Date: 28 September
Time: 09.45 - 11.30

Session program

09.45 - 10.05: Marianne Ryghaug and Timo Von Wirth: Future directions of transport and mobility research
10.05 - 10.25: Astrid Bjørgen and Hampus Karlsson: Developing sustainabel and shared mobility solutions for a new neighbourhood: the role of mobility planning
10.25 - 10.45: Josephine Tröger: Gender equality in mobility transition? A gendered view on electric and sufficiency-oriented mobility practices 
10.45 - 11.05: Juliet Namukasa: Low-carbon Mobility Modes of Transport in Kampala: Perspectives and Practices of Daily Travelers 
11.05 - 11.25: Timo von wirth: Ports in transition: multi-sector and translocal power dynamics in transitions of large-scale infrastructures in Norway 

Transport and mobility systems need to be transformed in order to meet climate change goals, decarbonize transport systems and reduce negative environmental and social effects. Transport and mobility transitions have nonetheless been slow and developed unevenly in different parts of the world.  Research have indicated that the slow shift partly has to do with the dominance of techno-economic framings of transport, focusing on supporting technological solutions for low-carbon mobility, whilst overlooking social science and humanities perspectives promoting social innovation and new ways of organizing mobility.  Moreover, justice concerns, as well as slow and active mobility are largely neglected in transport studies, compared to solutions promoting efficiency in travelling from A to B.  

In this session we invite papers recognize the need for new and different processes of knowledge production within the transport field,  that put civic participation and epistemic justice at the core of transport policy and planning on various transport and mobility related topics central to the dynamics of science-society interactions, such as (but not limited to): 

• Mobility justice and diversity (gender, age, economic status, social class background) perspectives on transport and mobility transitions 
• Social innovation and the (political) organizing of sustainable mobility 
• Empirical studies of user-centered practices and embodied experiences of mobility (including walking, biking and micro mobility)  
• Mobility matters - the importance of access, competence, and appropriation 
• Citizen-led strategies for shared mobility and community/neighborhood mobility solutions 
• ‘Bottom-up’ demand-responsive transport provision and mobility sufficiency 
• ´Commoning mobility´ and new approaches to transport planning and mobility policies 
• Practices challenging high-carbon mobilities in everyday life and planning (efforts to disrupt the incumbent regime) 
• Power-dynamics between different mobility and transport means, as well as different actors in the transport planning arena (politicians, infrastructure development companies, road associations etc.)  

Organizers

Marianne Ryghaug, KULT, NTNU
Ivana Suboticki, KULT, NTNU
Timo von Wirth, DRIFT
Emilia Smeds, University of Westminster

Contact: Marianne Ryghaug

Lynne Elizabeth Peterson 

Methylmercury in the food chain is a serious global public health concern and is largely mitigable. Coal combustion is responsible for most atmospheric mercury in the food chain. Fish consumption is the primary exposure to methylmercury in humans and the ecosystem, producing dangerous neurotoxic effects. Detrimental ongoing neurological deficits can result from fish eating during pregnancy: methylmercury crosses the blood-brain barrier and may potentially disrupt normal neurodevelopment.

The tension: global coal combustion is on the rise. Mitigation technologies to prevent atmospheric mercury from entering global circulation from coal combustion can reduce emissions by more than 90 %. Policies and regulations are in place, however, the recent decade demonstrated how fragile some of these policies are under various political regimes. This research seeks to understand the phenomenon of the global lack of constancy in response to mitigation potential via the latest technologies available. Instead, regulatory agencies have over-relied on Fish Consumption Advisories when real gains in preventing the risk of mercury in fish could have been attained.

Ontological and epistemological factors will be explored for their role in the parsing of terms that might help address this detrimental, yet solvable problem, through a justice lens. The expected outcome is that governance structures are relying too heavily upon ineffective and unjust FCAs, which in addition to not protecting human health, do nothing to protect the ecosystem.