal mobility coexisting, rather than the former substituting for the latter. Virtual mobility is mainly used when conflicting obligations of presence exist, and as a means of sustaining networks over time given the processual nature of meetingness, rather than as a means to reduce levels of corporeal mobility.     

Women’s mobility and ‘transport-related social exclusion’ in Bishkek

This paper analyses gendered mobilities in Bishkek in the space of the most popular form of public transport: the minibus, or ‘marshrutka’. As the means by which women often access various important sites of daily life, the marshrutka itself is a site of negotiation and interaction. Utilizing theories of mobility and empirical data, we argue that marshrutkas are spaces that can give rise to two dichotomous conditions: positive marshrutka experiences may increase the social mobility of female passengers and subsequently increase social empowerment and influence, while negative ones can provide the grounds for social exclusion and gender inequality.     

Flows and Cohesion: Balancing Capabilities Across an Expanded Union1

Until recently the flow of skilled workers to established centres from more peripheral regions was seen as a ‘brain drain’, implying a one‐way and permanent loss of skilled labour. However, increasing mobility and connectivity permits more complex traffic between more and less advanced locations. With the emergence of a global economy dependent on flows of material and intellectual capital, the notion of ‘brain circulation’ has gained prominence. Understanding the potential benefits of migration to both donor and recipient economies must move beyond financial remittance to social remittance. As connectivity increases, both become capacity‐building resources. This article discusses the impact of a combination of greater physical mobility and electronic connectivity on the dual objectives of social cohesion and technical leadership being pursued through the policies of the European Commission.     

A Social Problems Framework for the Critical Appraisal of Automobility and Sustainable Systems Innovation

Over the past three decades, critical assessment of the automobile has evolved from a focus on the technical inadequacies of the internal combustion engine to a more comprehensive appraisal of the sociotechnical system for providing mobility. The following study charts the evolution of this discourse by focusing in particular on the way in which the Worldwatch Institute has interpreted the various problems of the motorcar during this timeframe. There are now indications that a more thoroughgoing systems view of automobile dependency is developing predicated upon three problem dimensions: fuel use, urban congestion and sedentary lifestyles. The analysis presents a social‐problems framework for beginning to conceptualize more sustainable modes of mobility in the post‐automobile era.     

Sightseeing Buses: Cruising,Timing and the Montage of Attractions

Abstract

This article focuses on spatial performances, modes of vision and touring practices enabled by sightseeing bus‐tours. Thereby, three aspects of the process by which these buses transform urban space into destination space are discussed. First, bus‐tours delineate, as they move, a unique geography of routes and stops, which is based on structured improvisation. Second, guiding practices of tour guides are crucial for assembling together a destination and their success depends on timing. Third, tourist experiences enabled by sightseeing bus‐tours involve a ‘cruise‐ship‐like’ style of movement and a mode of vision reminiscent of the ‘montage of coming attractions’ characteristic of film‐trailers. The article concludes by stressing the multiple spatial displacements involved in bus‐tour production of destination space.