Speaker
Description
What ‘counts’ as electric mobility and is regarded central to low-carbon transitions? Largely electric cars – out of reach for most people on this planet and also unable to lower emissions sufficiently or solve most urban issues, while implicated in mining injustices. Their dominance in statistics, debates, visions and policies perpetuates automobilities while rendering alternatives invisible. Putting the electrification and digitalisation around two- and three-wheelers in Asia and Africa centre stage, my talk offers a fresh perspective on where and how the most significant shift to electric mobility happens. And what the implications are for understandings of ‘transitions’.
Specifically, this talk highlights the recent electrification of motorcycles in Kenya and rickshaws in Bangladesh. Two- and three wheelers are largely absent from mobility and transport scholarship, other than cycling and shared e-scooters. Motorized two- and three wheelers in particular tend to be blind spots in debates on electric mobility or transitions towards low carbon cities. Drawing on the Mobility Data Justice approach (Behrendt & Sheller), the talk foregrounds how the shift to electric mobility in Kenya and Bangladesh intertwines digital and physical mobilities, and what the social justice implications are. The digital side includes ride hailing apps, GPS-tracked batteries, and phone-based microcredits for vehicle purchase and is intertwined with physical mobilities around the service of transporting people and goods. Social justice implications include distributive (e.g. gender-based exclusions from riding), procedural (e.g. who decides which vehicles are included in e-mobility policies) and epistemic (what counts as sustainable/electric mobility) elements. The Mobility Data Justice approach also offers a multi-scalar perspective that considers global flows of resources for batteries, parts for vehicles assembly, platform data, or vehicle statistics - and how they relate to local mobilities in cities and streets. My talk aims to understand these current developments in the context of (post)colonial histories, traditionally high rates of paratransit (incl. 2/3 wheelers) and walking, alongside strong maintenance cultures. My talk also demonstrates how millions of electric vehicles are invisible in international statistics on electric mobility – and how that matters for debates on ‘transitions to electric mobility’.
This talk thus posits an alternative understanding of what ‘counts’ as electric mobility, and of where and how significant transformations towards low-carbon future are happening. An understanding that hopes to support a move beyond (electric) automobility thinking, visioning, financing and policy making – towards Global South-inspired low-carbon mobilities.
