Sigurd Bergmann - Spaces of Mobility [2014][A].pdf

Spaces of Mobility

Spaces of Mobility Essays on the planning, ethics, engineering and religion of human motion Edited by Sigurd Bergmann, Thomas Hoff and Tore Sager

Published by UK: Equinox Publishing Ltd., Unit 6, The Village, 101 Amies St., London SW11 2JW USA: DBBC, 28 Main Street, Oakville, CT 06779 www.equinoxpub.com First published 2008 © Sigurd Bergmann, Thomas Hoff and Tore Sager All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-1-84553-339-7 (hardback) 978-1-84553-340-3 (paperback) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Spaces of mobility : the planning, ethics, engineering and religion of human motion / edited by Sigurd Bergmann, Thomas Hoff and Tore Sager. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-84553-339-7 (hb) -- ISBN 978-1-84553-340-3 (pb) 1. Migration, Internal. 2. Human geography. I. Bergmann, Sigurd, 1956II. Hoff, Thomas. III. Sager, Tore. HB1952.S63 2008 304.8--dc22 2007031549 Typeset by Kate Williams, Swansea Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn.

Contents

List of illustrations and tables Contributors Preface Acknowledgements

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1. The beauty of speed or the cross of mobility? Introductory reflections on the aesth/ethics of space, justice and motion Sigurd Bergmann

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Part I 2. Hypermobility and the forecast-free planning of society Tore Sager 3. ‘Green’ attitudes and sustainable household consumption of energy and transport: six conditions that improve attitude–behaviour consistency Erling Holden 4. Travelling as pilgrimage: ecotheological contributions to mobility ethics Anders Melin

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Part II 5. The bodily basis of control in technically aided movement Kjell Ivar Øvergård, Cato Alexander Bjørkli and Thomas Hoff 6. What modes of moving do to me – reflections on technogenic processes of identification David Kronlid

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7. Global vagabonds, place and the self: the existential dimension of mobility Peter Nynäs

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Part III 8. Mobility: discourses from the non-Western immigrant groups in Norway Tanu Priya Uteng

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9. Inclusive mobility: participation, physical barriers and the concept of universal design Liv Rakel Øvstedal

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10. Freedom as mobility: implications of the distinction between actual and potential travelling Tore Sager

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Index

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List of illustrations and tables

Preface Figure 1. The human ecological triangle. 1. The beauty of speed or the cross of mobility? Figure 1. Giacomo Balla, Auto en Course, Etude de Vitesse. Figure 2. Hannah Höch, Mechanischer Garten. Figure 3. Hannah Höch, Der Unfall. Figure 4. J. M. W. Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed Figure 5. Adolph von Menzel, Die Eisenbahn Berlin-Potsdam. Figure 6. Britt G. Hallqvist, ‘Små krokiga vägar’ (Small winding roads), illustrated by Eva Eriksson. Figure 7. Johannes Schreiter, Fazit 14/1987/F. 3. ‘Green’ attitudes and sustainable household consumption of energy and transport Figure 1. Relationships between attitudes, land-use characteristics, and socioeconomic and sociodemographic factors (independent variables), and household consumption and environmental impacts (dependent variables). Figure 2. Household consumption of members versus non-members of NEHG, and members versus non-members of all environmental organizations. Table 1. Pearson’s correlation coefficients: household consumption (kWh/year/household member) and attitude levels. 5. The bodily basis of control in technically aided movement Figure 1. The interlocking spheres of perception and action. Table 1. World records in athletics.

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLES

8. Mobility Figure 1. Increased job access with more transport accessibility. Figure 2 . Possession of driving licence for car. Figure 3. Preference for any other mode of travelling (immigrants with driving licence). Figure 4. Preference for any other mode of travelling (immigrants without driving licence). Figure 5 . Level of importance of public transport availability for housing location decisions. Figure 6. Annual income distribution. Figure 7. Inadequate transport provision in daily mobility. Table 1. Components of deprivation in the arena of mobility. 9. Inclusive mobility Figure 1. Wijk’s four circles. 10. Freedom as mobility Table 1. Ways of overcoming the tension of another’s absence.

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Contributors

Sigurd Bergmann holds a doctorate in systematic theology from Lund University and is a professor in religious studies (theology, ethics and philosophy of religion with theory of science) in the Department of Archaeology and Religious Studies at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. His previous studies have investigated the relationship between the image of God and the view of nature in late antiquity, the methodology of contextual theology and visual arts in the indigenous Arctic and Australia, as well as visual arts, architecture and religion. He is chair of the European Forum on the Study of Religion and Environment and ongoing projects investigate the relation of space/place and religion. His main publications are Geist, der Natur befreit (1995; in Russian [1999]; in English [Creation Set Free, 2005]), Geist, der lebendig macht (1997), God in Context (2003), Architecture, Aesth/Ethics and Religion (ed., 2005), In the Beginning is the Icon (2008) and Så främmande det lika (So Strange, So Similar) (2008). Bergmann was a co-project leader of the research project ‘Technical Spaces of Mobility’ and responsible for its interdisciplinary communication. Cato Alexander Bjørkli is a clinical psychologist with a doctorate in psychology and is the author of several international publications on the theme of human–technology interaction. His main fields of interest extend across philosophical, methodological, theoretical and practical implications of the relationship between humans and their technology. His key areas of competence are modelling of human performance in complex systems, methodology for the study of human performance in complex systems, design and innovation. Thomas Hoff holds a doctorate in psychology and works as an associate professor of organizational psychology and innovation studies in the Department of Psychology,

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University of Oslo. His research focuses on the interplay between humans and their immediate surroundings in an ecological psychology perspective, and the implications of this theoretical position for aspects of human–technology interaction, organizational psychology and innovation studies. He was a co-project leader of the research project ‘Technical Spaces of Mobility’. From 2007 he has carried out research at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, where the implications of the ‘Technical Spaces of Mobility’ project will be examined in the field of innovation. His main publication is Mind Design: Steps to an Ecology of Human–Machine Systems (2002). Erling Holden is head of research at Western Norway Research Institute. He holds an undergraduate degree (1988) in mechanical engineering from the Department of Energy and Process Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. In 2002 he received a doctoral degree in urban planning at the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the same university. From 2002 to 2004 Holden studied sociology and social psychology in the Programme for Research and Documentation for a Sustainable Society (ProSus) at the University of Oslo. From 2005 to 2006 he was visiting scholar at the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development, Oxford Brookes University, as part of his postdoctoral position at the Department of Civil and Transport Engineering, NTNU (2003–2006). Holden has worked with issues related to housing, transport and sustainable development since 1988. In his work, he applies one or more of three different theoretical perspectives: technological-oriented environmental studies, sociological and sociopsychological behavioural studies, and physical planning studies. His main publications are Housing as Basis for Sustainable Consumption (PhD thesis, 2001) and Achieving Sustainable Mobility (2007). David Kronlid holds a doctorate in ethics from the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University. He worked as a post-doctorate fellow in the research project ‘Technical Spaces of Mobility’ at the Department of Archaeology and Religious Studies, Trondheim. Since 1998 Kronlid has worked as lecturer at the Centre for Environment and Development Studies and the Department of Teaching Education at Uppsala University, and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. In 2001 he was guest scholar at the Center for Environmental Philosophy, University of North Texas. His present, cross-disciplinary research project investigates environmental values in education for sustainable development. Kronlid’s research interests are ecofeminism, environmental ethics, education for sustainable development and cross-disciplinary education and research on environment and development issues. His main publications are Ecofeminism and Environmental Ethics: An Analysis of Ecofeminist Ethical Theory (2003), and Miljöetik i praktiken: åtta fall ur svensk miljö- och utvecklingshistoria (Environmental Ethics in Practice) (2005). Anders Melin works as an assistant professor at the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies, Lund University, where he conducts a study on biodiversity and ethics. He

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holds a doctorate in philosophy from Linköping University, and his dissertation Judgements in Equilibrium? An Ethical Analysis of Environmental Impact Assessment (2001) offers an analysis of the moral judgements in Swedish political documents on environmental impact assessment and of the ethical debate about the relationship between humans and nature. Melin has worked as a researcher and teacher at Linköping University and Lund University. From 2003 he was a post-doctorate fellow in the research project ‘Technical Spaces of Mobility’, where he studied environmental ethics within Scandinavian Christianity and Japanese Buddhism and explored the relation between pilgrimage and transport ethics. Melin’s main research interests are environmental ethics and the Buddhist–Christian dialogue. Peter Nynäs holds a doctorate of theology and works as an adjunct professor of comparative religion at Åbo Akademi University. He is also a therapist and the chief editor of the academic journal Finsk Tidskrift. His research has mainly focused on intercultural communication and the psychology of religion. Nynäs’s main publications are Kultur, människa, möte: ett humanistiskt perspektiv (Culture, Humanity, Encounter) (co-edited with R. Illman, 2005), and Bridges of Understanding: Perspectives of Intercultural Communication (co-edited with I. Jensen and Ø. Dahl, 2006). Kjell Ivar Øvergård works as a PhD student at the Department of Psychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. His project ‘The Dynamics of Control in Human-Technology Systems’ investigates the human bodily, cognitive and neural basis for controlling technical processes in a multidisciplinary perspective. He is currently researching the neural basis for the maintenance of control over technical processes. His main research interests are the modelling of human cognition in dynamic environments and how human cognition and movement affect (and are affected by) human work. Liv Rakel Øvstedal is a civil engineer working as a PhD student at the Department of Civil and Transport Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, and as a researcher at the SINTEF foundation in Trondheim. She has recently been engaged in improving the education in universal design. Participating in the European Commission-funded project PROMPT about non-motorized transport in cities (2000–3), she has collected and analysed case studies and was responsible for the Norwegian contribution in developing methods and data collection to explore the comfort of pedestrians. She has also studied children’s travel as pedestrians and customers of public transport, and the influence of traffic infrastructure on their quality of life. Other studies have ranged from transport policies for the disabled, the quality of urban public transport and the working day of goods delivery drivers. Tanu Priya Uteng works as a PhD student at the Department of Civil and Transport Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. An urban planner by training, she has explored different facets of planning through various research projects and studies carried out in the field of housing, disaster management,

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real estate and transport planning. She has been studying mobility in the transportplanning arena through a case study of the non-Western immigrants in Norway. Her present research interests include the theme of transport and social exclusion. Tore Sager works as a professor in the Department of Civil and Transport Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, and was the project leader of ‘Technical Spaces of Mobility’. His research is mostly directed at the interfaces between institutional economics, decision processes in transport and communicative planning theory. His main publications in English are Communicative Planning Theory (1994) and Democratic Planning and Social Choice Dilemmas (2002). Sager is currently researching the tensions between communicative planning and neo-liberalism.

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Preface Sigurd Bergmann, Thomas Hoff and Tore Sager

The imprint of increasing mobility in a globalizing world is so profound that it calls for an analysis far beyond the forums of established academic disciplines. Only a truly interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research approach can do justice to the complexity of problems emerging in the spaces of mobility. The authors of this book have chosen not only to emphasize mobility as a social problem, but to reflect it in a broader sense. The title ‘Spaces of Mobility’ was chosen to reflect the insight that nearly all modern and late-modern systems for the movement of people and goods are technically constructed and that they create spaces and places with specific qualities. Given this perspective, it is meaningful to emphasize both the social (including the economic and political) implications of mobility and the ideologies and practices that influence the design, production and distribution of artefacts for mobility. And because ‘mobilities’ – that is, different modes of technically aided movement – are products of humans, this means that the human dimension of mobility also needs to be mined more deeply. Mobilities never occur in an empty space, but human moveability and motion are always a part of our natural and built environments. Along with the sociological and human dimensions of mobility, its spatial, environmental dimension must also be taken seriously. Given the Argentinean artist León Ferrari’s (b. 1920) bird’s-eye view in his blueprint Passarelas,1 our senses are challenged to dive more deeply into the mysteriously attracting dialectics of integration and separation in our bodily and techno-systemic modes of moving. How does the collective take power over the individual? Where is the goal of movement located in such a space? What kind of space is it that late-modern mobility produces? Who can determine its rhythm, speed and figure? How do technically and bodily borne movements interact? Are citizens really moving with the help of such a system, or is the system itself transporting us, rather for its own than for our sake?

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SIGURD BERGMANN , THOMAS HOFF AND TORE SAGER

Ferrari often critically explores in his works the interplay of idolatry, biopolitics and power. One of Ferrari’s famous works is entitled La civilización occidental y cristiana.2 It throws new light on the theme of this book through its generally critical approach to the cultural history of the West. A vertically turned US Air force jet serves in the installation as the tree for the crucifixion of Christ. The baroque-styled dying corpse is nailed through its painfully perforated hands to the missiles under the aeroplane’s wings, an artefact of warfare that represents one of the most violent modes of moving in our so called Christian civilization. The object has provoked strongly irreconcilable debates in the Argentinean society as well as in the Catholic Church, even many years after its first public display 1965. In this book’s context, Ferrari’s blueprint Pasarelas and the aeroplane crucifixion together offer a thoughtful reminder of the interconnection of the monotheist religion’s interaction with the military colonialization so typical for the so called West; they also invite a contemplation of the religious driving forces to critique and overcome this history with a liberation that departs from the suffering God and those in synergy with the divine as well as in solidarity with the victims of modern mobility in all its forms. Pasarelas allows us to partake bodily in the painful tension of the sphere of technically constructed contemporary spaces of mobility. Might the artistic space also become an inspiration to transform the technical space? The contributions to this book all have as their common point of departure a shared view of human ecology. The ‘human ecological triangle’, as it is known, depicts environmental problems as emerging in the interaction of humans and nature (to which mobility also belongs) in an interconnectedness of subjective, sociocultural and physical dimensions. Reliable transdisciplinary research, therefore, needs to consider all three of these aspects from a common interrelated perspective. The authors of this book all start from different vertices of the triangle; while some depart from the subjective identity-creating power of mobility and personal experiences of nomadism, others analyse practices, discourses and ideologies with regard to the social and physical landscape. While some take empirical studies of marginalized mobile humans as their

Nature

Subject

Society/culture

Figure 1. The human ecological triangle. Cf. Dieter Steiner, ‘Human Ecology as Transdisciplinary Science’, in Human Ecology: Fragments of Anti-fragmentary Views of the World, eds D. Steiner & M. Nauser (eds.) (London: Routledge 1993), 47–76, 47ff.

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PREFACE

starting-point, others analyse the interaction of body and mind in the surroundings of movement. In this way, a variety of problem formulations appears; we hope that this volume thereby contributes to broadening the discourse on mobility, which so far, unfortunately, has dwelt on the margins of research, in the social sciences as well as in the humanities and technology. Our contributions do not offer one single theory or methodology for transdisciplinary mobility studies, but are instead meant to promote the development of overarching approaches in the future. Only a multifaceted, complex perception of problems that arise through human motion could lead to a formulation of academic approaches that can generate long-term solutions and the potential development of sustainable alternatives. This transdisciplinary credo of the significance of interconnected different research approaches is extremely relevant and crucial in the field of mobility. The aesthetic aspects of perception are interwoven with ethical aspects of producing normative criteria for evaluating motion in space; psychological aspects of interacting with others in complex surroundings are interconnected with the social belongings of humans in transit; political aspects of the future of democracy and participatory planning are dependent on the design and construction of technical artefacts and spaces. Many more perspectives could and should have been cultivated from the broad field of mobility, but the essays of this book are deliberately focused on selected topics. However, a second publication arising from the research project ‘Technical Spaces of Mobility’ will offer a broader range of views (Bergmann and Sager forthcoming). Sigurd Bergmann’s introductory essay (Ch. 1) begins with an interpretation of the perception and expression of phenomena of technical mobility as realized in the works of modernist painters. Conflicts surrounding modern human mobility are more than one hundred years old, and are deeply connected to the history of modernization and globalization. The technically constructed and socioculturally developed mode of human movement and the transport of people and goods through space produce a complex manifold of problems. The essay discusses why it is meaningful to develop different scientific perspectives on ‘technical spaces of mobility’. It locates mobility-related problems over a broad horizon of environmental, political, anthropological, technological and ethical dimensions. It also focuses on selected themes such as space/place, aesth/ethics and justice, the near and the distant, and the religious utopianization of space. Part I comprises three texts that reflect on the sociopolitical, environmental and ethical aspects of mobility. Hypermobility causes serious and deep damage to the practice and ideology of social planning, and in doing so creates an explosive challenge to democracy. Through its enormous energy consumption, hypermobility also produces problematic impacts on local and global natural environments, which makes it necessary to refocus the analysis of attitudes towards mobility patterns. From an ethical perspective, mobility represents a marginal but still crucial challenge to reflect on why and how modern modes of transport emerge, are preserved and could or could not be transformed. Hypermobility and the challenge to democracy from losing control over planning predictability are discussed by Tore Sager (Ch. 2). The not-too-utopian state, in

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which most people behave as if they are footloose and fancy-free, results in a situation where transport planning is unable to make forecasts. The type of decision-making that is prevalent in a society depends on the kind of information available. In modern Western-type democracies, it is assumed that well-informed planning and decision-making are grounded in reliable predictions of impacts. Therefore, if unlimited mobility undermines predictability, it poses a threat to public planning and democratic governance. This exploratory contribution analyses planning consequences of the ‘death-of-distance’ literature. It clarifies how planning might be transformed by the loss of consequential impact analysis, and suggests that the likely responses to mobility-induced unpredictability – the following of private rules, the ritual of public planning and government networks of control – would challenge democracy. Environmental dilemmas in the context of mobility are the theme in Erling Holden’s contribution (Ch. 3). The main question of his essay is how attitudes direct consumption, and how an individual’s ‘green’ attitudes, promoted by the environmental movement, are connected to energy and mobility practices in households. Is there a connection at all? If there is a connection, what kinds of conditions will result in positive behaviour? How can attitudes guide changes in consumption practices? The concept of ‘sustainable consumption’ is discussed, along with different strategies to achieve it. The contribution mainly analyses energy consumption and the choices between different modes of transport for individuals and families, and examines conditions that foster sustainability with regard to different social strata such as income, education and ideology. Transport systems, ethical dilemmas, attitudes and practices are examined by using a composite method, which can shed new light on the conclusions about the kinds of political and social strategies that might be successful in achieving a more sustainable shape of mobility in the future. Anders Melin’s essay (Ch. 4) emphasizes the ethical complexity of mobility. The planning of mobility gives rise to difficult moral problems concerning the relationship between today’s individuals and groups, current and future generations and humans and other life forms. Rather little has been said to date about these issues from a religious and ethical perspective. It is the last of the conflicts, the conflict between humans and other life forms, that is the least acknowledged in public debate, and that Melin consequently examines in this essay. He investigates the kinds of contributions Christian ecotheology might provide in shaping a mobility ethic. Such a discussion is relevant beyond its overt theological viewpoint, because it problematizes underlying assumptions about space and nature in the context of the general public debate about transportation. This is especially true because these assumptions have their historic origin partly in certain interpretations of Christian theology, which have been challenged by contemporary ecotheology. The essay starts with some theoretical reflections clarifying the ways in which Christian ecotheology could contribute to an ethics of mobility. It then describes the shifting views of nature and mobility that dominate the current public debate. Ecotheology and environmental philosophy are presented, as both aim to promote a concern for all living beings. The essay also discusses how a genuine concern for all living creatures would influence our understanding of mobility. Two questions summarize the contribution: how can this

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understanding be affected by a rediscovery and a resacralization of place; and how can the religious phenomenon of pilgrimage function as a metaphor for ecologically and ethically sustainable mobility? Part II emphasizes the interaction between surroundings, artefacts and the individual. Taking the theory of ecological psychology as their point of departure, the essays in this part focus on the understanding of the human person as an integrated embodied mind in the environment. They highlight the ways in which modes of technologically based movement affect the identity of ‘mobile humans’, and they discuss how global mobility affects the self-understanding and moral identity of humans with regard to their existential embeddedness in place. A reflection on the significance of the design of artefacts is offered, which is to be sought not in a shallow, beautiful, outer surface of things, but in a deeper dimension that affects the action as well as the feeling and thinking of men and women in context. Kjell Ivar Øvergard, Cato Alexander Bjørkli and Thomas Hoff (Ch. 5) present an understanding of technology as the key to ecological psychology. Technical artefacts for mobility are human constructions designed to be used by humans. As a result, the understanding of what constitutes a human and its technical artefacts must be developed with a great deal of reflection. Until recently, reductionist approaches have been dominant in the field of technology. Ecological psychology offers a broader, more complex understanding of the interaction of humans and their environment. Insights into the reciprocity of this dynamic ecological relation also by necessity change the understanding of what technology is and what it should become. The formulation ‘the embodied mind’ characterizes an approach that does justice to the fact that nature is implicitly present in people. It takes into account the processes of evolution manifest in the human soul/mind and body, and it reconstructs the significance of nature, not as a separate unit surrounding humans, but rather interacting within and around them dynamically. What kind of technology development would be necessary to integrate these insights from ecological psychology? Although this interdisciplinary approach is both well known in mainstream psychology, and still controversial, how can this outlook contribute to the production of new design models for mobility technology? The contribution relates theories from psychology, philosophy and to some degree religious anthropology to each other. Through its creative problem formulation regarding the relational dynamics of mind/body, environment and artefact, it highlights a neglected field that falls between anthropology and technology studies. David Kronlid’s essay (Ch. 6) deepens the question: who can I become as a result of the ways in which I move? He formulates the thesis that potential mobility in existential space is a prerequisite for the identification processes. Departing from current research on what is commonly called the ‘demarcation problem’ of humans, nature and technology, the question of who we can become as we identify with mobile machines brings forth new important questions in environmental mobility ethics. Mainstream normative environmental ethical reflection primarily operates along teleological, causal, fragmented and linear lines; in so far as mobile machines are ethically significant, they are so in terms of their effects or consequences on the environment and on people. This model reflects a view of the world as pure that is fragmented into

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social, natural and technological spheres. Counterpoint models have emerged that criticize this model and do not presuppose a split between the self and society, technology and nature. These views can be regarded as a critique of cultural and seemingly ontological boundaries between ‘the human’, ‘nature’ and ‘the machine’. Thus, deep ecology, ecological feminism and postmodern theories, including robotics, question the firmness of the boundaries between self, nature and sometimes technology. Kronlid’s contribution couples the human–nature transgressions in radical ecology with human–machine transgressions in the technosocial tradition. From a social construction of technology or technosocial point of view, according to which technology is neither autonomous nor neutral, but dependent on particular social origins, the ethical significance of machines cannot be limited to their effects on the environment. Machines should be explored for similar reasons that we explore the environmental ethical significance of us sharing the world with non-human organisms. By using selected material from sociology, theoretical and empirical ecopsychology, ecotheology, ecological feminism, transport and planning research as well as postmodern theories, the essay suggests a counterpoint interpretation of what it means to be human and suggests that the idea of us being ‘impure’ can help develop our ethical reflections on mobility in a sustainable development context. Peter Nynäs (Ch. 7) examines the implications of mobility for people who travel the globe for business. He offers both empirical evidence of the experience of being mobile and reflections about the experience and conceptualization of space. Mobility is one of the primary mechanisms of globalization and agents in industrial business projects are personally affected by the mobility that is a common requirement of their work. The essay departs from this central question: how are people on a psychological level affected by continuously moving from one culture to another, and how does such movement affect their worldview? The empirical evidence for this study comes from an interpretation of diaries written by business travellers from Finland in the 1990s. The conceptualizations of place, mobility, space and intercultural encounters as related to personal identity are interpreted and analysed using a broad spectrum of theories from phenomenological and personalist philosophy and from the psychology of religion and its object dependence theory. The architect Juhani Pallasmaa’s idea regarding ‘existential space’ is discussed, as well as I–Thou relations according to Martin Buber, the localizations of vagabonds according to Zygmunt Bauman and the psychoanalysis of Daniel Stern and Melanie Klein. Individual interpretations of what it means to be a human embedded in the existence of places seem to be crucial for taking the discourse on mobility further, if one wants to do justice to the human dimension. Theories and reflections from the psychology of religion, phenomenology and sociology are interwoven in this essay, which offers a unique insight into the dynamics of estrangement and making oneself at home in the context of global mobility. The third and final part focuses on the sociological differentiation of the ‘landscape’ of mobility. A focus on the specific conditions, situations and practices of immigrants, children and the elderly in technically constructed and socially negotiated traffic and transport systems offers a picture that is not normally a part of political processes. Focusing on differences between humans in transit and differentiation in

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the sociology of mobilities makes it necessary to question ideologies, practices and designs of contemporary transport systems. Part III, and our book, end with a more general and critical reflection regarding ‘freedom as mobility’. Tanu Priya Uteng’s essay (Ch. 8) proceeds from Amartya Sen’s theory of development as ‘capabilities expansion’, which has resulted in new modes of encapsulating ‘development’. Sen questions the income approach to wellbeing, highlighting that it does not account for the diversity in humans and for the heterogeneities of contingent circumstances. Alternatively, the capability approach advocates that when we evaluate wellbeing or policies, we need to focus on what people can do and be, instead of exclusively on their mental states (utilitarianism) or on the goods that they have at their disposal (resourcism). Over time, Sen and others have extended the scope of the capability approach to examine such diverse issues as development and development ethics, the evaluation of small-scale non-governmental organization (NGO) projects, eating disorders and famines, unemployment and inactivity, and gender inequality in Western societies, to mention just a few. The essay discusses the theme of mobility as a constituent factor of ‘capabilities expansion’. Mobility has evolved as a key feature of the modern lifestyle and is sometimes associated with being a basic need in the current globalized world scenario. The primary question shaping this discussion is: what position does ‘mobility’ occupy in the broader framework of needs and capabilities? The theme of ‘mobility’ has been analysed in the light of needs and capabilities among non-Western immigrants to Norway. The findings establish the fact that ‘mobility’ needs are critical in enabling immigrants to shape lives of their choosing. Although ‘mobility’ needs emerge as a function of different variables affecting the ‘quality of life’ of the general population as a whole, certain key characteristics of the immigrant group put this group in a more vulnerable position than the general populace. The contribution explores how Sen’s account of the capability approach, which clearly identifies the intrinsic importance of agency and structure, provides a more adequate conceptual framework for comprehending the interplay of ‘mobility’ and its repercussions. The notion of ‘inclusive mobility’ summarizes a social as well as a technological imperative, as reflected by Liv Øvstedal’s essay (Ch. 9). A general goal for democratic national policies for public transport systems is to make these systems as inclusive as possible. In principle, every one, independent of individual presuppositions, should be able to participate in the public space constructed by mobility. Is this really the case? Principles such as the Norwegian ‘Vision Zero’, that is, the goal of not having a single death caused by a traffic accident, or ‘universal design’, the production of sign systems that can be interpreted and understood by every citizen, offer guidelines for the practice and ideology of mobility development from a national perspective. Governmental authorities are usually responsible for the implementation of these strategies. Do goals such as ‘Vision Zero’ and ‘universal design’ just serve to create the illusion of a serious commitment to safety and mobility for everyone? Or is it actually realistic to achieve these ambitious goals through the policies crafted by government? The focus of this essay is mainly on the situation of children in the context of road traffic. Surprisingly enough, specific groups of citizens have not been studied

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earlier with regard to the significance of biological, psychological, cultural, educational and gender-based differences and skills. Is it acceptable to continue to regard all participants in mobility as humans with the same abilities? If not, what is the significance for children, for example, in different periods of their development with regard to their behaviour in areas where there is traffic? The essay draws on empirically produced field material from a long-term study of children on their way to and from school. This complex mobility negotiation between children and traffic and the perception of other agents are clearly affected by differences in gender and age as well as social constellations. One provocative question for the future is: what would inclusive mobility mean if the reference point for traffic in public spaces is the eye level and body of the child? Ethical, ideological, political and physical perspectives are interwoven in order to seek preliminary answers that fit the empirical material. Tore Sager’s concluding essay (Ch. 10) looks at mobility as the potential transport of humans. Freedom as mobility is composed both of opportunities to use the supply of transportation services and of the feasibility of the choice not to travel. The essay analyses the implications that distinguishing between mobility and transport has for freedom. It also demonstrates how mobility as a right is challenged by a central feature of democracy, namely, a respect for unanimity, and how tracks left by transport can be exploited for surveillance and control. Furthermore, mobility leads to absence and thus uncertainty. It is shown how alternative responses to this problem have widely different consequences for the experience of freedom as mobility.

Notes 1. León Ferrari’s blueprint Passarelas (1981) appears on the cover of this book. 2. See http://universes-in-universe.de/car/mercosul/s_edel.htm (accessed Jan. 2008); compare www.leonferrari.com.ar (accessed Jan. 2008).

References Bergmann, S. & T. Sager, eds. 2008, forthcoming. The Ethics of Mobilities: Rethinking Place, Exclusion, Freedom and Environment. Aldershot: Ashgate.

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Acknowledgements

All contributions have been produced by the authors in the context of an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research project at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology from 2003 to 2006. The project’s title, ‘Technical Spaces of Mobility – Human Ecological Perspectives on Human Space and Motion in Aesthetic and Ethical Horizons’, describes the broad range of the group’s approach. The challenge is to locate research about mobility, technology and space/place on a broad, open horizon. For three years, fifteen scholars from four different research areas have developed a continuity among their individual projects and have also participated in a series of twelve workshops and discussions, where the present chapters were nurtured. Aside from the eleven authors of this volume, PhD students Hans Vanhauwaert Bjelland, Bjarte Knappen Røed and Marianne Stølan Rostoft and senior researcher Eirin Ryeng have also contributed to the group. The researchers represent different disciplines as diverse as civil and transport engineering, product design, psychology and religious studies (particularly the ethics and psychology of religion). Sigurd Bergmann, Thomas Hoff and Tore Sager formed the steering committee for the group, and Sigurd Bergmann was responsible for communications. Guest scholars have visited the group to participate in fruitful workshops. We would accordingly like to thank Guro Berge (Oslo), Gernot Böhme (Darmstadt), Tim Ingold (Aberdeen), Karin Køltzow (Oslo), Bengt Molander (Trondheim), Emin Tengström (Gothenburg) and Øyvind Thomassen (Trondheim) for their contributions to the workshops. The work has been organized in three project groups (Transport Planning, Product Design/Psychology, and Religious Studies), and has resulted in several PhD theses, essays and reports. A second volume will be published with contributions from the international symposium on ‘Mobilities in Transit’, which took place in Trondheim in June 2006. A third volume is planned on the psychology and engineering of mobility, and a fourth volume is planned with contributions from the visiting scholars at the workshops.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Finally, we would like to acknowledge Nancy Bazilchuk, Trondheim, for her careful linguistic help, and the staff of the publisher for professionally editing of this volume. Sigurd Bergmann, Thomas Hoff and Tore Sager

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1 The beauty of speed or the cross of mobility? Introductory reflections on the aesth/ethics of space, justice and motion Sigurd Bergmann

The soft line is straightened In 1912, Giacomo Balla (1871–1958) painted Auto en Course, Etude de Vitesse (Fig. 1). Balla belonged to the famous group of artists whose work was inspired by the Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944), who himself had begun the futurism movement. The group’s members were united in their glorification of the future; they were particularly fascinated by the acceleration of progress through modern

Figure 1. Giacomo Balla, Auto en Course, Etude de Vitesse, 1912, oil on canvas, 55.6 × 68.9 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York (© DACS, London 2007)

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technology. The futurists took very seriously the radical change of the individual and social life, in the way that it was promoted by the development and application of modern technologies. The machine became the object for a new cult in the perception of the arts; future and progress were elevated to the pedestal of divine revelation. In 1909 the futurists declared in their manifesto: 4. We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed. A racing car whose hood is adorned with great pipes, like serpents of explosive breath – a roaring car that seems to ride on grapeshot is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace. 5. We want to sing the hymn of the man at the wheel, who hurls the lance of his spirit across the Earth, along the circle of its orbit. (Marinetti 1909) In his painting, Balla expresses the energy that catches the eye in the movement of the cars in the central part of Rome. The wild speed of the vehicles is transformed by the painter into a field of waves and lines, which dominates the entire space. His picture fragments the light, and it transforms movement into reproducing sequences. The car becomes a central symbol for modernity.

Figure 2. Hannah Höch, Mechanischer Garten, 1920, watercolour, 73.5 × 46.4 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York (© DACS, London 2007)

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THE BEAUTY OF SPEED OR THE CROSS OF MOBILITY ?

Today, unrestricted belief in the progress of technology is considered a bit more problematic than it was a hundred years ago, especially if we consider the manifold problems that appear in the technical spaces of (hyper)mobility, which engage the authors of this book. Appropriately, the futurist alliance of arts, technics/technology, and the dominating elite (which at that time was fascist) met an intense resistance from their contemporaries, mainly from the Dadaist artists who expressed their opposition through their understanding of life and arts and who were succeeded by a stream of critics of civilization up to the modern day. The painting Mechanischer Garten by Hanna Höch (1889–1978) offers us a contrasting picture, where the space of modern mobility looks more like a cemetery or a scrap yard (Fig. 2). The symbols of modernity rust into ruins, the rails do not lead anywhere, paradise has been transformed into a mechanical garden, a dead territory where nothing can grow. The depression of the post-war period is already anticipated here. In Der Unfall Höch is even more provocative (Fig. 3). Her collage embodies our central question: what mobility and why? It is interesting to note that the phenomena of mobility and motion have for almost 150 years represented an arena for conflict between two contradictory views of technology, and the significance of that technology for modern society.1 The radical historical transformation of humans’ natural and built environment can be visualized by focusing on the straight line. The two largest interferences in the history of European landscape design occurred in the nineteenth century, and were planned to establish straight lines in nature. The construction of channels and the transformation of rivers into straight channels were later followed by the establishment of straight railway tracks through the country, which aimed at increasing the speed of transporting people and goods.

Figure 3. Hannah Höch, Der Unfall, 1936, collage (© DACS, London 2007)

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Figure 4. J. M. W. Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed, 1844, oil on canvas, 91 × 122 cm, National Gallery, London. (© Peter Willi – ARTOTHEK)

The straight line, which connects two points, became the physical presupposition of acceleration. The straightened lines resulted in a radical change that affected human surroundings and the environment, while at the same time these straightened lines radically changed the individual’s understanding of the self and its reality. J. M. W. Turner’s (1775–1851) Rain, Steam and Speed (Fig. 4) and Adolph von Menzel’s (1815–1905) Die Eisenbahn Berlin–Potsdam (Fig. 5) question the relationship of the straight line’s rapid movement and the complex surroundings, whereby

Figure 5. Adolph von Menzel, Die Eisenbahn Berlin-Potsdam, 1847, oil on canvas, 43 × 52 cm, Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. (© Bildarchiv Preußicher Kulturbesitz/Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Foto: Jörg P. Anders)

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Menzel mainly concentrates on the collision of modern acceleration and the pedestrian’s old, smooth, step-by-step striding (cf. Bätschmann 1989: 100). The painters’ expressions of mobility provide a vision of movement that today we would do well to take seriously. The technically constructed and socioculturally developed mode of human movement, and the transport of people and goods through space, produces a complex diversity of problems. This makes it necessary for research to mine the field of mobilities in a much more comprehensive way, even though this field is surprisingly still found on the margins of environmental science, in the humanities as well as in social sciences and technology.

Problems in the technical space of mobility Why is it meaningful to develop different scientific perspectives on a phenomenon such as ‘technical spaces of mobility’? In the following, I first sketch the landscape of problems from a broad perspective, and secondly focus on three selected themes. It goes without saying that the contributions in this book do not claim to offer a representative map or a reflection of the whole field. Research about an ongoing social development, which on top of everything else is accelerating and even threatening to derail itself in its self-propelled impetus, asks for an alliance of many good forces, inside the academy as well as in the spheres of citizens’ political life. It is my hope that this book partly can give voice to the problem’s dignity, and partly be a catalyst for a more extensive discourse on problems in technical spaces of mobility.

Environment and mobility A technically constructed mobility creates a large number of ethically relevant problems. One of them can be described from an environmental perspective. With regard to natural surroundings, the establishment of large-scale transport systems by definition results in a radical change of landscapes and cities. Mobility demands technically constructed spaces and places, a fact that in itself causes conflicts between different interests that control landscape and urban planning. A dramatically increasing conflict can be seen in connection with mobility’s need for energy. With regard to global climate change, which climate researchers say is already affecting the earth’s weather systems, private car-use represents a large percentage of humanity’s total carbon dioxide emissions.2 In spite of the fact that households in rich countries are thereby responsible for causing a major part of climate change, which costs lives in the world’s poorer regions, one cannot detect more than marginal changes in the developed world’s patterns of mobility. The opposite is the case when car industries produce for and export to new markets, for example in China, which results in further increases in both energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Furthermore, the car industry still represents an overly high,

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and thus problematic, percentage of employment in rich industrialized countries.3 The problem with global change demonstrates national and geopolitical incompetence in terms of cooperation, where the trap of an unsustainable pattern of mobility and production offers a lurid contrast to the vision of a sustainable world society that is capable of meeting the future (zukunftsfähig).4 The transformation of small- and large-scale patterns of mobility has without doubt a central function in the journey to such a vision. What kind of mobility contributes to an increased ‘sustainability’ (according to the United Nations (UN) Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), held in Rio in 1992) and an increased ‘respect for other non-human life forms’ (according to the UN World Charter for Nature, 1982)? How should we design such technical spaces, where mobility is transformed from a life-threatening to a life-enhancing gift? Is mobility really a ‘right’ for citizens and, if so, does this imply that every citizen has the right to move freely by choosing for themselves the technical mode of moving? Is the structure of mobilities today, at a national as well as at a global level, characterized by exclusion and unjust distribution rather than by equal access for everyone? What would happen if the entire population of the earth developed a similar pattern of mobility to that of the richest fifth of the world today?

Life-threatening traffic Another field of problems of enormous social relevance is the large number of road casualties, fatalities as well as injuries. Our technically constructed mobility is constantly claiming many victims, regardless of the modes of motorized transportation. Some modes pose larger risks than others, and one can note that nations with bigger economic resources and fair and highly valued welfare systems produce fewer road casualties than poorer countries, but also fewer than rich countries with significant social inequality. Independent of social factors, it seems reasonable to ask whether there is some kind of cultural acceptance for the idea that mobility claims victims, even human lives. Do we consent to and accept that some of us become victims for the right of all to move freely and without limits (cf. Möller 1986)? Would we like to continue sacrificing brothers and sisters on the altar of mobility? Do we agree to distribute these risks in accordance with an assumed Western ideal of equity, so that only chance decides who will become the next victim? How many casualties will we tolerate, and what are the criteria for how risks are apportioned among different social groups? Does a cost-benefit analysis really offer the best approach in a national economy? How can one defend the equal value of every human and at the same time calculate social and health care in terms of ‘investments’ and ‘profits’ in traffic security? Or should one depart from the position that the value of a human cannot be differentiated, a position that would lead to a just and equal distribution in the ‘risk society’ (Beck 1986)? Is the so called Vision Zero in traffic contexts (zero deaths) more likely to be a dangerous illusion of false safety than a realistic goal?

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Might it have been more civilized to sacrifice some of the people’s strongest warriors to the gods bringing fortune in war, as was done in ancient Sparta, instead of to the EU’s standard of safety norms, which allow chance to decide who will be victimized?

Mobility and democracy A third field of problems, which is emphasized in this volume, lies in the challenge of preserving and deepening democracy in the context of a mobility development that has been thrown off course and that at present is best characterized as social exclusion on the one side and ‘hypermobility’ on the other. On a small scale, one can perceive today that the assumed just and fair sharing of resources is neither real nor honest, if one looks at access to transport systems for citizens from different social classes. Mobility planning has taken an ideal type of one ‘normal’ human as its point of departure. Differences with regard to gender, education, ethnicity and economic potential have been ignored in accordance with usual modernist stereotypes. Why do scholars now become interested in children, the elderly, the disabled and immigrants and their behaviour in mobility systems? Should it not be self-evident that differences between humans are significant for the construction of technical spaces and forms of mobility? Is social exclusion acceptable and consistent with our understanding of the human and social? The problems of hypermobility, as they are investigated in Sager’s essay below (Ch. 2), are not only about dysfunctions in transport systems under increasing pressure with the consequences of what can euphemistically be called traffic infarcts. The challenge of hypermobility is deeper than that. If one can no longer foresee and predict favoured or non-favoured developments in mobility, the opportunity for the discursive and rational planning and design of the population’s pattern of movement will also disappear. The loss of an anticipatory perception of movement results in a loss of the ability to hold a practical discourse about the design of townscapes and landscapes. How can we preserve the right of citizens to move freely if the technical application of this right makes it impossible to democratically negotiate and distribute the conditions for different modes of mobility? Space remains a limited resource, and mobility sooner or later faces obstacles that cannot be surmounted. Does the praise of speed’s ‘new beauty’ (Marinetti 1909) really point to a fundamental right that, if it is applied in the contemporary space of mobility, disables every rational discourse about the distribution and the future design of the system? Is the provocative thesis, formulated by the philosopher Georg Picht (1989: 5) in the horizon of natural science, valid even for mobility? Could a science be correct, if its applications destroy its object, nature? Could a technology for motion be true and good, if its applications imply the destruction of the life of citizens, society, nature and climate?

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What antidotes are at our disposal? What could reflection about the implicit tendency for mobility to turn into hypermobility under economic growth teach social science, and what could it mean in public debates? What countervailing forces (Gegenmächte) would we like to try? More roundtable conversations including those who are affected, including the earth in general? Experiments with alternative ritualized forms of public planning and decision-making for the realization of a common, and good, future?

Technology and ethics A fourth field of problems finally addresses technology in itself. According to the old story, the apple of the tree of knowledge is a fruit that, when tasted, brings good as well as evil. Technology and mobility stand in the same relationship, it seems. What are the criteria for judging what modes of technical design further good mobility or hinder it? How should one deepen reflections on what Ulli Zeitler has called a ‘transport ethics’, and how could the ethics of technology create a bridge between environmental and social ethics? In order to contribute to the general discourse on technology and ethics, the authors of this book have chosen to focus on the question of what image of humans we should use in technology development. From a conventional perspective, we understand ‘human’ with regard to what separates humans from other organisms and their surroundings. Since Descartes, the human is understood as a closed being, which in its inner essence receives impulses from the outer world. Empiricism has not only developed a scientific method but also generated an ideology of life with religious implications, where the border between the human and nature has become identity forming. Such an image of humans has increasingly been criticized in the context of human ecology’s understanding of the human as characterized essentially by a complex integration with its surroundings. The ecological understanding of reality has affected a large number of ideologies and has also influenced several academic disciplines. One of this book’s fundamental themes deals with ecological psychology’s focus on the interaction of the human and his or her environment, and how this constitutes a better understanding of the human and technical artefacts that he or she has created. It will become evident that ecological psychology’s understanding of environmental relationships results in an alternative understanding of technology and the design of artefacts, so that one can critically ask how the former myopic view of the relation of humans, artefacts and nature has contributed to the emergence of the mobility currently causing so many problems. What kind of understanding of the relation and interaction of humans and their environments does technology visualize? What understanding should offer the norms for future development of artefacts for mobility? In what way does the ecological image of the human, which is rooted in the embodied mind and the mind and body in nature, bring about an alternative development of technology? Is it valid to claim

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that the image of humans and the artefacts in ecological psychology offer a better foundation for the development of future technologies? How could one ethically describe what is ‘the better’?

The significance of space and place In the communicative process of the research group, an interesting question emerged. I can only formulate it here and hope that some of the contributions can lead the reader further along to a fruitful path. Could it be that every mode of movement creates a specific space? Is there a connection, perhaps an analogy, between different modes of mobility and different types of spaces? Of course, this is not only about the spatial form of a medium of transport. A sailing boat needs a different space than a tram. Let us regard spatiality as a constellation of both space and place. Specific places are characterized through personal, social and practical interdependencies and functions. The larger space in cosmological, nationwide and translocal scales, however, is what keeps places, landscapes and regions together. If one looks at spatiality, one can observe that a technically constructed system for mobility alters space and creates specific places in space. Maritime signs cover the sea, roads and crossings divide land, air space is virtually imagined and controlled electronically. Menzel’s and Turner’s paintings (Figs 4 and 5) showed clearly how the collision between different spaces for mobility could be visualized, even if we today seem to have lost our sensitivity for such perceptions. In what sense does mobility’s alterations of the physical space affect our inner human space? How do we perceive space with regard to the speed of moving, either at a high speed or a contemplative strolling around speed? Obviously, two different spaces emerge dependent on the mode of moving. Both our physical surroundings and the inner spiritual emergence of space vary in a complex manifold. Why do we draw on this knowledge so seldom in the design of ‘the architecture of mobility’, which has been emphasized in environmental aesthetics (cf. Porteous 1996)? Should we let road engineers alone construct spaces of mobility or should alliances of artists, architects, urban planners and technicians be encouraged? I profoundly believe that this problem of relating different modes of movement and specific spatial constellations is based on our cultural incompetence in perceiving the spatial deep dimension of reality. Space and its places represent a fundamental existential element in the being of living creatures (Bergmann 2006). The question about what understanding of space characterizes our culture should be regarded as just as elementary as the question about our image of the human and our understanding of morality. Geographer David Harvey has formulated this claim clearly, and this should also be a guiding principle for the reflection about mobility’s technical spaces: ‘While therefore no society can do without a working and workable concept of justice any more than it can dispense with workable concepts of space, time, place and nature,

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the way these concepts get constituted through social practices has to be the primary focus of attention’ (Harvey 1996: 333). With regard to the spaces of mobility, examining what the understanding of space does in characterizing different agents would be of high priority. Space is not at all something dead, but is to a great degree dependent on our own movement. While Einstein long ago dismissed Newton’s image of space as something objectively static, the understanding of space in ordinary life is still influenced by this outdated myopic view. The theory of architecture has recently developed the understanding of space as something that is situated in movement, so that the discipline aims at developing an architecture that can flow. In a transformation of Einstein’s physics to visual arts – which he, by the way, did not appreciate himself – the famous painter Paul Klee developed his notion of ‘the floating space’. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius were heavily influenced by this thought and applied it in their works (cf. Müller 2004). Today, phenomenology serves as a significant inspiration for the theory and practice of architecture. Phenomenology’s understanding of bodily embeddedness in space and motion is not at all limited to architecture; it could also develop into an important inspiration for an alternative image of mobility’s future. How could the understanding of what is called a ‘transient space’ help us to a more multifaceted understanding of human motion in space? If space itself emerges and disappears through our movements in and through it, how should we then design our idea and practice of an alternative technical space for embodied motion? Perhaps it is not at all the postulated end of geography, the death of distance and the beauty of speed, but its opposite, ‘the discovery of slowness’ (Nadolny 1983), the advent of the quality of waiting and the ability for the spiritual and embodied perception of the change of space that will offer new values for mobility in the future. The notion of ‘existential space’ – which has been coined by the famous Finnish architect and writer Juhani Pallasmaa (2005: 129) – emphasizes that the question of our understanding of space is much more profound than we usually allow for in our reflections about mobility, transport, technology and movement. The human body’s embeddedness in space includes at the same time a localization of our spiritual and existential life. The research group behind this volume, therefore, is – thanks to theories from the psychology of religion, transport engineering, ecological psychology and environmental ethics – grateful to be able to highlight this need to dig more deeply into the complex spatial conditions of living beings. Another anthology, which will be published as a result of this research, will offer an even broader range of analytical perspectives on ‘mobilities in transit’ (Bergmann & Sager 2008). Another perspective that can be found in between architecture and environmental aesthetics is offered in another anthology published by related scholars in Trondheim (Cold 2001). In the colourful world of religion, one could find many perspectives furthering the legitimization of such an expanded understanding of motion and mobility. Environmental movements with their roots in spiritualities have not only contributed to the extensive critiques of civilization, but they can also draw on the wells of

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tradition to reconstruct other values than those dominant at present. The ecumenical organization of the European Churches (Conference of European Churches) established in the 1990s an extensive network where people in the faith congregations, social movements and science have developed common initiatives.5 At the 2005 annual meeting of the network in Basle, one of the offerings was a special workshop on motorized mobility, in addition to a strong emphasis on climate politics. A critical mass is educated in the Christian churches through these kinds of activities and many related documents (cf. WCC 1998, 2002; Melin 2004). In Asian Taoism, the highly esteemed form of meditation known as ‘quiet sitting’ offers a subjective and cultural countervailing balance to modernity’s continuing linear increase of speeds and accumulation, and it offers a religious analogy for what environmental science has denoted the need for ‘deceleration’ (Entschleunigung), that is, the direct opposite of acceleration. In our physical surroundings the perception of motion from a quiet resting position has become a scarce commodity, and it is appreciated even more by those who seek spiritual alternatives in the spheres of religion. The view of pilgrimage in Christianity, where the physical act of walking creates a net of communicative processes both in history and at the time, offers another alternative where one moves to reach the topographic goal and where the movement in itself represents the goal of mobility. At present, we are experiencing a rapidly increasing specific spirituality of pilgrimage (cf. Bartholomew & Hughes 2004; Brown 2004: 153ff.), which leaves many interesting traces, especially in landscapes surrounding medieval religious centres such as Santiago de Compostela in Spain, Celtic sites and Nidaros Cathedral in Norway. Richard Sennett has shown in detail how medieval sacred architecture developed zones for alternative cultural practices for the implementation of ideals of solidarity and justice, and how these have generated a spiritual and cultural attraction that influenced the mobility and economic practices in medieval times (Sennett 1995: ch. V.3). The architectural historian Kenneth Frampton clearly seeks something similar in his vision of architecture that creates oases where alternative lifeworlds can emerge and develop. Frampton describes the function of architecture as that of producing a sort of ‘reality reserve’: ‘a place where man can still find material and spiritual repose’ (Frampton 1992: 343). Bioregionalism, which was started in the USA, departs from a much more small-scale pattern of mobility that is stimulated by the ongoing globalization without telos (cf. Andruss et al. 1990). Even if the authors of this volume cannot offer fully perfect plans and strategies for an alternative mobility, in this introduction I would like to locate the critical approaches of the essays within a broader horizon of the future than expressed in contemporary so called realistic agendas of discussion. Before I encourage the reader to meander through the rich variety of the texts, I would like to describe some theoretical perspectives that from my point of view could be meaningful in an evolving discourse on the spaces of mobility. These emphasize the relationship of an ecological aesthetics and ethics from the perspective of justice, the relationship of the near and the distant, and the function of religion in the processes of ascribing meaning to spaces and places.

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Space and justice in the gaze of aesth/ethics In the process of modernization, maps are a tool for conquering terrain. The natural space is transformed into a cultural space such that the map is a recreation of the terrain. In the ecological movement, this is understood as a colonizing process where humans step out of their place in nature in order to dualistically distance themselves from it, with the result that nature is suppressed and conquered. The natural space becomes a reflection of the human drive to divide and conquer, divide et impera. The media of globalization are designed to break down special barriers, at least for the privileged. People, capital, workers and goods should be able to move freely, which is a fundamental organizational requirement of the European Economic Space developed by the European Union (EU). The global system demands that the same principles apply to the movement primarily of capital without any form of restriction. However, freedom of movement only applies to a wealthy minority of the world’s population, since the poor majority are excluded from this right to move and stay. Natural processes and local cultures are, however, always just as affected by the effects of this volatile global mobility, by which some can move freely while others are left with the leftovers from the adventures of the more mobile. In a modern city, the inhabitants have almost no influence over the spatial design of their living environment. Even the countryside is structured by socioeconomic factors, which affect mobility, and the great loss of control over and responsibility for one’s natural and local surroundings is a common late-modern experience. Thus, it is not surprising that so many people are nowadays interested in gardening, homes, parks and trees. The loss of a connection to the natural and local surroundings creates a special kind of alienation, and the French media philosopher Paul Virilio’s much discussed ‘end of geography’ describes how this alienation is continually reinforced by the current global economic trends. Virilio has shown how the desire for the contemporaneous destroys the ability to experience the unique. The electronic communication media restrict in a spatial sense people’s experience of complexity and also destroy the permanence of things. The principle of ‘contemporaneousness’ destroys the uniqueness of place and the uniqueness of contemporary time (Virilio 1999: 19). The sensual experience of, for example, physical movement along a certain path in the physical world is reduced (ibid.: 28), because we mainly move through the world with the help of technical artefacts, mostly in motor-driven ‘wheel chairs’ or sitting still at our computers. Humans have become computer terminal citizens (ibid.: 34). Perception becomes imprecise. When everything becomes blurred, out of focus and intermingled, differences and the other become difficult to detect. The technical dominance of spatial boundaries, and our freedom of movement within them, does not in any way contribute to making the world larger. On the contrary, we shrink the world, make it uniform, and change it into a withered windfall apple, which in the end is threatened by destruction (cf. Carley & Spapens 1995: 149ff.). Virilio demands that we rediscover our existence in the physical world (Virilio 1999: 96).

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While Virilio suggests a minimalist type of resistance by refusing to adopt a certain type of perception, I wish to promote the value of aesthetic education as the most important tool for the critique of civilization. Education and pedagogy within the fields of art, museums, religion and environmental studies offer unforeseen and rich possibilities for making citizens aware of the moral problems of space. Additionally, the process of developing the human senses is highly enjoyable and pleasurable for the individual and the community before it reaches the politically troublesome arenas of social and environmental ethics. If one cannot feel a moral problem personally, then one is not suited to finding its solution. If the desktop is turned into something like a home and ‘Heimat’ for global nomads, how should and could we perceive, negotiate and solve our common moral problems? Aesthetics must always go before ethics. That is why I coined the term ‘aesth/ethics’ (Bergmann 2005b). The more people become aware of others’ suffering, the greater the chance of solving problems in our common world. The criterion of ecological justice is meant to guarantee that all living creatures involved also have a voice and place in this practical discourse. Anthony Giddens (1992) has characterized the process of modernization as an increasing ‘dis-embeddedness’, and Arjun Appadurai (2001) has described this process as ‘despatialization’. It is of course correct that globalization speeds up the dissolution of relationships that individuals and groups have with specific places and spaces, but one cannot ignore that contemporary despatialization also triggers countering forces in the form of movements that struggle for relocalization, which take many different forms. Without doubt, the experience of humanity’s loss of a spatial connection with the lifeworld and the longing for a relocation triggered by global decontextualization dynamics are among the most powerful driving forces in ecological spirituality. The environmental movement’s vision of an alternative society and, most importantly, of an alternative earth space, which is no longer ruled by large-scale forces destroying relationships between organisms and their surroundings in the service of capital accumulation, stands out as a civilization critique of unexpectedly large proportions. Critically, the despatialization of ‘Empire’ (Hardt & Negri 2001) will be replaced by all sorts of relocalizations. Relationships to place will be re-established. There is an upsurge of interest in things on a small scale. Communities will flourish in a complex network of relationships that are all good, since all connectedness is inherently positive. Original conditions will be re-established, and evil will be destroyed. This vision of a good life in a just environmental space, and in a place where all relationships are infused with beauty, goodness and justice, forms one of the strongly subjective and social motivations for engaging in environmental work. From a phenomenological point of view, we are able to ascertain that our whole existence is morally ambiguous. It often remains unclear what is right and wrong, good or evil, and whether our actions, in spite of our good intentions and high principles, may lead to consequences that we do not conceive of as proper or desirable. ‘The good I want to do, I do not, but the evil I do not want to do, that I do’, concluded St Paul (Romans 7:19).

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An ethical code that strives for a universal morality can also contribute to the undermining of our individual moral responsibility, as the subjective moral impulse would suffocate if we were to rely exclusively on systems as the bearers of all of the moral criteria for our actions. The individual would be freed from all personal responsibility, and immoral activities in the shadow-land between rules and regulations would expand to become what we now call ‘organized non-responsibility’ (Beck 1988) in the late-capitalist economy of the global casino, within which everyone is exempt from personal or collective responsibility. An ethics that seeks to confront this development by requiring us to reflect on our personal moral qualities is not, to my mind, very helpful. Only the combination of a social ethics and an ecological ethics of justice can serve the purpose here. We could adopt Theodor W. Adorno’s argument, explored below, and say that technical spaces of mobility are not meant to bring about only happiness, but also social and ecological justice. Does this seem unrealistic? A reflection on the ethical function of technology must start with an analysis of the world we live in, one that focuses especially on both the negative and the positive aspects of everyday life. Just as liberation theology requires of us that we seek God in conflicts in which the living suffer at the hands of violence and evil, so, too, should technology’s ethical function be seen as a central factor in the threatening conflicts taking place in today’s world. Technology must not be reduced to a mere tool of domination. It must also challenge us to rethink what it is that constitutes a good life. Along with those within the field of ecological ethics who have stated the case for pluralism, I do not wish to advocate a single fundamental ethical theory, but rather to propose a constellation of different models, after which such a theory might be constructed. All universalistic theories of ethics have merits and weaknesses, which disqualify them as total conceptions. I propose a situation-oriented model that allows one to select a combination of different paradigms according to the nature of the moral dilemma, even though the criteria for such a selection cannot always be wholly consistent. So far as mobility is concerned, this requires an ethics of discourse: one that advocates a practical form of discourse within which everyone involved participates in a process of problem-solving communication. This form is well suited to, for instance, planning processes associated with mobility projects. Utilitarianism has made us aware that specially designed forms of mobility can have major consequences for future generations, something that should make us sensitive to the need for change and to varied processes of cultural identification. But utilitarians can hardly convince us of the validity of their claim that the aim of planning is to build as much ‘happiness’ as possible for as many people as possible. Such maxims can easily lead to a (bleak) world in which the number of parking places and highways constitutes the highest possible measurement of communal happiness and economic success. A deontological ethics of principle is also significant, as we are in constant need of formal values, which are immutable in time and space. It seems meaningful to develop

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rules and regulations for urban development that are both ethically and aesthetically aware, for example. There are numerous worst-case scenarios that demonstrate what completely uninhibited urban growth can lead to. Discourse ethics could be regarded as a modern way to create a place for an ethics that is in search of sustainable principles for changing times. I find it more difficult to apply to mobility planning the kind of moralist ethics of virtue that is in vogue at the moment, but we can find individual and social virtues even in mobility forms. The aesthetic and ethical flourishing of the individual who designs, the system that is designed and the ecological contexts to which both belong must all be seen in their interrelationship. Aesthetics can never replace ethics, just as reductionist concepts of beauty can never produce a standard measure of what is a good way of life. Contemporary art mercilessly reveals how necessary it is for us to search for what is good and beautiful among all that is ugly and objectionable, rather than seeking for superficial aestheticizing stereotypes. Beauty is just as ambiguous a concept as benevolence. Another possible approach to the ethical function of mobility systems might be that of an ecological aesthetics of nature. Here, the aesthetic approach is completely different from that of a superficial aesthetic beautification (Verhübschung) of the world. Gernot Böhme (1995) has successfully researched this approach, and he sees aesthetics as a self-aware human reflection on one’s living-in-particular-surroundings. Böhme’s conclusion is that humans should no longer maintain a distance from nature, but should rather seek to participate in the natural life cycle that engages all of their faculties. An ecological aesthetics of nature is as much a subjective self-reflection on human identity as it is a reflection on that which surrounds us and, in addition, on the difference between humanity and its enveloping environment. What does it mean to regard humans as bodily beings for our understanding of their motion and mobility through built and natural surroundings? Could we phenomenologically speak of the atmospheres of mobility and their higher value rather than as an instrumental means of transport? This model means that atmosphere is both human and physical, subjective and objective. There is no longer any distinction between subject and object, creator/user and building. It is the encounter between them that becomes the focus for meditation. People look at themselves in the mirror of their own designed spaces, and these in turn cast back a reflection of what is personal and unfamiliar within and around them. Nature, that which is both given and from-the-outside, encounters humanity in a process of procreation. The fruits of such an encounter go on to lead lives of their own. We meet them again in the shape of moods and atmosphere, and in the nature of the place, in ways that allow others to perceive them freely and independently. Here, motion is seen as an embodiment of spirit: the human spirit and nature’s own spirits in harmony. To what degree God’s Holy Spirit takes part in and at these encounters between body and spirit is an intriguing theological question that needs to be investigated. Is this type of aesthetic reflection on mobility also ethically relevant? We might distinguish between ethics and aesthetics, and let the former refer exclusively to a

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reflection on human sensual encounters and manifestations of their surroundings, while using the latter term to imply a reflection on the moral question of good or evil. Minds do not judge; they merely sense, perceive, comprehend and interpret – they are. I find it hard to detect a clear distinction between ethics and aesthetics. If ethics is defined as a discursive reflection on moral problems, it becomes difficult to exclude people’s mental capacities and to separate aesthetic competence from moral competence. The challenge to create aesthetic sensibility in humans through a specially designed pedagogy of art seems to me to be a very relevant ethical requirement, especially in today’s society, and especially if we want to counteract the steadily increasing mystification of the moral problems of our human and non-human neighbours. It takes a sharp mind and the ability to see our neighbour’s misery, to answer Cain’s question, ‘Lord, am I my brother’s keeper?’ There are strong forces at work seeking to impose a media-structured reduction on our ability to perceive social and ecological injustice in the world. For this reason aesthetic sensibility is needed in order to create a counterbalance to our contemporary and ongoing superficial aestheticization. We can thus discover an ethical function in aesthetics, both in theory and in practice. In his discussion of heterogeneity, Adorno demonstrates that justice and aesthetics are not necessarily that far apart. In his Ästhetische Theorie, Adorno states: ‘Ästhetische Einheit empfängt ihre Dignität durchs Mannigfaltige selbst. Sie läßt dem Heterogenen Gerechtigkeit widerfahren’ (Aesthetic unity receives its dignity through the manifold itself. It does justice to the heterogenous) (Adorno 1995: 285, my translation). He sees no opposition between the autonomy and the social application of art. On the contrary, the autonomous nature of artistic creativity presupposes a special position in society. Art only gains social relevance by being an ‘antipode to society’, and this can only be achieved through autonomy (ibid.: 335). Art’s mere existence provides a special, critical function in society, one that must be allowed to constitute itself independently and without having to submit to the rules and regulations of the instrumentalist forces of specific social interests. Works of art are forms of reification, which attempt to resist their transformation from matter into commodity. Adorno suggests that two conditions must be satisfied for art to achieve autonomy. The first of these is the ability to resist submission to the heteronomy of instrumentalization, and to proffer self-generated alternatives instead. The other condition is to possess the ability to visualize, that which is heterogeneous. This duality, along with ‘the factual historical status of the inherent heterogeneity of art’, is what constitutes the pre-conditions for works of art (ibid.: 334, my translation). According to Adorno, this is how art can help to provide a qualitatively unique dimension to our understanding of justice. In addition to his concept of aesthetic justice, Adorno is very critical of politicaljuridical concepts of justice. These are, he says, incapable of detecting inequalities and differences between individuals and groups of people. The meaning of heterogeneity is destroyed by means of a formal principle of equality, which actually obscures differences (1984: 304). Unity is constructed on the basis of the levelling-out of differences, rather than by creating a totality based on complexity and diversity.

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Only when justice has been guaranteed for the outsider and the stranger can the autonomy of all living beings be fulfilled in a sense of communal belonging. What would such an approach imply for the future design of mobility systems, which include the awareness of individual, social and cultural differences of humans? What could Adorno’s theory of aesthetic justice contribute to the analysis of problems of social exclusion and democracy threatened by hypermobility? Aesthetics should thus not be kept apart from ethics. Aesthetics should precede ethics and set an example for it. It would be hard to perceive anything of what constitutes a moral problem if we did not have the developed mental ability to succour our physical, intuitive and thus also our rational skills. One might say that good technology develops our abilities to discern moral injustice, and helps us to act accordingly. Good technology originates from the interaction of the human and its surroundings. From such a perspective, mind, body and environment are no longer contradicted but need to be understood and developed as a complex process of interaction.

The near and the distant A second important problem is found in the relation of nearness and distance. Does spatial nearness or distance lead to an ethically significant difference in humans’ moral behaviour with regard to each other and to other life forms? Is it easier to feel responsible for those who are closer and who are regarded as neighbours in a common space? Or is human moral empathy and action more appropriately characterized by the refusal to differentiate between responsibility for small near places and broad spaces far away? Does increasing mobility also imply a loss of morality, that is, does the rapidly increasing movement of more people between more places imply a decreasing ability to perceive and act morally for the best for one’s self and others? This problem is more complicated than it first appears. In his outstanding analysis of the Holocaust, the Polish-British sociologist Zygmunt Bauman investigates the distance between the victim and the offender, and he concludes that the destruction of nearness also leads to a lapse into a silence of responsibility (1994: 252). Together with the technical and administrative skills of modern rational society and the racist stereotyping and exclusion of the Jews, the annihilation of a religious community was conducted systematically as a part of a new large-scale order in the Third Reich. From an ethical perspective it is intriguing how individuals were able to create the separation and distancing of themselves from their victims in order to smoothly operate the control system for the annihilation of other humans. According to Bauman, the more the individual disappeared from the other’s perception, the lesser was the capacity to take responsibility for him or her (ibid.: 263). One can reply to Bauman’s thesis without questioning his important observation of the morally problematic dissolution of nearness. Obviously, humans are also capable of developing a sense of responsibility for others who are not inhabitants in

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the neighbourhood of one’s own world, or members of one’s family or group. Because moral skills are developed as empathy in the close context of family relations, these abilities can also be transferred to other spatial scales. Norwegian philosopher Arne Johan Vetlesen therefore has objected to Bauman, arguing instead that the human moral capacity for compassion can be developed at small as well as at large scales bridging great distances (Vetlesen 1993). With regard to mobility, one can ask whether one should regard the technically created motion in itself as a moral problem, and in what sense this influences human morality. This is a particularly relevant question when considering that large-scale movement includes alienation and a disability of perception of a specific kind. Could one promote the human capacity to transform experiences of nearness into responsibility for others far away? In posing this question, one could learn from environmental psychology and developmental psychology. In his extended study of children’s’ understanding of large-scale environments, geographer M. H. Matthews emphasizes the need to make a distinction between two modes of influencing this important human skill (1992: 5). First, this skill is about direct and immediate experiences with surroundings, which result after the required stages of individual development, and which are also closely connected to the variety of the surroundings and the manifold of the qualities of the places where children grow up. Secondly, one needs to recognize the crucial factors that influence the emergence of the social construction of images of surroundings. Experiences with environments and imaginations of them are two qualitatively different moments, even if they are interconnected. In the maturing process of a child, both are closely intertwined, a fact that also plays an important role in the moral maturity of the child and later adult. Even if this issue remains mainly unresearched, I would formulate the hypothesis that experiences in close surroundings strongly affect the adult’s ability to feel and act morally with regard to developing responsibility for others in the unknown, strange and faraway world of other places. With regard to environmental ethics, I would combine Bauman’s and Vetlesen’s insights, so that the experience of nearness in place becomes the presupposition of taking responsibility in a broader space. Because I have met my neighbour nearby, I can also meet him or her morally in a place far away. To put it biblically, ‘just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine [hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, strange, in prison], you did it for me’ (Matthew 25:40). In other words, what I do for the least of God’s brothers and sisters among all living nearby, I also can do for those far away (cf. Bergmann 1997b). In the context of mobility systems, the insight from geography and psychology offers a detailed agenda for further research about the interconnection of experiential, imaginative and moral skills of children and adults moving in and through technical spaces. It is astonishing to note how little we know about maturing processes in the context of modern mobility in comparison with the expansive technical knowledge of constructing these systems. The codes of insight into human phenomenology and human technology seem to be fully out of balance. Contributors to this book can only help to deepen this insight in the hope that the human dimension of

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mobility research, especially with regard to children, will gain a greater acceptance in the future. While we have analysed these issues in this volume, there is also the need to investigate further the question of how large-scale mobility and global nomadism affect our identity and self-understanding as a moral being. Another dimension in the context of nearness and distance can be found in ecology. In his theory of the ‘Umwelt’ (surrounding), the Estonian biologist Jakob von Uexküll differentiates between the organisms’ world of perception and imagination (Merkwelt) on the one hand and the world of actions on the other (Wirkwelt). Living creatures perceive phenomena and processes in their surroundings, act with regard to these and communicate something to others in their environment with the help of different signs. Uexküll starts from the fact that the organism’s world of perception and its world of action are separated in a ‘circle of function/meaning’ (Funktionskreis) (J. von Uexküll & Kriszat 1983: 11), so that the surroundings themselves represent ‘subjective realities’ (ibid.: 93), the organism’s different surroundings are ‘overlapping and crossing each other everywhere’ (J. von Uexküll 1931: 390ff.), the question of meaning is significant for all living beings (J. von Uexküll & Kriszat 1983: 119; J. von Uexküll 1982: 37) and a subject can understand another by the self moving into the world of the other. The imaginative world of a creature consists in this theory of signs, which exists in its surroundings and determine its behaviour in the world of action with regard to the other object (T. von Uexküll 1989: 400). This understanding of nature leads to a revisualization of natural science’s traditional notion of reality, by continuously ‘leading us into the concrete spheres of encounters of subjects and objects … where nature realises itself in this or that form’ (Grassi & T. von Uexküll 1950: 141). Jakob von Uexküll has offered a model of the semiotic process in his ‘Funktionskreis’ (circle of meaning/function). In this process, ‘impacts’ are coded into ‘memory signs’ by ‘being awarded significances’. The perceptive and the active world of a subject are in this way mediated with each other and they can actively relate to the worlds of other subjects (J. von Uexküll & Kriszat 1983: 11ff., 113; 1982: 31–33; cf. T. v. Uexküll 1983: xxxvff.; 1989: 404). The space – and this is important for our reflections on mobility – where different organisms live is in this sense not a common space, but it consists of different imaginative and active spaces of different life forms. These spaces ‘cross’ each other; they overlap and converge. The understanding of distance is also in this sense significant. Only if I come to understand my surroundings, in following Uexküll, as a diversity of life spaces that cross each other, can I become able to understand the distance and nearness of different worlds. A very small space can then be characterized by a very high diversity of distance and nearness. With regard to mobility, such an ecological understanding of the complexity and differentiation of biological life forms, including our human imagined and active space, can broaden our understanding of the implications and consequences of technical mobility. If one applies the famous theory of ethics formulated by Albert Schweitzer in his ethics of the dignity of life, we can follow his central thesis: ‘I am life that wants to

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live, among life that wants to live’ (cf. Altner 1991: 44–68). Applied to an ethics of mobility in large-scale spaces one can formulate: ‘I am life that wants to live and move in a space, where also others want to live and move’. The problems and conflicts of common life and common mobility in intersecting life spaces of different human and other beings can, if one follows German biologist and theologian Günter Altner, only be solved in a further formulation of this ethics of dignity of life. Only in a negotiation, consensus and exchange involving all that are living (and moving) together, can one solve the conflicts of different interests to live and move (Altner 1991: 70). With regard to the critical aspects of mobility threatening democracy, it is important to keep in mind the fundamental principle of every human’s value, which results in a practical application of this second formulation of the equal right of everyone to participate in the negotiations of mobility planning and practice. The concept of a common environmental space offers a model for the distribution of conditions for life and development on small and larger scales (Carley & Spapens 1998: 8ff., ch. 4). With regard to mobility, the consequences of motorized mobility for global climate change particularly challenge geopolitics in a radical way to develop large-scale models for a common environmental space, where forms of mobility are negotiated, controlled and distributed in accordance with criteria for social and environmental justice. While the ethics of dignity of life, here broadened to include environmental space, only focuses on the existential conflict of survival and the need for communication among all participants (including future generations), it does not propose criteria for the solution of normative problems. Ecofeminist ethics has, however, recently invented a new notion that could help promote practical solutions. In the metaphor of ‘ecological flourishing’, the North American philosopher Chris J. Cuomo summarizes the intention of environmental ethics. While feminist ethicists earlier coined the notion of caring with regard to the connectedness of all living beings (Cuomo 1998: 9), Cuomo departs from Aristotle’s vision of the flourishing of a good life, to broaden this vision to all, from an ecological perspective. Human flourishing becomes dependent on the qualities of human community and social interaction. Cuomo focuses especially on the inner connectedness of different oppressing functions in different social systems, a challenge that we also face with regard to the many faceted consequences of mobility. She says that flourishing is the highest measure of wellbeing of a subject, of a community and of all living creatures (ibid.: 62ff.). Even if this approach raises several critical problems, the metaphor of flourishing offers us an impetus for new thinking and action with regard to conflicts caused by mobility systems in different environmental spaces and in the common planetary space of life. The image of a garden where everything flowers in relation to each other also includes the interconnected differentiated semiotic lifeworlds of Uexküll. The image of a garden might be better suited to a new utopian vision than both the Brundtland rhetoric of sustainability, which focuses on the long-term consumption of resources by greedy humans, or the image of a sick global patient’s body to be cured by green

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human doctors, furthered by early environmental medicine and the Worldwatch Institute. The image of the garden promotes a metaphor where humans themselves can be regarded as plants and gardeners for the wellbeing of other plants. What kind of mobility would be produced by such imagery? One of my favourite poems on mobility might offer a vision of this future, even if some might regard it as naive and simplistic. In ‘Small Winding Roads’ (Fig. 6), Swedish poet Britt G. Hallqvist, famous for producing distinguished literature for children, describes her vision of small winding roads and all that they offer. Is it realistic to embark from the vision of a common garden as a complex environmental space where all inhabitants seek theoretical and practical discourses for consensus on the means of mobility? Later in this book, the reader will find an investigation where environmental attitudes and practices are critically studied from the perspective of how these are not in harmony with each other in the context of mobility and energy. Why do we not do the good that we want to do, one could ask, in keeping with the apostle Paul’s insight? The well-known asymmetry of ethical intentions and practices does not necessarily need to depress us, however. Other countervailing processes are also at work. A psychological study of social norms for behaviour in large-scale moral dilemmas is impressive in this context. Its results clearly provide evidence for the realistic possibility that a common understanding of different values of life forms can be manifested

Small winding roads are nice to cycle on, for there are slopes, hollows, and bumps. In summer, I ride up and down on small winding roads. Small winding roads – you can rest in a ditch for a while looking at ants and clouds that move. You can dream and gladly pass the time on small winding roads. Small winding roads – those are places to meet people who walk. Greetings to the tractor, the cow and the horse. Yes, my bicycle and me, we feel best on small winding roads. Figure 6. Britt G. Hallqvist, ‘Små krokiga vägar’ (Small winding roads), illustrated by Eva Eriksson, in Barnens andra bok, ed. S. Widerberg & G. Widerberg (Stockholm: En bok för alla, 2001), 76. (© [text] Britt G. Hallqvist, mediate by ALI; [illustration] DACS, London 2007. Reproduced with the permission of the publisher)

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in a common flourishing garden, where mobility still needs to be transformed into something more benign. First, the study shows that moral norms really do influence the choices and actions of people with regard to large-scale conflicts, as, for example, produced by modern mobility (Borgstede et al. 1999). Scholars of religion are familiar with the fact that moral norms are necessarily embedded in warrant ideologies, described with terms such as worldview, life view or religion. General life views, either religiously or secularly construed, are always directly connected to our environmentally related ways of thinking and acting. Secondly, the study shows that the disposition to act in favour of something, which one expects to be a general good, is heavily influenced by inner moral norms (ibid.: 12). Humans, obviously enough, are able to accommodate their behaviour to the vision of a common good for all in an equality-inducing environmental space. They also seem to be prepared to transform this vision into practice. A third result makes the study even more exciting. It shows that it is not just a single norm that is significant, but that it is also very important to know what other individuals are thinking about the conflict and their practical attempts to solve it. The scholars describe this finding with the notion of a ‘generalised reciprocity’ (ibid.). If there exist strong enough social norms, we can conclude, there are good reasons to expect that others will want to cooperate in reaching a common goal. This dialectic even doubles the vigour of the norms, and increases the level of activity. So far, the vision of a flourishing global garden, consisting of many overlapping, interconnected and strange gardens, is nevertheless a possibility. Clearly, humans are capable of working together on solutions for large- and small-scale problems, for example, in mobility, in order to realize their positive images of a worthwhile future for everybody to live in, including their own, not-yet-born, future generations. One must ask how it is possible that our contemporary society manages to hinder the breakthrough of this revolutionary power of imagination and constructive transformation! An important way to approach these kinds of common problems in environmental science is to focus on the obstacles posed by social transformation instead of studying present states of being. What are the barriers and hindrances for developing new forms of mobility in technical spaces? How do the structures of ‘disblending’ (Abblendung) work, which give us the illusion that mobility is under control, in spite of the daily sacrifice of human and other lives on its altar?

Religious utopianization of space Even though the economic and cultural processes of globalization have a strong relativistic effect on culture’s dependence on spatial limits, the idea that people, through their bodily existence and their historical and social constitution, are tied to physical places, localities and landscapes is a central component of the late-modern self-conception.6

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To what extent religion, spatiality and mobility are related to one another is a field within religious studies and theology that has largely been overlooked.7 Furthermore, only recently have issues at the intersection of geography and ethics been included in an interdisciplinary discourse on ethics, place and environment (cf. Smith 1998). Several examples show that space-oriented environmental conflicts expose many religious motivations of different kinds, and that there are also several examples of the environmental movement intervening, in various ways, in discourses and physical surroundings motivated by strong normative understandings of space and place. One could expect that mobility conflicts share similar background ideologies and life views; some of these will be analysed in this book. In western Sweden in 1992, for example, there were serious conflicts related to the construction of a motorway through a forested area. Several congregations and churches have been involved in a non-violent opposition to the authorities. The Canadian Mikmaq Indians’ conflict with mining companies over a holy mountain is another example among many of how indigenous people mobilize religious traditions to defend their land rights (cf. Hornborg 1998). Furthermore, there are explicit understandings concerning the spirituality of space/place in established religious traditions, which today first and foremost are reconstructed in the mobilization of indigenous people and in different types of ecotheologies within Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Ecofeminists have tried to analyse this space based eco-spirituality in terms of a goddess faith in Mother Earth and Gaia. As the human need for a place to live and for an environment that supports physical survival capabilities constitutes a fundamental condition for life, it is hardly surprising that conflicts related to city, landscape and mobility planning create a strong engagement and directly involve profound religious issues. The conflicts connected with the architectural design of cities provide a particularly good illustration of how strong the conflict potential is, and how a host of different normative views based on different ideologies are expressed in conflicts (cf. Kjellberg 2000). This is related to the fact that today the aesthetic experiences of our constructed surroundings are valued above their actual use value. Only a small number of people rely on their surroundings for production, while the aesthetic valuation of the surroundings characterizes most urban environments and their inhabitants today (cf. Bergmann 2003: 77ff.). Furthermore, landscape planning is a recurrent arena for conflicts between development interests and the environmental movement. The idea of an untouched wilderness and the battle for natural reserves and national parks in particular have added an important historical dimension to the rise of the environmental movement. However, one can see a certain change of focus over the course of time. While the early environmental movement arose from the conflict between landowners and capitalists who profited from the radical transformation of landscape during early industrialization, the current environmental movement has mobilized urban populations near and in the big cities, who have lost their direct connection to agriculture and nature a long time ago, and whose view of nature is ideologically founded, rather

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than being based on a practical interaction with nature. The conflict between urban and rural areas is an important and focal issue in the sociology of the environmental movement. Hypothetically, one may assume that the relation between space and religion in the environmental discourse is expressed in at least four different ways: • secularizing actors employ religion-based codes that are implicit in their view of how the human formation of nature should take place; • environmental movements adopt as themes explicitly strong understandings of the spiritual aspect of space, which involve specific demands on humans; • established religious traditions offer different approaches to the nature of the spirituality of space, for example the creation of God, the domicile of spirits or the traces of the ancestors; • creative attempts in the construction of a new spatial spirituality are underway, both in correlation with older religious traditions and in the emergence of new religious traditions. It is difficult to tell to what extent religiosity in general contributes to creating or solving conflicts related to human interaction with nature. It seems fairly obvious that both the destructive and the constructive dimensions are fundamental components of this ecological spirituality. While traditional communities are organized in clearly laid out, physically visible and small-scale spatial patterns, the development of modern society involves the construction of technically created space. Battles are no longer fought face to face. Justice no longer demands an eye for an eye. Fellowship no longer means to stand shoulder to shoulder, and friendship no longer means to walk hand in hand. On the contrary, in the modernization process the technical media create a special type of space between our bodies. Space is centred, organized and compressed. Space is no longer God-given; rather, it is a human construction – it is rational and not only local, but also national and, more recently, even global (cf. Bauman 1994: 16ff.). The development of the modern state provides a particularly good illustration of how the engineering of space becomes dominant, and the cultural change process has a strong effect even on the religious mapping of territories. In pre-modern times, religions distinguished themselves by a so called locative conception, that is, a structuring according to a spiritual map of countries with, for example, a temple in the centre of a network of sacred sites. A locative religion can undergo a ‘utopianization’; that is, a movement away from a belief in the physical presence of gods in specific places, to a belief in freedom and a lack of definite contact points where the one God meets the faithful from a place beyond the absolute and at a predetermined time.8 The utopianization of the global space has many expressions, and a mapping of this area would require a whole research project. However, common to all of them is the dimension of a critique of civilization that calls attention to the large-scale

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exploitation of the planet’s life systems on both a small and large scale. The interpretation of the earth as one interconnected whole is an important outcome of this type of utopianization. As seen above, Harvey has put forward a central assertion that even religious institutions and communities should endorse. He has said, as we have seen, that it is necessary for a community to have clear conceptions of justice, space, time, place and nature. His assertion can be emphasized further: society cannot face the demands of the future in terms of sustainability and survival without an ideology and a practice of social and ecological justice. Ecological spirituality is one expression of a power that contributes to this mobilization. The universalization and utopianization of earth space causes a serious aggravation of the conflicts in this battle over world territory. We know from history that territorial battles that have religious implications, for example, battles over sacred places, release powerful forces that may lead to war. When this spiritualization of the holiness of place is, in contemporary times, transferred to the entire life space of the earth, whose future as a holistic entity is the subject of the battle, then this leads to an enormous increase in the conflict potential. However, an equally pressing challenge is for religious actors and institutions to turn this belief in earth as a holy space into a peaceful vision, in which religions in dialogue and ‘diapractice’ contribute to a worldwide and polycentric topophilia (love of place). The Worldwatch Institute’s leader Gary Gardner expresses this challenge clearly as a common task for environmentalists and religious faith communities, and as a necessary condition of a new ethics for a just and sustainable civilization (Gardner 2002: 6ff.). As we have seen, mobility and the practical and theoretical discourse about its future represent a highly explosive and significant dimension in this task ahead. Yi-Fu Tuan’s well-known term ‘topophilia’ may seem romanticized and naive. However, without the strong counterbalance of religious life interpretations connected to a cosmic topophilia, a universal love of place and earth’s continuous spirituality and holiness, our future may involve an escalation of conflicts related to ‘our common future’ in a common life space.

Follow me – but to where do we move? Connecting with the artistic expressions from the twentieth century described at the start of this essay, I would like to conclude with the interpretation of a contemporary masterpiece that offers strong expressions of the challenge of mobility on a religious note. In his comprehensive sketch for a glass window in the medieval Church of the Holy Ghost in Heidelberg, the German artist Johannes Schreiter (b. 1930) has created an exciting interpretation of the intersection of modern science with Christianity’s belief in creation and liberation. Due to an intense controversy, unfortunately, only one of the windows is in place today.

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Figure 7. Johannes Schreiter, Fazit 14/1987/ F, sketch for the traffic window (1:10) for the Heiliggeist-church, Heidelberg, 58.2 × 16.7 cm (reproduced in Theo Sundermeier, Aufbruch zum Glauben: Die Botschaft der Glasfenster von Johannes Schreiter [Frankfurt: Lembeck, 2005], 67. (Reproduced with the permission of the artist)

In the series of windows, formulas from mathematics and symbols from computer science and traffic control are in a figurative and non-figurative community with Christian symbols. Of interest in our context is that the artist attributes traffic and mobility with a similar central cultural significance in Creation as is accorded physics, mathematics, medicine and music. In his ‘traffic window’, we recognize the gothic style of expression where the human moves from the earthly downwards to the divine upwards. The red colour dominates, and red represented in medieval symbolism means blood, life and suffering, but also God’s son who visualized God’s love in creation. White represents the creation in itself, and also refers to God’s pureness and to paradise. The white letters in the bible quotation of Jesus’ ‘Follow Me’ correlate with the white backgrounds of the traffic signs. The ochre yellow tone represents the earth and our human lifeworld in Schreiter’s image land. Theo Sundermeier, rightly,

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interprets the windows as stations in the passion of Christ, which the contemplator can follow visually (Sundermeier 2005: 57). The connection between mobility and God’s suffering in the creation becomes obvious. In this picture, traffic is understood as the ‘cross’ of our time. The signs in the window’s lower part are warning signs. The path gets narrow. Should we choose the broad or the narrow path forwards; which one leads to liberation? Be careful about crossings, bumpiness and obstacles! The way forwards offers several unexpected roadblocks and barriers. Moving in the technical spaces of mobility implies a large number of risks and dangers. How do we foresee and judge them? The other part, which has been overlaid on this part of the picture, shows a piece of land that has been burned, perhaps a highway. The sign, which prohibits stopping, expresses restlessness and the eternal acceleration of movements in space, which we will later interpret as hypermobility. Forbidden to stop, life is a non-stop journey, with no rest allowed in this world! The upper part offers a map of the region where the church is located, the RheinMain-area, which is found in the most densely populated areas of Germany. Who looks at this country from above –the Creator or the traffic planner? Why is the whole earth covered by roads, crossings, settlements and built places? Does our planning and social development lead to an impasse? Could the sign on the border of the window’s earthly and heavenly parts be a suggestion for conversion? What does conversion mean in the technical space of hypermobility? By the way, the German word ‘Bekehrung’ (conversion) alludes to ‘Verkehr’ (traffic), both words rooted in the word ‘Kehre’ (turn). At the place where the Gothic window usually situates the divine mystery itself, Schreiter has included the simple text ‘Follow Me’, surrounded by a traditional flowery decoration. Does this seem all too shallow and simple? Does the artist fall into the trap of interpreting modern mobility as directly contradictory to God’s purpose for life? Is traffic evil while God is good? Sundermeier is correct in pointing out the fact that a small detail should make us beware, because the text is printed on a grey, and not white, ground (Sundermeier 2005: 68). In medieval times grey represented the diffuse and ambiguous, while white represented the divine. The grey background of the letters raises a warning, whereas an assumed simplicity could lead to an alluring fraud. Clear religious admonishments do not need to be in harmony with the encounter of the divine and the human in creation. With regards to this admonition, we should interpret Schreiter’s traffic window as a challenge to take the abyss posed by mobility in deeply serious fashion. The technical space that we have created for moving ourselves and other things offers a large number of challenges, which touch deeply the spiritual being of creation. ‘Follow Me’ could in this context be regarded as the creative artist’s encouragement to take care of the many problems in our technically created space of mobility in a wholehearted and sustainable way.

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Notes 1. For a detailed discussion of the philosophical discourse on ‘motion’ in antiquity see Bergmann (1995: 151–60); cf. Bergmann (2005d: 115ff.). 2. Carbon dioxide emissions are responsible for roughly 60 per cent of the greenhouse effect, and motorized transport systems (rapidly growing at present) produce approximately 22 per cent of these (UNEP/ UNFCCC 2002). 3. In Germany, for example, one of seven employment positions is directly or indirectly dependent on the car industry, which represents the largest export branch of the nation. 4. The adjective ‘zukunftsfähig’ (sustainable; fit for the future) was coined in a German environmental study, designed in the model of environmental space (Umweltraum), which developed from a national investigation after the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio (see BUND & Misereor 1996). 5. The European Christian Environmental Network (ECEN) (www.ecen.org) was set up by the Conference of European Churches. 6. The following reflections offer a revised version of my essay ‘Space and Justice in Eco-Spirituality’ (Bergmann 2005c). 7. For a detailed account of the apprehension of space within different religions, see the article ‘Raum’, in Handbuch Religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe (Cancik et al. 1988– ) (cf. Bergmann 2002; Inge 2003). 8. The concept was developed by Jonathan Z. Smith (cf. Kippenberg & Stuckrad 2003: 117).

References Adorno, T. W. 1984. ‘Negative Dialektik’. In his Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 6. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Adorno, T. W. [1970] 1995. Ästhetische Theorie, 13th edn. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Altner, G. 1991. Naturvergessenheit: Grundlagen einer umfassenden Bioethik. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Andruss, V., C. Plant, J. Plant, E. Wright, eds. 1990. Home! A Bioregional Reader. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers. Appadurai, A. 2001. ‘The Production of Locality’. In Religion im Prozeß der Globalisierung, ed. P. Beyer, 99–123. Würzburg: Ergon. Bartholomew, C. & F. Hughes, eds. 2004. Explorations in a Christian Theology of Pilgrimage. Aldershot: Ashgate. Bätschmann, O. 1989. Entfernung der Natur: Landschaftsmalerei 1750–1920. Cologne: DuMont. Bauman, Z. 1994. Auschwitz och det moderna samhället, 2nd edn. Gothenburg: Daidalos. Beck U. 1986. Risikogesellschaft: Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Beck, U. 1988. Gegengifte: Die organisierte Unverantwortlichkeit. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Bergmann, S. 1995. Geist, der Natur befreit: Die trinitarische Kosmologie Gregors von Nazianz im Horizont einer ökologischen Theologie der Befreiung. Mainz: Grünewald. Bergmann, S. 1997a. Geist, der lebendig macht: Lavierungen zur ökologischen Befreiungstheologie. Frankfurt: Verlag für interkulturelle Kommunikation (IKO). Bergmann, S. 1997b. ‘Diskursive Bioethik – Für die Opfer’. In his Geist, der lebendig macht: Lavierungen zur ökologischen Befreiungstheologie, 202–29. Frankfurt: Verlag für interkulturelle Kommunikation (IKO). Bergmann, S. 2002. ‘Raum und Gerechtigkeit: Ethische Perspektiven eines großräumigen Umweltschutzes’. In Großräumiger Umweltschutz, D. Hahlweg, D.-P. Häder, S. Bergmann et al., 33–58. Vienna: Facultas. Bergmann, S. 2003. I begynnelsen är bilden: En befriande bild-konst-kultur-teologi. Stockholm: Proprius. Forthcoming in English as In the Beginning Is the Icon: A Liberating Theology of Images, Visual Arts and Culture (London: Equinox)].

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Bergmann, S., ed. 2005a. Architecture, Aesth/Ethics and Religion. Frankfurt am Main/London: Verlag für interkulturelle Kommunikation (IKO)/Transaction. Bergmann, S. 2005b. ‘Space and Spirit: Towards a Theology of Inhabitation’. In his Architecture, Aesth/ Ethics and Religion, 45–103. Frankfurt am Main/London: Verlag für interkulturelle Kommunikation (IKO)/Transaction. Bergmann, S. 2005c. ‘Space and Justice in Eco-Spirituality’. In Religionen im Konflikt: Vom Bürgerkrieg über Ökogewalt bis zur Gewalterinnerung im Ritual, eds V. N. Makrides & J. Rüpke, 212–25. Münster: Aschendorff. Bergmann, S. 2005d. Creation Set Free: The Spirit as Liberator of Nature. Grand Rapids MI: Eerdmans. Revised English edition of Geist, der Natur befreit (1995a). Bergmann, S. 2006. ‘Atmospheres of Synergy: Towards an Ecotheological Aesth/Ethics of Space’. Ecotheology: The Journal of Religion, Nature and the Environment 3: 326–56. Bergmann, S. & T. Sager, eds. 2008, forthcoming. The Ethics of Mobilities: Rethinking Place, Exclusion, Freedom and Environment. Aldershot: Ashgate. Böhme, G. 1995. Atmosphäre: Essays zur neuen Ästhetik. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Borgstede, C. von, U. Dahlstrand, A. Biel. 1999. ‘From Ought to Is: Moral Norms in Large-Scale Social Dilemmas’. Göteborg Psychological Reports 29(5). Department of Psychology, Göteborg University, Sweden. Brown, D. 2004. God and Enchantment of Place: Reclaiming Human Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND) & Misereor, eds. 1996. Zukunftsfähiges Deutschland: Ein Beitrag zu einer global nachhaltigen Entwicklung (Sustainable Germany). Study for Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, and Energy. Basel: Birkhäuser. Cancik, H., B. Gladigow & M. Laubscher, eds. 1988– . Handbuch religionswissenschaftlicher Grundbegriffe, 5 vols. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Carley, M. & P. Spapens. 1998. Sharing the World: Sustainable Living & Global Equity in the 21st Century. London: Earthscan. Cold, B., ed. 2001. Aesthetics, Well-being and Health: Essays within Architecture and Environmental Aesthetics. Aldershot: Ashgate. Cuomo, C. J. 1998. Feminism and Ecological Communities: An Ethic of Flourishing. London: Routledge. Frampton, K. 1992. Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 3rd edn. London: Thames & Hudson. Gardner, G. 2002. Invoking the Spirit: Religion and Spirituality in the Quest for a Sustainable World. Worldwatch Paper 164. Washington: Worldwatch. Giddens, A. 1992. The Consequences of Modernity, 3rd edn. Cambridge: Polity. Grassi, E. & T. von Uexküll. 1950. Von Ursprung und Grenzen der Geisteswissenschaften und Naturwissenschaften. Berne: Francke. Hardt, M. & A. Negri. 2001. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Harvey, D. 1996. Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Oxford: Blackwell. Hornborg, A. 1998. ‘The Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia: Environmentalism, Ethnicity and Sacred Places’. In Voices of the Land: Identity and Ecology in the Margins, eds A. Hornborg & M. Kurkiala, 135–72. Lund: Lund University Press. Inge, J. 2003. A Christian Theology of Place. Aldershot: Ashgate. Kippenberg, H. G. & K. von Stuckrad. 2003. Einführung in die Religionswisenschaft. Munich: Beck. Kjellberg, S. 2000. Urban Ecotheology. Utrecht: International Books. Marinetti, F. T. 1909. ‘Manifesto of Futurism’. Le Figaro (Paris) (20 February). www.unknown.nu/futurism (accessed March 2008). Matthews, M. H. 1992. Making Sense of Place: Children’s Understanding of Large-Scale Environments. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Melin, A. 2004. ‘Miljöetiken och den buddhistisk-kristna dialogen’. Svensk Teologisk Kvartalskrift 80(3): 99–107. Möller, G. 1986. Risker och människolivets värde: en etisk analys. Uppsala Studies in Social Ethics 8, Uppsala University.

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Müller, U. 2004. Raum, Bewegung und Zeit im Werk von Walter Gropius und Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Berlin: Akademie. Nadolny, S. 1983. Die Entdeckung der Langsamkeit. Munich: Piper. Pallasmaa, J. 2005. Encounters: Architectural Essays, ed. P. MacKeith. Helsinki: Rakennustieto Oy. Picht, G. 1989. Der Begriff der Natur und seine Geschichte. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. Porteous, J. D. 1996 Environmental Aesthetics: Ideas, Politics and Planning. London: Routledge. Sennett, R. 1995. Fleisch und Stein: Der Körper und die Stadt in der westlichen Zivilisation. Berlin: Berlin Verlag. Published in English as Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994). Smith, D. M. 1998. ‘Geography and Moral Philosophy: Some Common Ground’. Ethics, Place and Environment 1(1): 7–34. Sundermeier, T. 2005. Aufbruch zum Glauben: Die Botschaft der Glasfenster von Johannes Schreiter. Frankfurt: Lembeck. Uexküll, J. von. 1931. ‘Die Rolle des Subjekts in der Biologie’. Die Naturwissenschaften 19(19): 385–91. Uexküll, J. von. 1982. ‘The Theory of Meaning’. Semiotica 42(1): 25–82. English translation of ‘Bedeutungslehre’, in Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen, Bedeutungslehre, J. von Uexküll & G. Kriszat, 105–79 (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1970). Uexküll, J. von & G. Kriszat 1983. Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen, Bedeutungslehre, new edn. Frankfurt: Fischer. Uexküll, T. von. 1983. ‘Die Umweltforschung als subjekt- und objektumgreifende Naturforschung: Einleitung’. In Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen, Bedeutungslehre, new edn, J. von Uexküll & G. Kriszat, xxiii–xlviii, xxxvii. Frankfurt: Fischer. Uexküll, T. von. 1989. ‘Organismus und Umgebung – Perspektiven einer neuen ökologischen Wissenschaft’. In Ökologische Theologie: Perspektiven zur Orientierung, ed. G. Altner, 392–408. Stuttgart: Kreuz. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and United Nations Climate Change Secretariat (UNFCCC), eds. 2002. Climate Change Information Kit. Geneva: UNEP. http://unfccc.int/files/essential_background/application/pdf/infokit_02_en.pdf (accessed Jan. 2008). Vetlesen, A. J. 1993. ‘Why does Proximity Make a Moral Difference? Coming to Terms with Lessons Learned from the Holocaust’. Praxis International 12: 371–86. Virilio, P. 1999. Fluchtgeschwindigkeit: Essay. Frankfurt: Fischer. World Council of Churches (WCC). 1998. Mobilität: Perspektiven zukunftsfähiger Mobilität. Geneva: WCC. World Council of Churches (WCC). 2002. Mobile – but not Driven: Towards Equitable and Sustainable Mobility and Transport. Geneva: WCC.

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2 Hypermobility and the forecast-free planning of society Tore Sager

Introduction The almost utopian state in which people behave as if they were footloose and fancyfree has the potential to bring about a situation in which transport planning no longer relies on forecasts. The type of decision-making that is prevalent in a society depends on the kinds of information available. In modern, Western-type democracies, it is taken for granted that well-informed planning and decision-making are grounded in the reliable prediction of impacts. Therefore, if unlimited mobility undermines predictability, it poses a threat to public planning and democratic governance in the transport sector. This exploratory and somewhat speculative essay about a possible future analyses the planning consequences of the ‘death-of-distance’ literature. It seeks to clarify just how planning might be transformed by the loss of consequential impact analysis. It is moreover suggested that the likely responses to mobility-induced unpredictability – private rule-following behaviour, the transformation of public planning into a ritual and the expansion of government networks of control – would challenge modernist ideals. There has been a recent upsurge of interest in mobility, not least due to globalization, high migration, expanding common markets and the rapid development of electronic information systems and premium high-speed infrastructure networks (Cresswell 2001; Crang 2002; Ray 2002). High mobility gives rise to phenomena that have intrigued academics in a number of fields: technological disciplines (Baberg 2001; Swartz 2003), social research (Urry 2000a, 2002; Kaufmann 2002), and the humanities (Kaplan 1996). It is, however, likely that there will be problems on a grand scale if, as predicted, the average world citizen by 2050 will travel as many kilometres as the average West European travelled in 1990 (Schafer & Victor 2000). Activity in circulation space – the technical spaces of mobility1 – is influenced by hardware

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(infrastructure and vehicles) and software (institutions and human behaviour), as well as culture, values and knowledge. John Urry (2000b) holds that mobilities rather than societies should be at the heart of a reconstituted sociology. The purpose of this essay is thus to show how extreme mobility can have farreaching consequences for the organization of society through the ways in which time-space compression and time-space convergence (Janelle & Gillespie 2004) undermine administrators’ and planners’ ability to predict human action in the public sphere and thus to provide a modern and knowledge-based underpinning for collective decisions. It is harder to make predictions in open social systems than in closed ones (Downward et al. 2002; Næss 2004). The cause of events may only be understood partially because of their complex co-determination. Generally speaking, higher mobility tends to open up social systems because it increases the intricacy of the interplay between reflective human agency and structure. Habits, conventions, institutions and shared mental models – which help to make a social system behave like a semi-closed one in practice – are likely to be less stable under unlimited mobility. The link between unlimited mobility and unpredictability could be studied by exploring mobility’s capacity for creating chaotic systems (Elliott & Kiel 1997), complexity (Cilliers 1998), entropy (Baker 1993: 135–41) and tipping points (Gladwell 2000). This is, however, not the approach employed here. Instead, three more specific arguments are presented: that unlimited mobility (i) makes travel patterns unpredictable and undermines impact assessment; (ii) makes individual preferences disparate and thus causes democratic decisions to be potentially arbitrary; and (iii) makes circulation networks convenient tools for criminals, rendering society vulnerable to surprising and destructive grand-scale strikes. A collapse in barriers to unlimited travel would affect the uncertainty of social choice as well as individual action. The output of both government hierarchies and private markets will therefore change. Furthermore, dark networks will provoke the establishment of countervailing networks for the enforcement of public order and safety. It follows that extreme mobility will give rise to the reorganization of all types of governance structures (markets, hierarchies and networks). The question is then what consequences to expect when physical space becomes networked and ‘distance-less’, like cyberspace, and dominated by flows rather than being stationary and sedentary (Shields 1997). The zero-friction society explored here is obviously utopian. Following Torsten Hägerstrand (1987: 13), I nevertheless believe that it ‘is interesting to think about … how far we can move in the direction of more and more mobility before we come across still more unacceptable side-effects than there are today’. A summary of the basic argument clarifies the analysis that follows. The next section defines mobility as potential transport, or the ability to travel, which underlies the widespread tendency to identify the maximization of mobility as a social goal. The ensuing sections examine the hypothetical situation in which this goal has been achieved. The causal relations between extremely high mobility and its social consequences work through the loss of predictability, and these relations are outlined in three sections. The first argues that the travel pattern of well-informed individuals is rendered unpredictable by unlimited mobility. This causes problems, as most

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HYPERMOBILITY AND THE FORECAST - FREE PLANNING OF SOCIETY

transport-related policies rely on traffic forecasts. The next section shifts the argument from the individual to the collective level and maintains that higher mobility tends to differentiate individual preference orderings. With ‘anarchic’ preferences, democracy becomes vulnerable to decision cycles, leaving the social outcome arbitrary and thus unpredictable. Thereafter, it is argued that fast connections facilitate the operation of dark networks, which are capable of striking more destructively and more unpredictably as nodes proliferate and their proximity increases due to higher speed. It is then asked what might happen to transport planning when forecasts are no longer available. Is there a non-consequentialist foundation for planning, and what would such planning look like? The modern argument that forecasts mean failure, essentially, is considered. It says that man should take command of his life through sheer acts of willpower – social plans – rather than bothering with forecasting the most likely developments. The conclusion is that there is a rather paradoxical contradiction between unlimited mobility and the Enlightenment goal of self-determination through knowledge-based social decisions.

Cultivating the drive to drive: should mobility be maximized? This section defines mobility and distinguishes it from accessibility. It is argued that maximization of mobility makes more sense when mobility is seen as potential rather than realized movement. Before pondering the social consequences of high mobility and forming a political attitude towards the phenomenon, a conceptual discussion is required. If mobility can be analytically separated from the adverse effects of motorized traffic, this might call for a positive attitude towards its maximization. Mobility measures the ability of humans to make something overcome distance in space. This ‘something’ can be, for example, people, goods, capital, energy and messages (information). Mobility is closely related to movement, actual or hypothetical, and movement must occur in some kind of space. At the abstract level, there are many forms of physical, social and mental spaces. A plausible hypothesis might be that there is at least one kind of mobility for each type of space. Hence, an adequate definition of mobility requires that a particular type of space be specified. This essay deals with the mobility of people in physical space. The distinction between mobility and accessibility is important for policy design in transport and land use. Mobility is associated with individuals, while accessibility is associated with locations. Jonathan Levine and Yaakov Garb’s explication of this point is commendable: Mobility is defined … as ease of movement; accessibility is defined as ease of reaching destinations. The concepts are related, but readily distinguishable. Where destinations are close by, great accessibility can be afforded even if mobility is constrained; where destinations are remote, mobility may be high

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without concomitant high-level accessibility … A mobility improvement is a reduction in the generalized (i.e. time-plus-money) cost of travel per kilometer; an accessibility improvement is a reduction in the generalized cost per destination. (Levine & Garb 2002: 179) Enhanced mobility (and automobility in particular) is valued in policy terms only to the extent that it increases accessibility in the long run. When the demand for transport is derived – meaning that transport is not valued for its own sake – mobility gains that translate into accessibility losses represent failures of transport policy. The effect of higher mobility on the location of activities is crucial. Where locations are viewed as fixed in space, each mobility gain is automatically translated into an accessibility improvement, as both the cost per kilometre and the cost per destination are reduced. However, if the longer-term consequences of improvements in the transport system are that potential destinations move further away, through urban sprawl and lower development densities, then these network refinements can lead to a decrease in accessibility (ibid.:180). Ideas concerning the benefits of high mobility must inevitably be seen as part of a wider value system. Vincent Kaufmann (2002: 37) criticizes the simplified view that ‘mobility is good, because it equals open-mindedness, discovery, and experience, and an effort must be made for individuals to maximize mobility for this reason’. The defining question with the greatest bearing on whether maximization is a sensible goal is whether the concept of mobility should refer to revealed or potential action. Many revealed measures are possible, as there are different types of mobile subjects, various types of movement or transport and several aggregation levels. One revealed measure of mobility could be the aggregate of all journeys that have, in fact, been carried out during a certain period of time: that is, the corporeal travel of people. A measure of mobility as transport that accounts for distances would be of interest in analyses of globalization, resource use and environmental ethics, for example.2 Dictionaries suggest a concept of mobility that does not imply actual travelling. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary says that something is mobile when it can move or be moved easily and quickly from place to place, and that mobility is the quality of being mobile. Conceptualizing mobility as potential transport, as I do here, means that mobility is the capacity to overcome distance in physical space. The level of mobility as the possibility of travelling cannot be determined by observing traffic or calculating travel demand; it has to be deduced from interview statements or estimated from a set of indicators. High potential transport requires a match between human abilities on the one hand and the characteristics of the transport system on the other. The human/ technology interface is at the core, with the technology comprising infrastructure and terminal facilities as well as vehicles and vessels. This focus may be particularly useful when studying groups with a need for transport that differs markedly from actual demand. People might prefer a degree of mobility that is considerably beyond the transport they actually demand. Kaufmann (2002: 72) points out that high mobility seen as potential transport might be regarded as a sort of insurance. It gives the security of

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not being caught unprepared and sedentary when something unanticipated happens. It is, however, unlikely that a high level of potential transport in a population can be upheld unless revealed transport is also at a high level. The supply of transport is costly and will be cut back if it is not demonstrably appreciated. On the macro scale, the positive correlation between potential and revealed transport will therefore tend to be high. At the micro level – that is, for an individual or a group – the difference can be substantial, however. The crux of the matter is that a sufficient share of the population in the catchment area of each supplied transport mode has to actually use the mode in order to maintain high mobility for everybody.3 Whether opting for mobility that is conceptualized as revealed or potential travelling, it is worthwhile considering the heterogeneity of travelling. Tim Ingold (2007: 75–84) distinguishes between two modalities of travel, which he denotes as ‘transport’ and ‘wayfaring’. ‘Transport’ is the activity of moving people or goods between places; it is the familiar destination-oriented concept applied in mainstream transport research. ‘Wayfaring’, on the other hand, is not characterized by the goal of reaching a destination. There is not a place to be reached; instead, wayfaring is place-making. It couples locomotion and perception in an intimate bond that makes the journey itself the important event. Wayfaring is a mode by which living beings inhabit the earth and provides a way to gain knowledge of the world about us. According to Ingold, ‘It makes no more sense to ask about the speed of wayfaring than it does to ask about the speed of life’. Speed is simply not an issue, as the question of how long the journey takes only becomes relevant when the duration of a journey is measured out towards a predetermined destination. Hence, friction, accessibility and the death-of-distance literature are relevant to Ingold’s notion of ‘transport’ but not to wayfaring. (Compare Anders Melin’s discussion of pilgrimage as a sort of wayfaring, this volume, Ch. 4.) Potential and revealed measures of mobility have very different connotations regarding cultural approval or disapproval. Potential transport is closely associated with freedom of choice and cherished as a social good. Revealed mobility – that is, realized transport – is usually seen as a derived activity without intrinsic value. It is therefore treated as a cost to society, which is incurred in order to reap the benefits of other activities (Salomon & Mokhtarian 1998: 130). The political response to calls for higher mobility is likely to depend heavily on whether the calls refer to a revealed or potential mobility concept. It is hard to imagine responsible politicians wanting to maximize realized transport, considering the likely levels of social and environmental degradation that this would entail. It seems more reasonable to promote maximization of the capacity to overcome distance, as long as it does not imply a clogging of transport corridors. Here, then, mobility is associated with potential trips, unless something to the contrary is explicitly stated. It is moreover assumed that it is meaningful to attempt to maximize mobility as well as social welfare (Sen 1997).4 Public plans are usually compared by evaluating their consequences. ‘Maximizing rationality’ is central to consequential evaluation, according to Amartya Sen (2000: 483), who cites Scheffler: ‘The core of this conception of rationality is the idea that if one accepts the desirability of a certain goal being achieved, and if one has a choice between two options, one of which is certain to accomplish this goal better than the

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other, then it is, ceteris paribus, rational to choose the former over the latter’ (Scheffler 1988: 252). The ultimate end may be to choose the optimal – that is, the best – social state based on some measure of social welfare. One might nevertheless temporarily opt for the maximization of mobility if there are no obvious conflicts with welfare. Ranking the social states with regard to mobility would result in an incomplete ordering, as many features of society – in addition to mobility – affect social welfare. Maximal and optimal mobility would therefore be likely to differ. In spite of this, ‘consequential evaluation needs maximization, but not optimization’ (Sen 2000: 487). The groundwork has now been laid for making a situation with extremely high mobility the vantage point for further analysis. The next three sections explain why hypermobility undermines social predictions.

Hypermobility renders travelling unpredictable This section explains why extremely high mobility undermines planners’ ability to predict travel patterns and thus the associated consequences of interventions in land use and transport systems. The mechanism works through the lack of economic and physical frictions that usually steer omniscient and utility-maximizing individuals in particular directions. In a comment on the death of distance, Helen Couclelis suggests that ‘to the extent that the ‘glue’ holding cities together had been the need to overcome the friction of distance for the purpose of efficient communication, that glue has now evaporated and the end of urban civilization is in sight’ (1996: 388). A radical hypothesis is put forward: ‘Distance is dead and there is no longer any general organizational principle governing the distribution of people and activities’ (ibid.: 388). Were this situation to be realized, it would complicate forecasting, as causal predictive models must be based on the regularities that give structure to society. The ideas pursued below are particularly relevant when location patterns are diffuse and unstructured, but they are not founded on the (rather counterintuitive) end-of-urban-civilization hypothesis. High mobility means victory in the struggle against distance; it is about man breaking his tether of physical friction. Imagine a mobility-maximizing society with a superior transport system and a very well-developed supply of activities. People are able to go wherever they like whenever they like. All kinds of activities are offered at a number of locations and at different times. All pairs of activity points are connected by several routes and transport modes. Moreover, citizens in this utopia are well informed about their own opportunities, so the individual is not subject to uncertainty as to when and where activities should be carried out in order to maximize her overall utility. This is labelled a ‘zero-friction society’, although this evokes the image of a physical impossibility if taken literally. Or even better, imagine a society of omniscient riders of magic carpets: a fantastic means of transport which in no time takes its passenger to any desired point (Hägerstrand 1987: 12). Consider now the

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effects of this ‘death of distance’ utopia on prediction, planning and – consequently – politics. Reflecting on an individual’s utility maximization, Ronald Heiner asserts that: In the special case of no uncertainty, the behavior of perfectly informed, fully optimizing agents responding with complete flexibility to every perturbation in their environment would not produce easily recognizable patterns, but rather would be extremely difficult to predict. Thus, it is in the limits to maximizing that we will find the origin of predictable behavior. (1983: 561) Extremely high mobility enables individuals to exploit their knowledge of small alterations in the supply of goods, services and activities, as well as to indulge their own varying whims and tastes, and thus constantly change their travel patterns to maximize satisfaction of their wants. Hence, the professional activity of forecasting traffic is futile in the omniscient zero-friction society. Predictability arises from a gap between agents’ decision-making abilities and the difficulty of their decision problems. Uncertainty in distinguishing preferred from less-preferred action is the sine qua non of predictable behaviour. Given increased uncertainty due to difficulties in deciphering the environment, the repertoire of actions will be limited. It might also be limited in conditions of modest mobility, which would prevent people from acting on the information of where to find the best offers. ‘Perfectly mobile’ and ‘perfectly informed’ individuals are hard to imagine, and use of the terms would give the analysis an unnecessarily utopian flavour. However, these notions are rendered superfluous by the concept of ‘hypermobility’ outlined below, which still makes it possible to apply Heiner’s reasoning. The starting-point is that every society will have a certain level of individual information about transport and activity options and a given level of professional planning knowledge. (Possible causal relationships between higher mobility and higher levels of information and knowledge will be ignored.) Each individual has reliable probability information about all complex contingencies in his or her environment, but this information is not shared with the planners. Hence, there is a gap between individuals’ and planners’ knowledge of extant transport/activity options (that is, Kind – Kpla > 0). This gap is assumed to be present even in modern societies with well-developed mass media and information systems. Imagine now that mobility is gradually increased for given levels of individual and planner knowledge. Sooner or later one reaches a high mobility level with so much individual freedom of choice and such complex sets of transport/activity options that only the individuals (and not the planners) are able to figure out when and where to travel in order to maximize utility. Society has then, by definition, reached the state of ‘hypermobility’. As long as individuals have the intellectual capacity to handle more complex transport/activity sets in a rational manner, mobility might increase further and contribute positively to individual utility and social welfare. Mobility will cease to increase when the transport/activity sets become too complex for the individual

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to handle. Still higher levels of mobility would force individuals to apply simplifying rules of thumb to decide on their trip patterns, and this would not enable them to increase their utility further. Hence, there will be a range of high mobility levels from low to maximum hypermobility. When hypermobility is low, the planners’ models for forecasting trip patterns are still useful, but deteriorating. As long as mobility and thus possibilities increase, and individuals are capable of handling the utility maximization, planners lose ground. With maximum hypermobility, the individuals’ capacity for making rational transport/activity decisions reaches its limit. Higher levels of mobility are imaginable, but they will not be realized at the given level of individual information. Traffic forecasting models will not abruptly collapse at a certain mobility level. Instead, they will produce ever more uncertain results as mobility increases, until they are considered worthless. It is assumed here that at the upper end of the hypermobility interval, the mismatch between revealed transport patterns and model results is so obvious that forecasts are useless for all practical purposes. The level of maximum hypermobility is not absolute but is instead dependent on the average level of individual information in society. As with mobility, hypermobility can also be given both a revealed and a potential interpretation. A particular amount of actual travelling and a particular level of perceived possibilities for travel will both correspond to a specified degree of hypermobility. Furthermore, the costs and benefits of projects in the transport system are highly correlated with future traffic, so impact assessment is not meaningful when traffic is unpredictable. This questions the rationale of public planning in the transport sector, as forecasting, impact assessment, and evaluation by comparing alternatives are at the core of this endeavour, articulated in the slogan ‘predict and provide’ (Urry 2002: 257). The close connection between forecasting and planning is also evident in Mario Bunge’s dictum: ‘Tell me what kind of forecast you are using and I’ll tell you the quality of your plans’ (1973: 220). Plans without forecasts are similar to prayers without God; they are without foundation, having lost the core element that should provide the link to the future. The continued making of consequence-based plans in conditions of maximum hypermobility would rely on magic, or what Donald McCloskey (1991) denotes as ‘voodoo economics’. Standard planning procedure is meant to be instrumentally rational and thus gives means–ends analysis a prominent place. The predominant opinion in the planning profession is that consequences must be predicted in order to judge the attractiveness of means. In fact, consequence-based evaluation (Sen 2000) is the foundation of all familiar styles of planning, as seen in the surveys of Ernest Alexander (1986) and Nigel Taylor (1998). However, this approach is useless for transport planners in the frictionless and fully informed ‘flying carpet society’. When knowledge is imperfect, there will be uncertainty about when and where to go and how to get there. Heiner contends that uncertainty in distinguishing preferred from less-preferred behaviour leads to behavioural rules ‘that restrict the flexibility to choose potential actions, or which produce a selective alertness to information that might prompt particular actions to be chosen’ (1983: 561). Uncertainty tends to

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simplify behaviour as less complex patterns that are easier for an observer to recognize and predict. It is therefore in the uncertainty that poses limits on utility-maximizing movement that the origin of predictable travel behaviour is found.5 Everyone has a limited time budget, and when desirable activities compete for a place in it, the value of time will be positive. Uncertainty regarding the attractiveness of an activity supply in some places then reduces transport, as it is time consuming and thus costly to embark on trips to check whether there are offers well worth the journey. Better net results might be obtained by cultivating habits and thereby developing a predictable travel pattern that generates less utility but also lower cost. Surely, numerous deviations from these constrained and smaller repertoires of behaviour might be superior in certain situations. However, they are still ignored because of uncertainty about when to deviate from the habitual regularities (Heiner 1983: 585). Habits are manifestations of inertia, or mental and behavioural friction. Inertia in social systems produces a highly auto-correlated time series in which random events have lasting effects. From such a series it is easy to accurately make short-term predictions using variants of linear extrapolation (Pant & Starbuck 1990). Inertia in human action follows to a large extent from the use of simple behavioural rules of thumb, which are an individual’s response to uncertainty. The main reason for inertia, however, vanishes with a level of knowledge that is always adequate, backed by the mobility required to act on all the detailed information available. An individual has less reason to simplify things by acting the same way this period as she acted in the previous period, if she has the information and the means to increase her utility by tailoring her action to the current state of the world. Reliable forecasts are due to the inertia found in the behaviour of the actors in the system in question. This reinforces the conclusion noted above, that maximum hypermobility undermines prediction. Other uncertainty-generating mechanisms supporting this conclusion are outlined in the next two sections.

Zero-friction democracy: a contradiction in terms? This section suggests that maximum hypermobility causes unpredictability not only by enabling individuals to act promptly on every new incremental change in geographical space, but also by diversifying individual preferences. Preferences without elements of agreement can lead to decision cycles. As a result, it is less and less likely that collective decisions emerging from democratic preference-aggregating processes can be foreseen as society approaches a state of maximum hypermobility. Social choice theory and the theory of deliberative decision-making are arguably the two theories of democracy that have been most discussed by scholars in recent years (Sager 2002). Scholars working with both theories have long been aware of the 1/N problem of collective decision processes following from the fact that each vote in a large ballot counts for little. The problem is that citizens have weak incentive to seek out the truth on public issues, and might instead choose rational ignorance and often

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rational non-participation (Downs 1957: 238–74). In conditions of maximum hypermobility, citizens have even less motivation for spending time and other resources on democratic procedures. Dedicated democratic effort is encouraged by a feeling of community, some similarity of values, and problem-solving by debate, vote and loyalty rather than by leaving (Hirschman 1971). Maximum hypermobility can undermine these conditions and make it too tempting ‘to vote with one’s feet’ rather than invest in long-lasting deliberative proceedings with uncertain outcomes. Referring to the flying carpet society, Hägerstrand concludes that ‘mobility beyond a certain limit is in all probability destructive for human society’ (1987: 12). The consequences of some of the central results from social choice theory are here examined in light of extreme mobility or, more specifically, maximum revealed hypermobility. In the previous section, the reasoning started from a vantage point of anarchic movement. Here, the reasoning builds on the assumption of anarchic preferences. In both cases, ‘anarchic’ means that there are no institutions or structures justifying an a priori assumption of similarity across individuals.6 The relationship between increasing the mobility level – both in the revealed and potential sense – and preference formation is uncharted terrain. It is nevertheless worthwhile pondering this connection, as there may be implications for community and predictability. In conditions of low mobility, the individual stays in the same local community. She communicates with the same people over extended periods of time, and experiences the impacts of events and incidents largely in a manner similar to others in her vicinity. In such a stationary high-friction society, the individual has little opportunity to ‘vote with her feet’, should she dislike local policies. However, in the urbanized Western societies of today, mobility is fairly high for large segments of the population, and people have less shared identity with their fellow citizens and less stable local communities than they once had. The exposition proceeds from the hypothesis that low revealed mobility causes the preferences of individuals in the same local community to be more similar than they would have been in a zero-friction society. ‘If household members are regularly on the move then the distinction of home and away loses its analytical power’ (Urry 2002: 257), and preferences will then be less formed by location of residence. Maximum revealed hypermobility is likely to expose individuals from the same local community to very different experiences and mental inputs, and they would then be apt to interpret local affairs in widely diverging ways. High mobility makes each individual less dependent on others in the same community, so the pressure towards conformity in tastes and opinions weakens. Revealed hypermobility dissolves community, as community entails elements of homogeneity in the preference structure (Wellman 1999: 6; Putnam 2001; Nynäs, this volume, Ch. 7). Kaufmann emphasizes the link between high mobility and unstable preferences: speed brings about the progressive weakening of the social structure and of its categories in favour of a world organised around mobility. This society can be qualified as liquid … insofar as it takes the form of its habitat and is thus fundamentally ambivalent, heterogeneous and reversible. It is the era of

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ephemerality and consumerism, the throw-away society. In this context, human beings are ever-changing. One can just as easily throw out one’s material waste as one’s values, lifestyles or attachment to people and places. (2002: 6) In the present context, the pertinent metaphor is the ‘trekking-through’ society or the ‘cruising along’ society rather than the throw-away society. This suggests a lifestyle in which life is seen as the art of not belonging. The result is presumably that individual rankings of social states vary more in frictionless societies. It is assumed here that there are no restrictions on the sequence in which social states, or planning alternatives for that matter, can be ordered by the individual. Furthermore, the public interest or ‘the will of the people’ is supposed to be determined by the amalgamation of individual preferences. As such, then, a much celebrated result of social choice theory is valid. Kenneth Arrow (1963) proved that when preferences are potentially anarchic (as above), collective decisions cannot be made in a process that is both fair and democratic, as long as non-cycling and thus predictable outcomes are required. The requirement for democracy is extremely weak in Arrow’s proof. All that is necessary is the lack of a dictator whose preferences are always identical with the social outcome. Stronger democratic claims would make it impossible to define the will of the people even for less anarchic sets of individual preference profiles. Arrow’s impossibility would also then make itself felt under less than maximum revealed hypermobility. In fact, following Arrow’s logic, other social choice theorists have proved that the breakdown of predictability under majority rule is even more serious than indicated by his theorem. A central result is the ‘global cycling theorem’, which implies that anything can happen under majority rule. By voting on a series of proposals, coalitions can change so that it is possible to take any alternative as the starting-point for voting and ending up with any other alternative. When no alternative defeats each of the others in pairwise comparisons, there are potential agendas that will lead sincere voters to any planning alternative. In other words, the final plan is arbitrary from a voting point of view, in the sense that whoever controls the agenda controls the outcome (Riker 1982: 186–8). Arrow and most other social choice theorists write in terms of transitivity – that is, cycle-free decisions – rather than predictability. However, when there is a decision cycle involving all feasible top alternatives, the outcome is arbitrary in the sense that it is unrelated to preferences, and social choice is therefore unpredictable (AustenSmith & Banks 1998). This also goes for planning recommendations that are not made dictatorially. Fair and democratic planning and decision procedures in a society with maximum revealed hypermobility thus lead to unforeseeable collective actions. This presents an ambiguity to be analysed in a subsequent section. To the extent that collective decisions in the zero-friction society become ritualistic in response to the lack of impact forecasts, they might retain predictability. On the other hand, to the extent that they emerge from democratic procedures of preference amalgamation, they turn out to be potentially unpredictable, leaving both individual and collective actions incalculable.

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Sager (2002) shows that Arrow-style impossibilities are troublesome not only in respect to voting but also when social choices are made in a dialogical process (deliberative democracy). Nevertheless, collective decisions must be made in order to have a viable society. This implies that decision cycles have to be broken somehow, and thus the sequence of voting between pairs of alternatives cannot be allowed to go on forever. Numerous mechanisms can be imagined, some of which would uphold the arbitrariness of the social choice (drawing lots). But society could probably do better by resorting to an institution – that is, rule or procedure – that would reinstate predictability by working independently of individual preferences. One might appeal to tradition, religion or ideology. These are all means of reaching collective decisions without starting out from individual preferences on planning alternatives. It has now been shown that the reasoning of both Heiner and Arrow is associated with problems of prediction. Modernist ideas are behind the difficulties; in both cases the reasoning is based on individual utility maximization, and the dilemmas are aggravated by maximum hypermobility. We will later return to the question of whether non-modern medicine is called for to cure the postmodern ailment of public action without direction, which emanates from modernist ideas about mobility and individual preferences (Friedland & Boden 1994). First, however, a third reason for social unpredictability will be briefly examined.

Light travelling and dark networks This section directs attention to destructive and covert networks as a third source of mobility-induced unpredictability in social planning, the others being political decision cycles and the inability to model the movements of hypermobile utility maximizers. Premier transport networks and electronic networks for information exchange are expanding rapidly. Dark networks carry out criminal and clandestine operations. Members of these networks depend on high mobility to strike effectively, to fool the police and escape. High mobility also allows the coordination of more nodes in the network and thus makes it possible to strike with more surprise, greater force and debilitating impact. It is hypothesized that dark networks would be extremely hard to track down, break into and destroy under maximum hypermobility. They might develop into a significant source of instability and unpredictability in future ‘light and liquid’ democracies (Bauman 2000; Gorman 2005; Richardson et al. 2005). Social scientists often assume that Western nation-states are being transformed into ‘network societies’ (Castells 1996). This belief is common in studies of world cities (Knox & Taylor 1995), public planning (Innes & Booher 2000), and mobility (Urry 2000b), for example. Networks are structures of interdependence involving multiple units (organizations), where one unit is not merely the formal subordinate of the other in some larger hierarchical arrangement. There is a predominance of informal communicative relations between loosely coupled nodes, and a decentralized pattern of actors’ positions. The institutional glue congealing network alliances

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may include authority bonds, family ties, exchange relations and coalitions based on common interest. The network society relies on a number of premier networks where individuals, goods, information and capital can circulate very quickly. The global airline network is the best example regarding passenger transport (Keeling 1995). This network also demonstrates how codes of control and space of circulation interrelate to create efficient flows and a safe environment. ‘The trend to create code/space and to deepen the relationship between code and travel has been accelerated with the enhanced security concerns after September 11’ (Dodge & Kitchin 2004: 209). Circulation networks offering high mobility are likely to serve both constructive and destructive forces. Networks with a socially destructive function are in most cases criminal and covert, and are here called ‘dark networks’ (Raab & Milward 2003). Dark networks take many different shapes, and they ‘must have a very flexible structure that enables them to react quickly to changing pressures from nation-states and other opponents’ (ibid.: 431). There are dark networks carrying out clandestine operations of terrorism, arms trading, drug trafficking, money laundering, diamond smuggling and illegal migration, for example (Cartier-Bresson 1997; Klerks 2001; Clarke & Brown 2003). Many dark networks face a dilemma. On the one hand they need a comparatively safe territorial base, often where the state is weak and without a legitimate monopoly of coercive power. On the other hand, they need footholds in places where communication, travel and circulation of money and information are fast and easy. High mobility is necessary for their hit and run tactics. The dilemma of dark networks is that mobility is usually low in weakly governed regions, which tend to be remote and underdeveloped and therefore have little public infrastructure (Raab & Milward 2003: 432). Furthermore, secrecy and information-processing capacity are two competing and contradictory needs. Concealment is usually prized more highly in dark networks, and their structure therefore tends to be decentralized at the expense of a big but vulnerable coordinating centre (ibid.: 434). This accentuates the importance of high mobility. The basic idea in the context of this essay is that highly destructive and spectacular incidents staged by dark networks can cause unpredictability. This can be the direct consequence of sudden and ruthless action, such as large-scale sabotage or a terrorist attack. A new political agenda might have to be formed overnight, leading to swift re-allocation of society’s resources to new tasks. However, unpredictability can also follow indirectly from actions intended to destabilize society. For example, the assassination of prominent politicians can change the political situation in a multiparty democracy from one with a stable majority to one that is vulnerable to decision cycles. It was explained in the previous section that the result of such cycles is that the social outcome cannot be predicted from knowledge of the preferences of the decision-makers. Governments have to fight dark networks. It sounds ominous when Bauman proclaims that ‘‘fluid’ modernity is the epoch of disengagement, elusiveness, facile escape and hopeless chase. In ‘liquid’ modernity, it is the most elusive, those free to move without notice, who rule’ (2000: 120). Since the Al Qaeda attacks on 11

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September 2001, it has become clear that political responses to high-mobility terrorist networks may be so desperate that they threaten the liberal democracy that is to be defended. The US government’s success in fighting international terrorism has so far been modest despite the drastic measures being taken. Some of this is due to the high mobility of the dark networks. The higher the mobility, the less time is needed to travel the links of the network. This means that network members are unlikely to be captured even when the authorities cut a link. Moreover, a well-developed network has many nodes, and the higher mobility, the more difficult it is to know which node is organizing a person’s cover at any given time. Huge amounts of energy are needed to move cargo and large numbers of people around the globe in premier circulation networks. The Al Qaeda attacks are a reminder that the power of the mobile artefacts themselves – in this case the energy of large aircrafts at full speed – can be diverted and used for evil purposes. John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt hold that ‘the rise of networks means that power is migrating to nonstate actors, because they are able to organize into sprawling multiorganizational networks … more readily than can traditional, hierarchical state actors’ (2001: 1). It should be noted that these networks that challenge established power structures are not necessarily dark. Computer-linked social movements – like the transnational network fighting the World Trade Organization – have proved able to strike effectively, as in the ‘Battle of Seattle’ (ibid.: chs 1, 9). Hierarchies have a hard time fighting networks that are large, distributed and composed of individuals linked on a number of sociodemographic dimensions (Carley et al. 2001). Government agencies must therefore reorganize to achieve the flexibility and operational speed required to deal with dark networks. When the dark strikes and the government’s counterstrikes are both organized by high-speed, closed networks, social unpredictability will increase (ibid.: 15).7

The ‘death of distance’ forces planning into non-consequential deontology The three previous sections provided a number of explanations as to why maximum hypermobility erodes the basis for social predictability and thus motivates the search for planning approaches that are not based on forecasts of consequences. Standard transport planning treats expected consequences for the agents as the only thing relevant to the rationality of social acts and choices. In this section, and also the next, we explore the possibilities inherent in alternative approaches based on good intentions and rituals, respectively. It is argued that planning needs to be founded on moral or legal obligations, and that this deontology cannot build its logic on impacts. Under conditions of hypermobility the ability to make social forecasts is severely weakened, and this is a threat to public, consequence-based planning and evaluation.8 General analyses of consequentialism are scarce in the planning literature, although Andreas Faludi (1986: §11.4) provides an exception. More is written on utilitarianism,

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which is a welfarist version of consequentialism that aims at the maximization of overall welfare (Campbell & Marshall 2002). The fundamental philosophical positions guiding social choice in economics are (i) that the net utility (benefits over costs) from the consequences of an action determines whether that action is right or wrong, and (ii) the sense that society is an aggregate of the preferences (utilities) of its individual members. Utilitarianism is the basis for much of what is termed ‘applied economics’, such as cost-benefit analysis, which is a type of consequentialist project evaluation pertaining to society as a whole (MacIntyre 1977; Sen 2000). The weights attributed to the aggregation of the various items are not subjective, but are generated by overall supply and demand in actual markets. Under maximum hypermobility, however, a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis is of course as useless as other approaches based on the calculation of expected future consequences. Even when predictive ability is lacking, consequences can be observed, anticipated or intended. Consequences can only be observed ex post though, and forecasts cannot be deduced from historical observations in conditions of maximum hypermobility, so the first two cases are not relevant to planning in the zero-friction society. The question then becomes whether one can continue with the consequence-based logic of planning under maximum hypermobility by regarding good intentions as the decisive criterion for assessing plans. In Western democracies, the important public planning decisions are made by elected politicians and not by the planning bureaucracy. The reasons for supporting a plan must primarily be found in the intentions of political decision-makers. Leaders therefore do have a motive for stating false preferences. Unfortunately, the Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem of social choice says that every institution recommending one of at least three planning alternatives must be either dictatorial or liable to manipulation when it is based solely on individual preference rankings (Riker 1982: §6B). This theorem becomes vital when those affected by the plan must trust intentions instead of computed impacts, since it implies that no democratic decision rule can eradicate motives for falsifying intentions. The public image of projects, plans and programmes will be determined by the degree of trust in the politicians’ statements of intention (Hardin 1999; Warren 1999). Intentions cannot be observed, so decision-makers will not have to answer for manipulating the public even after having made false statements of intention. Nor can it be verified whether their stated intentions can realistically be fulfilled, as the links between means and ends are severed in the frictionless society where consequences are unpredictable. The empirical data most sought after is that which builds a good reputation rather than that which is used for building forecasting models. As long as trust prevails, anything can be proposed by political, religious or technological saviours. This clears the way for political quackery, and sincerity and accountability suffer as manipulation goes unchallenged. Democracy would therefore tend to deteriorate under intention-oriented consequentionalist policy-making in the zero-friction society. This is a twist on the old dictum that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It can thus be concluded from the above that attempts at maintaining consequencebased planning in the case of hypermobility by basing one’s assessment on stated

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intentions is an approach that serves neither democracy nor welfare maximization. The potential of consequence-based planning is thereby exhausted, and a new foundation for public planning and decision-making has to be found. In consequence-based planning that is guided by cost-benefit analysis, the rule might be to implement the alternative with the highest benefit to cost ratio. The planner might feel an obligation or duty to exploit opportunities for generating utility and to prevent waste of resources by recommending plans in accordance with this rule. The essential new element in planning under maximum hypermobility would therefore not be rule-following or duty-oriented behaviour. What would be new, however, is that the reasons for the rules and the requirement to follow them are not derived from the consequences of the plan. That is, the planning of the zero-friction society requires a non-consequentialist deontology. Standard deontological views maintain that it is sometimes wrong to do what will produce the best available overall outcome. There may be agent-centred restrictions – for instance, human rights – that limit a utilitarian solution. There are also notions of fairness that do not appeal to consequences, but rather to some idea of equal treatment in the planning process and equal opportunities as judged by knowledge available at the time of planning (Sen 1982).9 Non-consequentialist planning paves the way for rule-following decision-making by substituting the logic of the best consequences with the logic of appropriateness, defined independently from impacts. As a guide for action, planners would ask three questions: 1. The question of recognition: What kind of situation is this? 2. The question of identity: What kind of person am I? Or what kind of organization is this? 3. The question of rules: What does a person such as I, or an organization such as this, do in a situation such as this? (March 1994: 58) Thus, the reasoning process under non-consequential deontology is one of establishing identities and matching rules to recognized situations (ibid.). The next section explores how planning might develop ritualistic features when not guided by the quality of consequences.

Non-consequential deontology engenders ritualistic planning The question is now whether public planning can be given a non-consequential foundation. Plans are volition-oriented statements about the future, and they might not be meaningful when effects cannot be predicted. What we want to do usually depends on the anticipated consequences of doing it. It is argued that non-consequential deontology is likely to push planning towards becoming a ritual, and that this would be unfortunate in a pluralistic democracy.

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Social acts can be chosen because they are in line with tradition, religion, prevailing ideology and so on. That is, the social act might have a symbolic meaning in itself that is independent of any reference to consequences. The point of planning in these circumstances would be to strengthen symbolic meaning by public deliberation on which variant of the social act best matches the tradition, religion or ideology. For instance: • Would it be in accordance with, say, Marxist ideology to locate a new cycle path in an old working class neighbourhood or in a new suburb? • How can the project most efficiently be implemented? • What was said about the project in the last local election campaign? Will any political promises be broken by choosing one location rather than the other? • The number of children living in the two locations might be relevant. Should there be a rule compelling bureaucrats to build cycle paths where there are more children exposed to traffic? The consequences of the plan are not at issue here. If consideration of the above questions can nevertheless be regarded as planning, then public planning can take place even in a zero-friction society in which its predictive contents have been dissolved. Public planning usually starts by identifying a problem area, conceived as a sore spot or a tumour on the organism of society. This problem or tumour is delimited and cut away from the surrounding tissue of the body politic to be dissected and analysed. The fragments are manipulated by policy instruments and put on public display in an impact analysis. The experts receive information from many parties while rearranging and developing the fragments to construct new tissue, a new synthesis. If this composition pleases the polity, then it is sutured into the social organism, meaning that the plan is implemented and integrated into the overall policy. Success means bringing the organism to a healthier state, the improvement being measurable as increased welfare levels in the community. Compare Don Handelman’s description of the way many rituals work: ‘The internal processes of rituals often move from conditions of holism – of self, community, health, the human and the transcendent – to their shattering, in order to regenerate a healed self, a new social being, a rejuvenated community, and so forth’ (1997: 387). Non-consequential, ritual planning can adopt this disintegration and reconstitution of holism. Under maximum hypermobility, however, impact analysis – which is the core feature – must be metamorphosed into an analysis of the appropriateness of the proposed policy measures. Rituals might have the potential to serve as surrogate for knowledge-based prediction and planning, as the ritual is often an ‘instrumental action guided by men’s interest in controlling and regulating the world, both the man-made and the natural one’ (Gerholm 1988: 198). This is evident in rituals allegedly ensuring the coming of the rain, the rich harvest and the safe sailing of a ship. The function of a wide range of rituals is to change one kind of being or condition into another. Rituals transform girls into women, war into peace, the profane into the

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sacred, similar to the way public meetings and hearings in the planning process may let outsiders become insiders (Hillier 1995: 3). Planning rituals convert the private and self-serving into something public and legitimate; they change the preview of a hypothetical condition into physical realities deemed appropriate by the community. As Gunnar Olsson says, ‘planning is an ingredient of that ethical glue whereby the is of the past and the ought of the future are bound together’ (1991:19). Handelman draws ‘certain analogies between metalogics of ritual and bureaucracy (in traditional and modern social orders, respectively). These analogies relate to the significance of taxonomy, to systemic organization, and to the deliberate making of planned, directed change’ (1997: 391). Both planning bureaucracies and rituals create realities that profoundly affect people’s everyday lives. Thus, whether in its utilitarian or deontological, non-consequential and ritual form, planning is a strategy for wielding power. The aspects of planning as bureaucratically extending power into the future and as the physical manifestation of values are melded together in Olsson’s rather disparaging confession: I believe planning to be a political and bureaucratic phallus symbol, whereby the present penetrates the future. I believe that to plan is to preserve what now is by transforming fleeting intentions into unyielding stones of physical and institutional structures. Values of the strong today are ontologically metamorphosed into the facts for the weak of tomorrow. (1991: 17) Handelman suggests that ‘if a metalogic of ritual is transformative, mobilizing uncertainty to question the validity of cultural form, this would seem a likely medium for the mobilization of opposition’ (1997: 398). However, any hope of ritualistic planning becoming a vehicle for an open and pluralistic society does not shine through in Olsson’s imagery. Maximum hypermobility would nevertheless open up the future in the sense of diversifying the preferences of our descendants. There might then be room for alternative rituals, breeding less gloomy prospects than presented in the Olsson quotation above. Planning can be thought of as having three main aspects, namely, integration, politics and production (Sager 1994: 39). Standard consequence-based planning accentuates the production aspect and aims mainly to improve material conditions. Non-consequential planning would place emphasis on the integration aspect and aim to strengthen community by espousing the main belief systems of society. Transport planning under maximum hypermobility would then be likely to develop into a ritual, as rituals can easily take on integrative tasks by celebrating common values and exchange relations encouraging mutual commitment. An example is John Friedmann’s (1973) transactive planning, which links experts with laypersons by the exchange of processed and local knowledge. It is an important function of many rituals to address the problem of reliability and trust in social arrangements (Sosis & Alcorta 2003: 267–8). Trust is the essential social capital of decision-makers who recommend specific projects, but who are unable to draw on knowledge-based forecasts to demonstrate the future benefits of the projects.

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To build this capital, planning and choice in the transport sector must take place with due regard for tradition, religion and ideology. When maximization of mobility is not a central element in the social belief system, hypermobility is thus not likely to last. The reason is that projects planned and implemented under non-consequentialism would then usually not have as their goal the satisfying of new mobility needs. Mobility would therefore be reduced in the long run. Non-consequential planning and the zero-friction society are incompatible from a dynamic perspective when high mobility is ideologically peripheral. In this situation, consequence-based planning might gradually become possible again. It must be asked, of course, how the zero-friction society can come about in the first place, unless hypermobility is at the core of the social belief system. Certainly, such a core content is required to support and maintain the frictionless society. Proposals for mobility-improving projects would then proliferate, and the reasons for them would have to be provided (unrelated to consequences). This is where the ritual features of non-consequential planning can help to overcome the problem of trust. The problem is solved most effectively when the ritual invokes the sacred: ‘the bonds forged through secular ritual do not appear to create the long-term trust and commitment achieved by religious ritual’ (ibid.: 268). Taken to the extreme, to sanctify the message that mobility is desirable would be to certify it (Rappaport 1979: 229). Sanctification increases the willingness of recipients of symbolically encoded messages about the mobility imperative to accept these messages as sufficiently authorized to act on (ibid.). An effect of this kind can be obtained even if the imperative of mobility is not sanctified but instead becomes deeply embedded in the prevailing ideology interweaving mobility, modernity, freedom, progress and the good life (Hajer & Kesselring 1999; Sheller & Urry 2003). To the extent that the public and political authorities – the decision-makers – accept the mobility-applauding messages as trustworthy expressions of the popular will, their actions will tend to be non-random and therefore predictable. Strong popular support for public rituals would therefore engender a mix of individual unpredictability and public predictability in the zero-friction society. In fact, the first feature leads to the second, as decision-makers tend to follow simple rules in the face of high uncertainty. The conversion to a non-consequential deontology and ritual planning thus helps to maintain some order in society: ‘That sanctity supports social order is one of anthropology’s most ancient truisms’ (Rappaport 1979: 232). Rituals, themselves shaped by cultural orders, shape the very orders that produce them. However, the planning compelled by maximum hypermobility may not be conducive to democracy. The reason is that ritual does not invite plurality. Ritual is formal, rigidly prescribed action, as Tomas Gerholm (1988: 198) says. ‘There is a compulsory air to it and a definite, correct way of performing it’ (ibid.). The hope for democracy would lie in alternative rituals, with the ambiguities this would create for the development of ritualistic public planning. It has been argued that maximum hypermobility calls for traditional ways of structuring society and creating certainty in the absence of forecasts. The next section shows that unpredictability also brings to the surface a contradiction between aspects of modernism.

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Forecasts spell failure? In essence, the message thus far is that maximum hypermobility causes unpredictability, which can be counteracted by rituals and following rules. However, the revived certainty does not rest on knowledge-based forecasts. It is argued in this section that the modern project of increasing mobility beyond bounds paradoxically threatens the modernist project of providing humans with the knowledge to control their own lives. Predictability entails the possibility of control. As Roger Friedland and Deirdre Boden wrote while Soviet-type socialism was collapsing: ‘Without knowing where people are and being able to keep them there, one-party rule disintegrates. And once goods, information, and people move freely, the system of centralized control must erode’ (1994: 12). Planning and governance have always been a quest for control (Gunsteren 1976), and the gap between consciousness and volition on the one hand and control and power to implement on the other has long been deeply felt: ‘Of all the sorrows that afflict mankind, the bitterest is this, that one should have consciousness of much, but control over nothing’ (Herodotus, quoted by Thiele [1990: 912]). We cannot predict, nor control, the stories of which our own actions are but a part or beginning, while the plot and the ending are determined by our numerous co-authors of the social narratives. In the zero-friction society, this perennial problem threatens to take on disastrous proportions. In that society, neither the quality of consequences nor the will of the people can guide public plans and collective decisions, as argued in previous sections. Counter-measures that can provide a sense of certainty and invulnerability despite the lack of knowledge-based forecasts may lead to the rolling back of modernity, thereby impairing the modernist ideological underpinnings of hypermobility. The reason why modernist ideas are challenged in this context is that two core notions of modernity seem to contradict each other, namely, maximum hypermobility and control over the human condition. The planning of society aims to create structure, while fully realized mobility makes ‘all that is solid melt into air’ (Berman 1988). Rituals and the following of rules, which can give some certainty without knowledge-based forecasts, also serve to distance planning from the project of modernity. Furthermore, even if forecasts were available, they would not be sufficient for the implementation of consequence-based plans. The former Deputy Secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Finance, Per Schreiner, used to state that prediction means defeat. In the true spirit of modernity, he maintained that there should not be much room for forecasts in the planning of society (Schreiner 1971: 25). He believed forecasting implies powerlessness and planners’ refusal to accept responsibility. ‘It conceals the fact that the life and experiences – as well as the future possibilities – of present day man are primarily determined by human actions and decisions’ (ibid.: 26). Modern people should simply decide what they want and go for it. Schreiner’s planning ideology is based on a virtually unlimited belief in the capacity of humans to design their own living conditions. This is a truly modern idea, as noted by Friedland and Boden: ‘As moderns we believe that we can consciously make history, and we

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make it ‘forward’ into the future. Whereas peoples of previous epochs lived a present suffused with the past, moderns inhabit one bursting with the future and with the assumed rational ability to create that future’ (1994: 10). The dictum that ‘forecasts spell failure’ is a confession to this modern optimism, yet it also reveals a certain level of arrogance. It ignores the condition of plurality and conflicting interests, giving rise to Arrow’s impossibility theorem. The planner cannot simply substitute a willed plan for a likely and predicted development, as decisive actors are usually beyond control, while a common will that can be implemented might not exist. Moreover, Schreiner’s maxim underplays the role of knowledge-based forecasts in the formation of preferences for alternative futures. It is now time to sum up the argument. There are mechanisms in utility-maximizing market behaviour, democratic decision-making and network-based crime that generate unpredictability as the result of maximum hypermobility. This is fatal to the modern idea of man as the master of his own destiny. However, an even more radical modern thought (Schreiner) is that reliance on forecasts is tantamount to treason against the modern belief in the autonomy of humans. This notion is articulated in the catchphrase that the best way to predict the future is to invent it. Forecasting should therefore be substituted by planning. A dilemma surfaces, however, as people succeed in fulfilling modern ambitions for the frictionless society: consequence-based planning as well as prediction becomes impossible. We are left with the Doris Day mantra ‘whatever will be will be – que sera sera’. I have suggested in this essay that the predictability threatened by maximum hypermobility can be restored by public planning rituals, countervailing networks of government authorities and private rule-following in line with a non-consequential deontology. However, democracy pays a price for more certainty and non-arbitrary decisions. • It is a democratic right to pursue the options that one thinks are best, that is, to protect one’s own interest. Liberal democracy in the spirit of Jeremy Bentham’s principle of ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest number’ requires utility maximization rather than non-consequential deontology. However, the rule-based behaviour of habit and tradition is what seems to go best with the ritual planning that is likely to emerge as the reliability of prediction withers away. • As long as individual preferences are widely divergent and uncensored, political predictability can only be guaranteed by dictatorship (Arrow 1963). There is a trade-off between the degree of democracy and the likelihood of non-arbitrary policy outcomes. • The countervailing government networks necessary for matching dark networks and monitoring and enforcing law and order will threaten privacy, autonomous action free from state control, liberal values and thus democracy itself (Rorty 2004). Contrary to Schreiner’s belief in mankind’s ability to shape its own living conditions, people experience that ‘life is what happens to you while you are busy planning

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how to live it’. What makes this theme an essential one for planning and social theory is not the obvious fact that we occasionally fail to foresee even first- and second-order impacts of planned actions. It is rather the far stronger claim made by Jean-Paul Sartre (1982: 38–9) that in the dialectic inherent in the interrelations between individuals, the consequences of our actions always finally escape us. For Sartre, unintended consequences figure as an explanatory bridge between the human character of action and the alien character of history. Anthony Giddens (1984) shares the Sartrean insight that the consequences of activities chronically escape their initiators. He uses this to explain the relationships between individual agency and social structure. Under maximum hypermobility, planners cannot forecast individual travel behaviour, so nor can they design rules and institutions modifying this behaviour in prescribed ways. This further dissociates institutions and social structures from individual agency.

Conclusion Sartre contends that forecasts have limited scope and validity in all conditions. Under maximum hypermobility, unanticipated consequences will abound and sever the links between knowledge of the past and grounded statements about the future in matters related to transport. Hypermobility multiplies the number of connections and relationships with the potential to invalidate forecasts, and it engenders freedom of choice to the extent that it makes the modelling of flows out of step with individuals’ own capacity for making the most of their transport/activity opportunities. This essay takes this point to its extreme by contemplating the potential consequences of hypermobility on planning and governance. The hypermobile society is unlikely to be realized unless humankind is prepared to abandon the Enlightenment project of being the creator and master of its own world by acting on knowledge of consequences. Paradoxically, anti-modern rule-following and ritual might follow from the realization of the modern dream of unlimited mobility. That is, maximum hypermobility carries a high price, but there is nothing to make its opposite a better alternative. On the contrary, while mobility is associated with freedom, a lack of mobility is associated with punishment. As Hägerstrand says, ‘society without mobility is unthinkable. To be immobilized is a disaster … for the individual’ (1987: 12). Totalitarianism implies control, and control is more difficult the higher the level of mobility. It is hoped that the conclusions below take the reader beyond the trite affirmation that consequence-based democratic governance requires an intermediate position. • Hypermobility causes problems far beyond congestion, accidents and environmental degradation – more generally, beyond the items on the disadvantages side of standard cost-benefit accounts (Adams 2005). The focus here is on the ways in which minimal friction undermines predictability and thereby the capacity for knowledge-based planning and governance.

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• Realizing the vision of hypermobility destroys the Enlightenment project of humankind creating and governing its own world on the basis of knowledge. Instead, it opens the way for the political organization of society under which the citizenry has to trust intentions that cannot be validated as the only bridge to the future. Statements of preference and purpose will surely be made, but their manipulation cannot be avoided under non-dictatorial rule (the Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem; see Sager 2002). • The reinstalment of consequence-based governance would force the polity to set bounds for the development of modernity. This can be done by restricting movement in order to reintroduce predictability in terms of consequences. Alternatively, the polity may prefer to plan and decide without knowledge of impacts, while nevertheless reintroducing predictability in terms of collective choice. One risky strategy is to follow the decision-maker with ostensibly the best intentions and a good reputation. However, the constituency may be less vulnerable to manipulation by strong individuals when choice is based on ritual, tradition, duty and rights (non-consequentialist values). The trains of thought in this essay are unabashedly explorative. Two final conclusions can nevertheless be drawn with considerable confidence. The first is that ‘the ability to predict’ is a crucial but vulnerable variable that establishes a link between the consequences of high mobility and the function of public planning. The second is that public planning is an important ingredient in the guidance system of a liberal democracy, and that the impacts of maximum hypermobility on prediction and planning will affect the forms of governance.

Notes 1. ‘The Technical Spaces of Mobility’ is the title of a trans-disciplinary research project that was run at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology from 2003 to 2006. The project includes analyses of ethics, sustainability, safety, immigrants, universal design and the man/machine interface, all studied from the perspective of mobility. 2. A revealed measure of mobility is a function of the activity programmes the individuals engage in and must be modelled in the same way as transport. That is, both the factors that generate trips and the things hampering them should be included in the model. Activities and their locations are in the first group, while prices, travel time and other variables causing impediments to travel are in the second. Hence, demand and supply enter symmetrically in the modelling of mobility seen as transport. Revealed mobility is socially produced movement (Cresswell 2001: 20). Average indicators might sometimes be useful, for example, the weekly number of (motorized) trips per individual in the population. One set of measures would be based on the number of journeys, while measures of transport work would take the distance of each journey into account. For instance, Jones (1987) suggests using the following indicators: (i) trip rates, (ii) trip length, and (iii) proportion of the population who are travellers on a given day. 3. The distinction between potential and revealed measures of mobility is a parallel to the difference between having rights and exercising them. Potential travelling is analogous to the notion of rights that do not necessarily have to be exercised (Dowding & van Hees 2003). Obviously, if rights cannot be exercised, then they hardly seem worth the name, just as there is no potential transport unless travelling

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is actually a feasible option. Mobility might even be defined as a right (Houseman 1979), although this issue is not analysed here. 4. According to Hägerstrand, ‘Engineers, industry and the leading actors on the market … have adhered to the simple philosophy that more and more and faster and faster unquestionably made things better and better. In this situation mobility became a goal in itself ’ (1987: 12). If Hägerstrand means more and more transport, I am not convinced that the actors referred to hold this view today. 5. Disjointed incrementalism, which is the planning style most uncompromisingly designed for problem situations permeated with uncertainty, provides a telling example (Sager 1997). The significant discord between competence and difficulty causes the rigidity of incremental choice: always opt for cautious adjustments creating only modest resistance. The recommended ‘satisficing’ strategy is to choose the first incremental adjustment found to be good enough. Deviations from this simple small-step behaviour pattern might be superior in certain situations, but they are ignored because of uncertainty about when to depart from the cautious main procedure. Owing to environmental contingencies and unanticipated interventions from other stakeholders, the planner is not in the position to select a straightforward goal-oriented strategy under disjointed incrementalism. The outcome of the tentative and incremental steps of the process is so hard to foresee that some well-known planning theorists are reluctant to call it planning (Alexander 1986). When maximum hypermobility causes an end to forecasting, even more of the conventional basis of planning disappears and might increase the doubts as to whether the ‘planning’ that remains is really planning. 6. Individual preference formation is complex, and so are the mechanisms determining the planners’ knowledge of private preferences. When asked, individuals often do not state their true preferences, but instead ‘dress them up’ to appear more socially respectable (Kuran 1995). Moreover, by moderating her stated preferences, the individual might be able to join a coalition with the power to realize an outcome closer to her true preferences than she would have accomplished alone. 7. The reorganization from hierarchies to networks will have political consequences. According to JeanMarc Offner, ‘the technical mechanisms of circulation (of individuals, goods, capital and information) favor the organization of territories into networks, weakening local governments’ capacity for policymaking and control since their power is confined within the administrative boundaries permeable by the flows. The deregulation of networked public services accentuates the political institutions’ loss of domination’ (2000: 173). Hence, an effective response to the threat of dark networks reduces the ability of each territorial authority to design its own policies. 8 In the present essay, consequentialism is given a broad definition synonymous with consequence-based evaluation. Sen distinguishes the broad term ‘consequence-based evaluation’ from consequentialism, understood as the special case of consequence-based evaluation in which the outcome morality is evaluator neutral (1982: 30). Scheffler explains that: Such theories first specify some principle for ranking overall states of affairs from best to worst from an impersonal point of view. In other words, the rankings generated by the designated principle are not agent-relative; they do not vary from person to person, depending on what one’s particular situation is. For they do not embody judgements about which overall states of affairs are best for particular individuals, but rather judgements about which states of affairs are best, all things considered, from an impartial standpoint. After giving some principle for generating such rankings, act-consequentialists then require that each agent in all cases act in such a way as to produce the highest-ranked state of affairs that he is in a position to produce. (1994: 1) 9. People’s rights can be violated both in the planning process and by the consequences of the plan. Focusing on rights is therefore no guarantee of avoiding the problems following from maximum hypermobility and unpredictability. Planners might recommend the collective action that involves the least violation of individual rights. This would involve treating the violation of rights as a consequence to be minimized by action. However, ‘most rights-based theories do not see rights-fulfilment as a consequence to be maximized by action, but as an absolute constraint on action’ (Elster 1992: 210).

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3 ‘Green’ attitudes and sustainable household consumption of energy and transport: six conditions that improve attitude–behaviour consistency Erling Holden

Introduction One of the least comfortable themes [of sustainable development] is sustainable consumption. Taken seriously, it is likely to require major changes in the lifestyles of those living in most developed countries – something that none of us finds easy. (Sir Aaron Klug, President of the Royal Society, in Heap & Kent 2000: iii) In Agenda 21 – the action plan from the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 – sustainable consumption was presented as a major challenge for achieving sustainable development: ‘the major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in industrialized countries, which is a matter of grave concern, aggravating poverty and imbalance’ (UN 1992: §4.3). Agenda 21 addresses both consumption and production, which are closely linked. Indeed, it is impossible to imagine the one without the other. This essay focuses on consumption.1 What is sustainable consumption? The term ‘sustainable consumption’ is defined along the lines of the World Commission on Energy and Development’s definition for sustainable development as ‘the use of goods and services that responds to basic needs and brings a better quality of life, while minimising the use of natural resources and toxic materials, and emissions of waste and pollutants over the life-cycle, so as not to jeopardise the needs of future generations’ (Norwegian Ministry of Environment 1994). This definition puts forward two important dimensions of sustainability: the social dimension (e.g. equity and distributional considerations) and the environmental dimension (e.g. natural resources, pollutants and waste). In this essay, the term ‘sustainable consumption’ refers primarily to environmentally sustainable consumption.

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There are three main strategies for achieving sustainable consumption: efficiency, substitution and reduction (Holden 2001). The first strategy stresses that developing new and more efficient technology is a prerequisite for sustainable consumption. The second strategy advocates changes in consumption patterns in order to reach the goal of sustainable consumption. The third strategy emphasizes the necessity of reversing high and increasing levels of consumption. Agenda 21 urges that values and attitudes that support sustainable consumption must be reinforced: ‘Governments and private-sector organizations should promote more positive attitudes towards sustainable consumption through education, public awareness programmes and other means’ (UN 1992: §4.26). Whichever of the three strategies is preferred, it is unthinkable to proceed without some kind of willing participation of consumers. It is consumers who will choose to purchase new and more efficient technology, voluntarily make the shift towards more sustainable consumption patterns and elect to make reductions in consumption volume. Thus, this essay hypothesizes that high environmental awareness and positive attitudes towards sustainable development are necessary conditions for achieving sustainable consumption in industrialized countries. Nevertheless, when promoting sustainable consumption strategies it is important to acknowledge other conditions in addition to attitudes and awareness. Such conditions include economic incentives (e.g. taxes and subsidies), regulations (e.g. laws and standards) and physical infrastructures (e.g. public transport systems and urban form). These are all conditions that either constrain or enable behaviour, and subsequently consumption. However, conditions must be based on policies that are supported by most consumers. Thus, consumers are called on not only to promote sustainable consumption through their daily behaviour, but also – as voters – to actively support necessary changes in national policy (Thøgersen 1999). Furthermore, even in cases where regulatory measures have been implemented, there is almost always some degree of freedom of choice left to the individual consumer. Therefore, achieving sustainable consumption ultimately depends on choices taken by individual consumers (ibid.). According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), changing unsustainable household consumption patterns is crucial to achieving the goal of sustainable development in OECD countries (OECD 2002). Analyses show that environmental impacts from household activities have worsened over the past three decades, and are expected to worsen further over the next twenty years (ibid.). Thus, ‘household consumption’ is a key concept in this context. A number of studies underscore three distinct consumption categories as the major problem areas: housing, transport and food (Hille 1995; Holden 2001; Lorek & Spangenberg 2001; Aall & Norland, 2002). These three categories account for as much as 80 per cent of the direct and indirect environmental impacts caused by households.2 Therefore, any discussion about sustainable consumption must address these consumption categories. This essay focuses on energy use for heating and operating homes, and for transport. Transport is split into two categories: everyday travel (using all means of transport)

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‘GREEN’ ATTITUDES AND SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION OF ENERGY AND TRANSPORT and long-distance, leisure-time travel (by car and plane). Thus, four energy consumption categories are examined: (i) energy use for heating and operating a home; (ii) everyday travel; (iii) long-distance leisure-time travel by car; and (iv) long-distance leisure-time travel by plane. Throughout the essay, these four energy consumption categories are referred to as ‘household consumption’. Thus, the main purpose of this essay is to impart empirical knowledge regarding how individual attitudes towards environmental issues translate into household consumption. This knowledge is vital for assessing the relationship between environmental attitudes and sustainable consumption. The empirical data in this essay are based on a survey of 941 households in Greater Oslo (Holden & Norland 2004). The following issues are discussed: • Is there a connection between attitudes and household consumption? That is, do attitudes direct household consumption? • When is there a connection between attitudes and household consumption? That is, under what conditions do attitudes direct household consumption? • How can attitudes direct changes in household consumption practices? That is, which processes lead to attitude-consumption consistency? Two important factors should be stressed at this point. First, the data are analysed using multiple regression. While this approach shows relationships and patterns in the empirical material, it does not necessarily reveal the causal mechanisms involved. Finding statistical correlations between various variables is different from giving an adequate explanation to the phenomena in question. In order to understand and explain the patterns in the data, the quantitative regression analyses must be supplemented by qualitative investigations. Secondly, the survey conducted in Greater Oslo is a cross-section analysis. This research design shows correlations and patterns between variables at a fixed time. Indeed, the relationship between attitudes and behaviour is a volatile one and subject to change over time. Investigating attitude change and the relationship between attitudes and consumption over time requires a panel survey. Thus, both qualitative investigations (to reveal causal mechanisms) and a panel survey (to study change over time) would be interesting follow-up approaches to this study. In this book’s introduction, Sigurd Bergman points out the fact that our actions, in spite of our intentions and high principles, in many instances lead to consequences that we do not perceive to be proper or desirable. He quoted St Paul, ‘The good I want to do, I do not, but the evil I do not want to do, that I do’ (Romans 7:19), and this is a good description of the dilemma. Basically, this essay is occupied with a similar topic. First: do green people do the things they want to do, or at least what they say they want to do? And secondly: how is it possible to make people do the good they want to do, and not the evil they do not want to do? The next section is a discussion of recent developments in attitude theory, and in the next the methodological approach for the empirical investigations is described. The results from the analyses are presented in later sections, and the last explores some implications of the findings for public policy.

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Attitude theory The study of attitudes has gained its status in social psychological research and theory for several reasons. First, attitudes are thought to serve certain psychological functions for the individuals who hold them (Pieters 1988). Thus, one of the main functions served by attitudes is that of organizing and structuring a rather chaotic world. Secondly, and most importantly for the purpose of this essay, attitudes are thought to direct and thus to explain and predict behaviour (Fishbein & Ajzen 1975). At least two research approaches can be distinguished in the study of attitudes (Pieters 1988). First, much attention has been focused on the question of attitude– behaviour consistency. If attitudes do not direct, or at least precede behaviour, then one of the elements of the utility of the attitude concept would be missing. Secondly, behaviour change via attitude change has been and still is a prominent research approach. Both of these approaches will be addressed here. The main focus will, however, be on the question of attitude–behaviour consistency. A large number of empirical studies have made it clear that orally expressed attitudes do not usually correlate highly with overt behaviour (LaPiere 1934; Wicker 1969; Ronis et al. 1989). The problem of attitude–behaviour inconsistency has also been analysed in studies of environmentally responsible consumption (Thøgersen 1999). John Thøgersen suggests that inconsistencies between expressed attitudes and actual behaviour have a number of negative consequences. First, they reduce the usefulness of attitude research in the environmental field. Why bother to study attitudes if they have no effect? Secondly, and more seriously, they reduce the producer’s faith in the economic defensibility of developing environmentally friendlier products and services. Why bother to spend money to produce environmentally friendly products if nobody buys them? Finally, inconsistencies between expressed attitudes and actual behaviour reduce the effectiveness of political interventions. Why should government bother to issue public information or launch awareness campaigns if it is impossible to predict the consequences of these interventions? According to Rik Pieters (1988), a simple study of the attitude–behaviour relationship is an example of what can be called the first generation of research questions on attitude–behaviour consistency: the ‘is’ questions. The second generation of research questions deals with the conditions under which attitude–behaviour consistency can be observed. Such questions can be called the ‘when’ questions. Russell Fazio and Mark Zanna (1981) stress the importance of such questions, recommending that rather than asking whether attitudes relate to behaviour, one should ask ‘under what conditions do what kinds of attitudes of what kinds of individuals predict what kinds of behaviour’ (1981: 165)? The third generation of research questions deals with the variables and processes that moderate the relationship between attitude and behaviour. These questions can be called the ‘how’ questions. In this essay, the relationship between attitudes and behaviour is discussed in some detail. What exactly is an attitude? What characterizes behaviour? Theorists have been generous in providing us with definitions and conceptualizations of attitudes. Reviewing the literature on attitudes and opinions, Martin Fishbein and Icek

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‘GREEN’ ATTITUDES AND SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION OF ENERGY AND TRANSPORT Ajzen (1972) compiled 500 different operational definitions of what an attitude is. They noted that in some studies even several definitions were used. According to David Ronis et al. (1989), the term ‘attitude’ is defined in one of two ways. Either attitude is defined as a predisposition to behave in a certain way, or the relevant behaviour is defined as one component of the attitude itself. The latter suggests that an attitude consists of several components. In the tripartite model, a model that was popular in the 1950s and 1960s, attitudes were assumed to consist of three parts: cognitive (knowledge), affective (feeling) and conative (disposition, behaviour). Despite the tripartite model’s popularity in textbooks and reviews of attitude literature, the bulk of attitude research and theory focused on the affective component of attitudes (Ostrom 1969). Present-day research also focuses on the affective component (Pieters 1988). Thus, the term ‘attitude’ will be used here, in keeping with the definition used by most theorists, to refer to a positive or negative feeling towards a specific behaviour.3 Not much will be said here about the conceptualization and definition of behaviour. However, one important point will be made that has implications for promoting sustainable consumption. Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) explain that when studying behaviour, four specification elements can be distinguished: (i) the action; (ii) the target at which the action is directed; (iii) the context in which the action is performed; and (iv) the time at which the action is performed. On the basis of these elements, Pieters (1988) recognizes two types of behaviour: single acts and behaviour within categories. A single act is a specific behaviour where all four specification elements are present. A behaviour category is a set of single acts that are similar in at least one specification element, usually the target. Buying a water-saving showerhead is a single act. This single act can be an element of the behaviour category ‘energy saving’, to which other single acts belong, such as turning off lights when leaving a room. In this behaviour category, all single acts are aimed at the same target: saving energy. This essay focuses on sustainable household consumption, which must be considered a broad behaviour category. The four energy consumption categories can be looked on as behavioural sub-categories, each covering a large number of possible single acts.

Inconsistency in attitude and behaviour Recent failures to understand the relationship between attitudes and behaviour fall into three main categories (Pieters 1988; Ronis et al. 1989; Thøgersen 1999): (i) using incorrect measurement methodology; (ii) not taking into account other determinants of behaviour; and (iii) not taking into account processes or factors that moderate the attitude–behaviour relationship.4 The first two categories are discussed first, because they function as guidelines for the empirical investigations. The third category will be discussed at the end of the essay.

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Incorrect measurement methodology In the phrase ‘attitude towards sustainable consumption’, only the action element is defined. In the phrase ‘attitudes towards taking the bus to work on Monday mornings in order to contribute to sustainable consumption’, all four specification elements are defined. Taking into account the correspondence between the levels of specification, Ajzen and Fishbein (1977) studied attitude–behaviour consistency. They examined 109 studies, which reported a total of 142 attitude–behaviour relationships. The four specification elements (action, target, context and time) comprising attitude and behaviour entities were taken as starting-points. They tested the hypothesis that attitude–behaviour consistency can be established when measurements of attitude correspond in specification elements to measurements of behaviour. Thus a specific attitude was expected to predict a single act, while a global attitude was expected to predict global behaviour. The results confirmed the hypothesis. When attitudes and behaviour corresponded in specification elements, ‘significant attitude-behaviour relations of considerable magnitude were found’ (Pieters 1988: 172). This implies that the application of Fishbein’s and Ajzen’s principle of correspondence radically improves the correlation between attitude and behaviour. A review of attitude–behaviour consistency in the environmental domain gives further support for this hypothesis (Moisander & Uusitalo 1994). According to the authors, attempting to explain a specific action in a specific context at a specific time with a general measurement of environmental attitude is a typical, and frequent, example of incorrect specification. Thøgersen (1999) shows that broader attitudes towards environmental issues are of little help in predicting specific actions on the issues. This does not imply, however, that broader attitudes are unimportant. Citing basic principles of action identification as defined by Robin Vallacher and Daniel Wegner (1987), Thøgersen suggests that ‘a seemingly heterogeneous bunch of visible acts share a common identity in the mind of an actor’ (1999: 10). Hence, studying attitudes towards environmental issues with the development of changing strategies for given behaviour categories in mind is indeed meaningful. When deciding which option to choose from available action alternatives within a behaviour category, however, people choose the one(s) they find most appropriate under the given circumstances. Hence, the general attitude towards sustainable household consumption is not very predictive of specific actions within that behaviour category (Thøgersen 1999). Other determinants of behaviour The reasoned action (RA) theory, developed by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975), is a suitable starting-point for discussing other determinants of behaviour. They argued that most behaviour of interest to social scientists is voluntary. Thus, behaviour can be predicted by analysing intentions. In RA theory, a behavioural intention is the weighted sum of an individual determinant of behaviour (i.e. the individual attitude towards performing the behaviour under study) and a social component (i.e. the subjective norm). Thus, the theory specifies the relationships between attitudes, social norms, intentions and behaviour.

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‘GREEN’ ATTITUDES AND SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION OF ENERGY AND TRANSPORT However, some scholars argue that most environmentally sensitive behaviour is not completely voluntary (Stern & Oskamp 1987; Pieters 1988; Thøgersen 1999). They assert that it is therefore incorrect to assume that intention is the sole determinant of behaviour. At the other extreme, however, one finds the economists Bruno Frey and Klaus Foppa (1986). They believe that human behaviour is first and foremost determined by constraints that limit the set of possible actions. Thus, no or very limited choice is left to the individual. A growing number of scholars, however, seem most comfortable in the middle ground between these two extremes (Ölander & Thøgersen 1995). They assert that most behaviour contains some degree of volitional elements. This essay pays special attention to the influence of motivational factors and opportunity/ability determinants on household consumption (ibid.5). Motivational factors include attitudes, personal norms and social norms. Opportunity and ability determinants consist of two groups of factors: (i) land-use characteristics (the design of the house and location of the residential area); and (ii) socioeconomic and sociodemographic conditions. A number of studies have shown that both the design and location of a dwelling, and the socioeconomic and sociodemographic characteristics of the people who live in it, influence household consumption.6 Both groups of factors/determinants (design and locations, and socioeconomic and sociodemographic conditions) are included in the empirical investigations and are described in detail in the section ‘Methodology’. Habit is not included as a specific factor in the empirical investigations, but the importance of habit is discussed in the section ‘How can attitudes guide sustainable household consumption?’. Figure 1 illustrates the hypothetical causal relationships between motivational factors, opportunities, abilities and household consumption.

Land use characteristics: the design of the house and location of the residential area (opportunities)

Attitudes and norms (motivation)

Household consumption (behaviour)

Environmental demands (energy use)

Socioeconomic and sociodemographic conditions (abilities)

Figure 1. Relationships between attitudes, land-use characteristics, and socioeconomic and sociodemographic factors (independent variables), and household consumption and environmental impacts (dependent variables).

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Methodology The sampling of respondents was limited to eight residential areas within the Greater Oslo region. In contrast to analyses based on surveys of entire cities and whole metropolitan regions, this approach allows for better control of key contextual factors, such as local density, access to public transport and sociodemographic characteristics. This approach also enables a more detailed discussion of the possible effects of attitudes on household consumption when different contexts are considered. The eight areas cover both areas that consist of single-family houses on the urban fringe and areas that are characterized by multi-family housing in the city centre. Questionnaires were sent during March and April 2003, to 2,500 randomly selected individuals over the age of 17. An average of 120 respondents per area answered the questionnaires, a response rate of 40 per cent. The questions concerned the individual’s and the household’s consumption of energy and transport, as well as family structure, income and housing facilities. Both bivariate correlation analyses and multiple regression analyses were employed. However, bivariate correlation analysis yields a number that gives an immediate picture of how closely two variables correlate. Even though a correlation might establish that two variables actually have a linked relationship, no claim can be made that this necessarily indicates cause and effect (Wonnacott & Wonnacott 1990). Furthermore, the correlation might be spurious. To establish whether there is a causal relationship between variables, the effects of confounding variables (i.e. other determinants) must be allowed for. This is done by multiple regression analyses. Thus, in this study, the bivariate correlation analyses deal with the ‘is’ questions, while multiple regression analyses deal with the ‘when’ questions. When dealing with the ‘how’ questions, a synthesis of the empirical analyses and other knowledge in this field has been employed.

The dependent variables Household consumption includes consumption of energy for housing, everyday travel and long-distance leisure-time travel by plane and car. All data are taken from the questionnaire.7 All household consumption data are converted into yearly energy use per household member. Energy use correlates with a large number of different environmental issues (e.g. emissions of greenhouse gases, substances that cause health problems and damage to buildings, and emissions that cause acidification), and is therefore a good indicator of environmental impacts (Holden & Norland 2004).8

The independent variables Data regarding land-use characteristics are divided into two groups. Data in the first group are related to physical–structural characteristics of the house, including type of

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‘GREEN’ ATTITUDES AND SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION OF ENERGY AND TRANSPORT housing,9 size, age and access to a private garden. Data are taken from the questionnaire. Data in the second group are related to physical and structural characteristics of the residential areas, including location (distance from the house to the city centre and nearest sub-centre), housing density (number of houses per decare) and local land mix (the percentage of developed area that is used for housing within a residential area). Data are taken from national and local data sources and maps. Socioeconomic and sociodemographic factors of the household include the respondent’s sex, age, education, occupation and income, as well as the household’s income, car ownership and access to a private holiday house. Data are taken from the questionnaire. Attitudes are measured at different levels, reflecting whether an attitude is directed towards a higher level of generality (household consumption as a behaviour category) or whether it is directed towards specific acts within a category (e.g. everyday travel). At the same time, attitude levels reflect to what extent social and personal norms are internalized by an individual. Four attitude levels are identified. Membership in Norway’s Environmental Home Guard (NEHG) has been used as a measurement of attitude at the highest level of generality and internalization of social and personal norms. Since its launch in October 1991, the NEHG has developed into the major green consumer’s network in Norway. More than 100,000 people have joined the movement and have committed themselves to changing their everyday behaviour and consumption habits. The NEHG activities aim to achieve important environmental goals, including reduced use of natural resources and environmentally harmful substances, reduced energy consumption and reduced waste production. To achieve these goals, the NEHG focuses on two major types of change: (i) a general reduction in the level of consumption; and (ii) changes in consumption patterns towards more environmentally friendly alternatives, regarding both products and services. Thus, members of the NEHG are assumed to have highly positive attitudes towards environmental issues both in general and related to specific consumption practices. They are, through their commitment to the organization’s goals, assumed to have internalized the social norms of both the organization and its members. Furthermore, group members are assumed to value personal norms related to a moral obligation to act in an environmentally responsible way. The sample includes 133 responses by NEHG members who are scattered throughout the eight residential areas. At the second attitude level, respondents were asked whether they were registered members in one or more environmental organizations other than the NEHG. In this study, it is assumed that being a member of an environmental organization is an expression of a positive attitude towards environmental issues in general. Furthermore, it is assumed that membership is motivated by both a social and a personal norm to comply with the requirements of environmentally responsible behaviour. The third and fourth attitude levels have been analysed using a Likert Scale. Using the Likert Scale, attitudes were measured by whether a respondent expresses agreement or disagreement with statements (scale items) on household consumption. To measure correspondence between attitudes and behaviour, two attitude measurements were established. Six statements that relate to different aspects of household consumption were used to measure general attitudes. Only statements that specifically

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concern the household consumption category in question were included when measuring specific attitudes. This approach makes it possible to investigate the relationship between household consumption and both general and specific attitudes. Throughout this essay, respondents who are members of the NEHG or other environmental organization are called ‘green’ household members. Also, individuals with a high score on the index-based attitudes are called ‘green’, whereas non-members and individuals with a low score on the index-based attitudes are called ‘ordinary’ people.

Is there a relationship between attitudes and household consumption? The following three sections present the results from the analyses. The presentation is in accordance with the ‘is’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ questions outlined in the Introduction. Figure 2 illustrates the ‘is’ question by showing the relationship between attitudes, as measured by membership in NEHG or any other environmental organization, and energy use for household consumption. Among the four groups in the figure, the difference in average yearly energy consumption per household member is not large. For example, the high-energy group consumes only 5 per cent more energy than the low-energy group. Members of an environmental organization (NEHG or other) have higher energy consumption than non-members. This is certainly surprising, given the NEHG’s commitment to the goal of ‘a general reduction in the level of consumption’. Figure 2 does not show the measurement of the two index-based attitude levels. Nor does it show whether the differ-

Figure 2. Household consumption of members versus non-members of NEHG, and members versus nonmembers of all environmental organizations. All numbers in the figure are given as kWh/year/household member (N = 445).

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‘GREEN’ ATTITUDES AND SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION OF ENERGY AND TRANSPORT Table 1. Pearson’s correlation coefficients: household consumption (kWh/year/household member) and attitude levels. Energy consumption levels that exceed extreme values (SPSS 1998: 41) are omitted from the analyses.

Attitude-level The NEHG (a) Environmental organization (b) General attitude (c) Specific attitude (d)

Energy use for Energy use for Total energy Energy use for Energy use for leisure travel leisure travel for household housing everyday travel by plane by car consumption (N = 528–46) (N = 679–702) (N = 815–50) (N = 777–810) (N = 413–22) –0.010 –0.033 0.069 * 0.037 0.057 0.000 –0.078 * 0.090 ** 0.017 0.026 –0.106 * –0.015

–0.164 ** –0.287 **

0.039 –0.005

–0.038 –0.009

–0.025 –

* /** Correlation is significant at the 0.05 /0.01 level (two-tailed). (a) NEHG= Norway’s Environmental Home Guard. Non-member of NEHG=0; Member of NEHG=1. (b) Non-member of an Environmental Organisation=0; Member of an Environmental Organisation=1. (c) General attitude towards household consumption. Ranges from very negative attitude (low score) to very positive attitude (high score). (d) Specific attitude towards the specific consumption category in question. Ranges from very negative attitude (low score) to very positive attitude (high score).

ences indicated in the figure are statistically significant. Therefore, bivariate correlation analyses have been carried out in order to investigate the relationship between household consumption and the four attitude levels. The bivariate analyses allow the further exploration of the question: is there a relationship between attitudes (measured at various levels) and household consumption? The results are shown in Table 1. Three conclusions can be drawn from the bivariate analyses. First, there are only small differences between the total household consumption of green individuals and that of ordinary individuals. To the extent that there are differences, they do not reflect well on the green individuals. In fact, the results confirm that green individuals use more energy than other people. Secondly, a high score in the measurement of an index-based attitude is a better indicator than membership in an environmental organization of lower energy consumption. Thirdly, although green individuals are more environmentally responsible in their everyday lives, they nevertheless cast aside their environmental concerns when travelling for leisure. However, as already described, the bivariate correlation analyses yield a number that gives an immediate picture of how closely two variables relate to each other. To further investigate the relationship between attitudes, other determinants and household consumption, multiple regressions are needed. This is the topic in the next section.

When is there a relationship between attitudes and household consumption? The multiple regression analyses reveal the extent to which the identified correlations between attitudes and consumption are spurious. Four regressions have been run for 69

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each household consumption category, in order to measure the influence of each of the four attitude levels. Annual energy use per household member was used as the dependent variable. In this essay, ‘significant’ refers to ‘statistically significant at the 5 per cent significance level’. The analyses show that a number of other determinants have a significant effect on household consumption. The significance levels for land-use characteristics, and for socioeconomic and sociodemographic conditions are given by Erling Holden and Ingrid Norland (2004). The answer to the ‘when’ question seems to be ‘never’. Significant relationships between attitude and consumption were few. Nevertheless, some interesting relationships between attitudes and consumption do appear. First, specific attitudes directed towards specific acts are by far the best predictors of sustainable household consumption. The literature provides a theoretical basis for believing that specific attitudes are negatively related to the specific consumption in question (Moisander & Uusitalo 1994; Thøgersen 1999). The negative regression coefficient and the (admittedly weaker than one would like) statistical evidence confirm this belief. General attitudes are not, as suggested in the literature, strongly related to specific household consumption. Thus, the analyses confirm that it is a mistake to use general attitudes to explain or predict specific acts. Secondly, membership in neither NEHG nor any other environmental organization seems to be a good predictor of sustainable household consumption. Rather, our material suggests the opposite. Membership is positively related to both total household consumption and specific consumption (except energy for housing). The relationship between membership in an environmental organization and the energy used on travel by plane is particularly strong. Thus, the multivariate regression analyses give further support to the idea that strongly committed individuals cast aside their green concern when travelling for leisure. At least this seems to be the case when they are travelling by plane. Thirdly, the two points above imply that index-based attitudes are better predictors of sustainable consumption than is membership in an environmental organization. This is particularly the case when the attitude is directed towards a specific act. Simply stated, if the goal is changing consumption patterns, it is more effective to strengthen people’s attitudes towards specific consumption than it is to encourage them to join an environmental organization. Fourthly, total household energy consumption is not significantly affected by attitudes. However, it should be noted that the regression coefficients are positive, which implies that green households have the highest total energy consumption.

How can attitudes guide sustainable household consumption? So far the ‘is’ and ‘when’ questions have been answered. Now the ‘how’ questions will be discussed. How can attitudes guide sustainable household consumption? Six possible ways to arrive at an answer are given below.

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‘GREEN’ ATTITUDES AND SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION OF ENERGY AND TRANSPORT 1. Specific attitudes towards environmental issues It is important to use specific attitudes towards the behaviour in question. The empirical investigations show that, to some extent, specific attitudes guide the behaviour that corresponds to the attitude. This is in line with previous research (Moisander & Uusitalo 1994). The consistency between specific attitudes and behaviour is particularly strong for everyday travel. Regarding energy use for housing and leisure travel, attitudes show a weaker correspondence to behaviour than is the case for everyday travel. This is not surprising. In the study individual attitudes have been measured, while in fact most of the consumption categories represent collective behaviour. Household consumption represents a continuous bargaining process between the members of the household (Kirchler 1988). This is especially true for decisions related to energy use for housing, and decisions related to leisure-time travel (ibid.). Thus, a green individual’s commitment to environmentally responsible behaviour in such matters might not be translated into corresponding behaviour if the not-so-green members of the same household overrule the green individual. On the other hand, one’s decision regarding everyday travel is, to a larger extent, an individual decision (ibid.). Therefore, greater consistency between attitudes and behaviour was found in this particular area. In order to understand a household’s bargaining processes and the correspondence between ‘household attitude’ and household consumption, however, further research is needed. 2. Everyday life Attitudes are a better predictor of sustainable household consumption in everyday life than in leisure time. For most green individuals, environmental problems related to leisure time activities do not seem to be of great concern. There is a plausible explanation for this, however. The relationships between attitudes and household consumption were studied using in-depth interviews of Norwegian households (Holden 2001). The study showed that while green individuals strive to act in an environmentally responsible manner in their everyday lives, they seem to have a corresponding need to cast aside their environmental concerns when travelling for leisure. They seem to feel that they do their fair share for the environment in their non-leisure time, and that they therefore should not have to continue behaving in an environmentally responsible manner during their leisure time. It should be noted, however, that many green individuals simply do not seem to be aware of the environmental consequences of their leisure-time travel. Thus, providing information to them about the actual negative consequences of their leisure-time travel might eventually result in an increase in their attitude–behaviour consistency in this area. 3. Membership in environmental organizations Membership in an environmental organization does not ensure sustainable household consumption. While most people join environmental organizations with the intent of promoting a more sustainable household consumption pattern, this simply does not happen. This is, indeed, quite surprising. How can it be explained? The key is found

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by looking at the variables that moderate the attitude–behaviour relationship. On one hand, there are variables that positively moderate attitude–behaviour consistency. On the other, unfortunately one might say, there are variables that negatively moderate attitude–behaviour consistency. According to Pieters (1988), involvement moderates the relationship between attitudes and behaviour. Attitudes formed under high involvement predict subsequent behaviour better than attitudes formed under low involvement. ‘Involvement’ generally refers to the personal relevance of an object, issue or situation. Environmental issues are likely to be important to people who are registered members of an environmental organization. Furthermore, members are supposed to be in a state of high selfawareness related to the environmental consequences of their behaviour. According to self-awareness theory, it is difficult for one to psychologically dissociate one’s attitudes and attitude-relevant behaviour when one is in a state of self-awareness (ibid.). Conditions that lead to self-awareness (e.g. being a member of an environmental organization), lead to greater awareness of inconsistencies between attitudes and behaviour, and thus increase attitude–behaviour consistency. Thus, members are (i) involved and at the same time (ii) in a state of self-awareness. These two variables should, therefore, guide sustainable consumption. And they probably would, were it not for the fact that other variables counteract the influence of involvement and self-awareness. One such variable has already been touched on. Members of environmental organizations might easily feel that they have done their fair share. They buy organic food, recycle their garbage and compost their organic waste in the garden, and therefore may feel that they have done enough. Another variable is self-monitoring. The tendency to engage in self-presentation (i.e. presenting oneself as green by referring to one’s membership in an environmental organization) is called ‘self-monitoring’. Individuals that self-monitor themselves to a high degree are particularly sensitive to the opinions of others. They are concerned about the social appropriateness of their actions. Thus, self-monitoring individuals can be expected to show low attitude–behaviour consistency.10 Folke Ölander and John Thøgersen (1995) present a third variable that explains why members of environmental organizations do not behave in as environmentally responsible a manner as might be expected. Within the household energy consumption category, there are several actions that can be taken. To a greater or lesser degree, all these actions contribute to sustainable household consumption. One can chose the action(s) most appropriate to one’s circumstances: take the bus, walk, cycle or buy an energy-efficient car. However, it is possible that being a member of an environmental organization is considered to be an environmentally friendly act in itself. This perspective suggests that rather than being considered as an expression of an attitude, membership is considered to be an environmentally friendly action. Taken together, the moderating variables presented above appear to weaken the attitude–behaviour consistency of members of environmental organizations. Thus, in order to promote sustainable consumption, it is more effective to directly strengthen specific attitudes towards specific consumption than it is to persuade individuals to

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‘GREEN’ ATTITUDES AND SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION OF ENERGY AND TRANSPORT join environmental organizations. Further research is needed, however, to understand why people join environmental organizations. Why do they become members? What are their motives? Do they consider membership to be environmentally friendly in itself? Does membership represent a way to transfer responsibility for acting in an environmentally responsible manner from the individual to the environmental organization? 4. Habit A discrepancy between what individuals intend to do and what they actually do may be due to ‘the force of habit’ (Fishbein & Ajzen 1975: 371). Heating the house, taking a shower, using electrical appliances and driving to and from work are repeated actions. According to Ronis et al. (1989), most repeated actions are in fact habitual. Thus, in order to promote sustainable household consumption, understanding habits is important.11 Repeated behaviour is characterized by at least two stages: initiation and persistence (ibid.). The factors that determine persistence may be different from those that determine the initiation of the behaviour. Thus, reasons for performing repeated behaviour are likely to differ from and at the same time be more complex than reasons for performing non-repeated behaviour. According to Ronis et al. (ibid.), the repetition of behaviour is often determined by habits rather than attitudes and beliefs. On the other hand, attitudes and beliefs are important in the initiation of such behaviour. Thus, unsustainable household consumption patterns may be largely determined by habits rather than by attitudinal variables. Furthermore, even though attitudes might have been important when initiating a habit, attitudes and behaviour can easily diverge after the behaviour becomes habitual (ibid.). When behaviour becomes habitual, it is relatively autonomous and independent of attitudes and beliefs. Thus, attitude change can occur without a corresponding change in behaviour, leading to attitude–behaviour inconsistency. If a person has developed a car-dependent habit prior to experiencing a new and more positive attitude towards environmental issues, his new attitude might not influence his travel habit. Attempts to eliminate bad (and unsustainable) habits often combine two approaches (ibid.). The indirect approach involves changing one’s lifestyle to avoid situations associated with the habitual behaviour. A person who moves into a flat near a public transport node in a densely developed area, and at the same time sells his car, has chosen an effective indirect strategy for reducing energy use for housing and transport. This approach is not always enough, however, so it is also necessary for the individual to take the direct approach, that is, to suppress the behaviour in the contexts strongly associated with it. Even in a small flat there are considerable opportunities for people to influence energy use. A number of studies have shown that energy use in similar types of housing can vary by a factor of up to five (Næss 1997). 5. Attitude accessibility, direct experience and attitude strength Attitude accessibility (Pieters 1988), direct experience (Ajzen 1996) and attitude strength (Petty & Krosnick 1995) are three variables that moderate the relationship

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between attitude and behaviour. Furthermore, these three variables interact and therefore influence each other. Direct experience makes stronger attitudes and consequently makes the attitudes more accessible when an act is to be performed (ibid.). This process, that is, the interaction between moderating variables, leads to greater attitude–behaviour consistency. An example from empirical investigations of everyday travel patterns shows how this process works. People living in densely developed areas have more direct experiences in two ways. First, they are exposed to higher levels of pollution due to heavy traffic and high emission levels. This gives them a direct experience with environmental issues. In more sparsely developed areas, people are not exposed to this problem to the same extent. Furthermore, in densely developed areas, people have more direct experience with the use of sustainable modes of transport. A short distance between home, work and private and public services gives people increased opportunities to walk or cycle. At the same time they have access to a better public transport system. Thus, the direct experiences of traffic pollution and better access to sustainable modes of transport lead to increased attitude strength (Holden & Norland 2004) and possibly better attitude accessibility. Finally, this process results in higher attitude–behaviour consistency. 6. Facilitation The arguments so far rest on the assumption that actions are completely voluntary. However, actions are certainly not completely voluntary. Based on the findings of a large research programme about environmentally friendly behaviour in Denmark, Thøgersen (1999) demonstrates the importance of facilitation when attitudinal factors have been controlled for. Facilitation is important for a number of environmentally sensitive behaviours, including recycling, choosing packaging and buying organic food. Thus, Thøgersen concludes that ‘there is more point to investing scarce campaign resources in reducing barriers that restrict people’s opportunities or abilities to follow their attitudes than in improving the attitudes’ (ibid.: 41). The empirical evidence in this study shows that facilitation is also important for household consumption. Facilitation through the physical planning system, by controlling land use, contributes to lower energy use for housing and everyday transport. The key is densification. Thus, multi-family houses in densely developed residential areas are favourable in this respect. Proximity to a city centre or large sub-centre with good access to private and public services must be encouraged. A well-developed public transport system completes the picture. However, there remains a problem regarding leisure travel. How can one facilitate sustainable leisure travel? Physical planning does not seem to be the answer. Empirical evidence suggests that densification might have the opposite effect on leisure travel than it has on everyday travel (Holden & Norland 2005). Furthermore, positive attitudes towards environmental issues do not seem to affect the energy use involved in people’s leisure travel. Household income, on the other hand, has the most influence on the amount of people’s leisure travel (ibid.). Thus, facilitating sustainable leisure travel must include the application of economic measures.

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Conclusions and a few comments on policy implications Is there a relationship between attitudes and household consumption? That is, do attitudes influence household consumption? The study suggests that the answer is a conditional yes. Whether or not attitude–behaviour consistency is found depends on the kind of consumption in question and the attitude level. When is there a relationship between attitudes and household consumption? How can attitudes guide changes towards sustainable household practices? Six important points can be made: (i) This study has demonstrated that correspondence in the specification elements of attitudes and behaviour increases consistency. Thus, a specific attitude towards a particular issue (i.e. pollution caused by cars) guides behaviour relevant to that attitude (i.e. sustainable transport behaviour). On the other hand, when attitude is measured at a high level of generality, it is not likely to be consistent with very specific behaviour. (ii) Positive attitudes towards (specific) environmental issues are more likely to be consistent with behaviour in everyday life than in leisure time. Energy use for both housing and everyday travel correlates with specific attitudes. This is not the case for leisure travel. In fact, the correlation between attitudes and leisure travel is very weak indeed. (iii) Membership in an environmental organization does not guide sustainable household consumption. Further research is needed, however, to obtain more insight into the moderating role of membership on attitude–behaviour consistency. (iv) Individuals must overcome ‘the force of habit’. Over time, as behaviour becomes habitual, it is not influenced by attitudes. Direct and indirect strategies can be applied in order to reinforce attitudes as a guide for sustainable consumption. (v) Making attitudes accessible, learning from direct experience and developing strong and persistent attitudes are important variables in improving attitude– behaviour consistency. (vi) It is important to acknowledge the key role of facilitation. If it is either difficult or impossible to carry out sustainable household practices, positive attitudes will not help much. One important question remains, however: who should be responsible for promoting sustainable household consumption? Four actors are involved: government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), producers and consumers. Government, NGOs and producers have an important role in facilitating sustainable consumption. Developing sustainable land-use characteristics, launching information campaigns about sustainable practices, and promoting sustainable products and services are key aspects of facilitation. As Thøgersen (1999) suggests, it might be more important to reduce the barriers that prevent people from behaving in accordance with their attitudes than to improve people’s attitudes.

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However, there must be no question about the responsibility of individual consumers. Even after intensive facilitation by government and producers, there is almost always some freedom of choice left for the individual. Thus, the final outcome depends on individual consumer choice. The importance of attitudes (and volitional constructs such as beliefs, values and decisions) should therefore not be underestimated. In fact, some of history’s most sensational events and changes are the result of gradually changed attitudes (Petty & Krosnick 1995). Notable transformations in history include the shift from the overt racist attitudes of the 1950s in the US and, more recently, access for women to significant leadership roles in society. Collective attitude change in these instances was a prerequisite for the transformations. To change our presently unsustainable society requires a similar collective attitude change. How do we go about changing attitudes at this scale? The relationship between individual attitudes and travel behaviour is touched on by several authors in this book. The contributions by Tore Sager (Chs 2, 10), Anders Melin (Ch. 4) and Sigurd Bergmann (Ch. 1) share the view that mobility must be seen as an individual responsibility. We have to ask ourselves: what kind of mobility do we want, and what kind of mobile human do we want to become? Rather than being trapped into a mobility pattern, we have the ability to change our practices. The three authors explore different ways of accomplishing such a change. Len Doyal and Ian Gough (1991) consider autonomy to be one of the basic needs for an individual. In ‘Freedom as Mobility’ (this volume, Ch. 10), Sager translates autonomy regarding transport into the individual right to travel where, when and how one wishes. However, this right is likely to lead to encroachment on others’ private spheres. It is therefore important for the individual to realize that freedom means that one has a choice between travelling and not travelling. According to Sager, this is ‘the essence of freedom as mobility; freedom of movement implies the right not to move’. This knowledge should be an important part of green people’s reflecting on their mobility level, particularly when travelling for leisure. Sager mentions the Slow City movement as a good example of people who have used their freedom to choose not to travel. Based on Ulli Zeitler’s ‘transport ethics’, Melin presents travelling as pilgrimage as a model for ecologically and ethically sustainable mobility. The idea is related to the freedom to not travel or travel slowly, as presented by Sager. The pilgrimage functions as a ‘contrast picture against the current emphasis on fast, effortless and often polluting transportation’. Contrary to the idea of effortless transportation, a pilgrimage is normally connected to certain physical difficulties that the pilgrim has to endure. It is the journey itself that matters, not just the arrival at a destination. Travelling as pilgrimage is based on strong attitudes towards our responsibility for the environment and other living beings. In order to exercise the right not to travel, take part in a Slow City movement or travel as a pilgrim, the individual must be convinced about the need for change. Thus, strong and enduring attitudes must be developed. Whereas both the importance of green attitudes and need for changes are embedded into the concept of sustainable mobility, this concept might not be sufficient to uphold convictions. Bergmann suggests that the image of a garden might be better suited than the Brundtland

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‘GREEN’ ATTITUDES AND SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION OF ENERGY AND TRANSPORT rhetoric of sustainability. According to Bergmann, the Brundtland report focuses on ‘the long-term consumption of resources by greedy humans, or the image of a sick global patient’s body to be cured by green human doctors, furthered by early environmental medicine and the Worldwatch Institute’. Thus, the concept of sustainable development might well be more provocative than persuading. The image of a garden, on the other hand, is a world where everything flowers. It promotes a metaphor where humans themselves can be regarded as plants and gardeners for the best of other plants. With this image in mind, individuals must ask themselves: what kind of mobility would be produced by such imagery? It should be noted, however, that at present the thought of a parking lot seems to be a better description of most people’s images than a garden.

Notes 1. This article focuses on consumption for two reasons. First, environmental problems are being increasingly attributed to the use of certain products (or services). Thus, it is no longer the manufacturing of the products that represents the most serious threat, but rather the use of the products and the products themselves. Secondly, it is recognized that, under current social conditions in the developed world, consumption is an important driving force of unsustainable development in general. Unsustainable consumption levels are primarily the result of mankind’s desire to do more, experience more and see more, all of which result in greater consumption. 2. The environmental impact is measured using the Ecological Footprint methodology. 3. Possible antecedents, consequences and correlates of an attitude are excluded from this definition. 4. Three additional categories can be added to the list: (iv) methodological problems, such as measurement unreliability, statistics used, behaviour measure distribution and threshold level (Pieters 1988); (v) incorrect conceptualization of attitudes (ibid.); and (vi) incorrect conceptualization of behaviour (Thøgersen 1999). These categories will not be addressed here. 5. The motivation–ability–opportunity–behaviour (MAOB) model. 6. For a review of factors that influence household consumption, see Holden (2001; 2004a; 2004b). 7. Energy for heating and powering the house includes electricity, paraffin, fuel oil, wood and remote heating systems. The questionnaire asked respondents to make a ‘best estimate’ of their yearly energy consumption. Furthermore, respondents were asked to estimate the distance travelled daily by car, bus, tram and train in the preceding week (Monday to Sunday) for all reasons except business: work, shopping, school and leisure. Their estimates were used to measure everyday travel. Only the responses of those respondents who reported their travels as being ‘typical’ for an everyday week are included in the analyses. Finally, the questionnaire asked respondents to state the number of long-distance leisure-time trips by plane and car they took during the previous twelve months to different destination categories. An average travel distance, that is, the distance between Oslo Airport and the most visited destination within each destination category, is estimated for each destination. 8. Dividing the household’s total annual energy use by the number of household members results in annual energy use per household member for heating and operating the house. Energy used weekly for everyday travel is calculated by multiplying the typical distance travelled weekly for private purposes by all modes of transport (car, bus, tram and train) by a corresponding specific energy coefficient. Annual energy use for everyday travel is calculated by multiplying energy used weekly by 47 weeks. Annual energy use for long-distance leisure-time travel by car and plane is calculated by multiplying the kilometres travelled by each mode annually by a corresponding specific energy coefficient. Separate energy coefficients have been used for travel by car, domestic plane travel and international plane travel, respectively.

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9. Types of housing include: single-family house, row house (i.e. semi-detached) and multi-family house (apartment block). 10. There is no evidence in the empirical material studied to support the idea that members of environmental organizations are highly self-monitoring. Further research is needed in this field. 11. However, in previous research on the attitude–behaviour relationship, habit has been treated differently. In the original reasoned action theory, it has been argued that most behaviour is voluntary, and therefore can be predicted from intention. Thus, neither habit nor prior behaviour is included in the theoretical model (Fishbein & Ajzen 1975). Others have argued that habits do indeed have an important role to play in explaining a particular behaviour. Habits have been conceptualized as: (i) independent (other) determinants of behaviour (Ronis et al. 1989); (ii) variables moderating the relationship between intention and behaviour (Bagozzi 1982); and (iii) contributing in both these respects (Triandis 1977).

References Aall, C. & I. T. Norland. 2002. ‘Det økologiske fotavtrykket for Oslo kommune’ (The Ecological Footprint of Oslo Municipality). Report 1/02, Oslo: ProSus/University of Oslo. Ajzen, I. 1996. ‘The Directive Influence of Attitudes on Behavior’. In Psychology of Action, eds J. A. Bargh & P. Golwitzer, 385–403. New York: Guilford. Ajzen, I. & M. Fishbein. 1977. ‘Attitude-Behaviour Relations: A Theoretical Analysis and Review of Empirical Research’. Psychological Bulletin 84: 888–918. Bagozzi, R. P. 1982. ‘A Field Investigation of Causal Relations among Cognitions, Affect, Intentions, and Behaviour’. Journal of Marketing Research 19: 562–84. Doyal, L. & I. Gough. 1991. A Theory of Human Need. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Fazio, R. H. & M. P. Zanna. 1981. ‘Direct Experience and Attitude-Behaviour Consistency’. In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 14, ed. L. Berkowitz, 161–202. New York: Academic Press. Fishbein, M. & I. Ajzen. 1972. ‘Attitudes and Opinions’. Annual Review of Psychology 23: 487–544. Fishbein, M. & I. Ajzen. 1975. Belief, Attitude, Intention, and Behavior. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Frey, B. S. & K. Foppa. 1986. ‘Human Behavior: Possibilities Explain Action’. Journal of Economic Psychology 7: 137–60. Heap, B. & J. Kent. 2000. Towards Sustainable Consumption: A European Perspective. London: Royal Society. Hille, J. 1995. Sustainable Norway. Oslo: Project for an Alternative Future. Holden, E. 2001. ‘Boligen som grunnlag for bærekraftig forbruk’ (Housing as the basis for sustainable consumption), PhD-thesis, Department of Town and Regional Planning, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim. Holden, E. 2004a. ‘Towards Sustainable Consumption – Do Green Households have Smaller Ecological Footprints?’. International Journal of Sustainable Development 7(1): 44–58. Holden, E. 2004b. ‘Ecological Footprints and Sustainable Urban Form’. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 19(1): 91–109. Holden, E. & I. T. Norland. 2004. SusHomes – En undersøkelse av husholdningers forbruk av energi til bolig og transport i Stor-Oslo (SusHomes – a survey of household consumption of energy and transport in Greater Oslo). Report 3/4. Oslo: ProSus/University of Oslo. Holden. E. & I. T. Norland. 2005. ‘Three Challenges for the Compact City as a Sustainable Urban Form – Household Consumption of Energy and Transport in Eight Residential Areas in the Greater Oslo Region’. Urban Studies 42(12): 1–21. Kirchler, E. 1988. ‘Household Economic Decision-making’. In Handbook of Economic Psychology, eds W. F. van Raaij, G. M. van Veldhoven & K.-E. Wärneryd, 144–204. Dordrecht: Kluwer. LaPiere. R. T. 1934. ‘Attitudes vs. Actions’. Social Forces 13: 230–37. Lorek, S. & J. H. Spangenberg. 2001. ‘Indicators for Environmentally Sustainable Household Consumption’. International Journal of Sustainable Development 1(4): 101–20.

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‘GREEN’ ATTITUDES AND SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION OF ENERGY AND TRANSPORT Moisander, J. & L. Uusitalo. 1994. ‘Attitude-Behaviour Inconsistency: Limitations of the Reasoned Action Approach in Predicting Behavior from Pro-environmental Attitudes’. In Integrating Views on Economic Behavior, Proceedings of the IAREP/SABE conference, Rotterdam, 10–13 July, eds G. Antonides & W. F. van Raaij, 560–79. Rotterdam: Erasmus University. Næss, P. 1997. Fysisk planlegging og energibruk (Spatial planning and energy use). Oslo: Tano Aschehoug. Norwegian Ministry of Environment. 1994. Symposium: Sustainable Consumption, Oslo, 19–20 January. Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 2002. Towards Sustainable Household Consumption? Trends and Policies in OECD Countries. Paris: OECD. Ostrom, T. M. 1969. ‘The Relationship Between the Affective, Behavioural and Cognitive Components of Attitude’. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 5: 12–30. Ölander, F. & J. Thøgersen. 1995. ‘Understanding of Consumer Behaviour as a Prerequisite for Environmental Protection’. Journal of Consumer Policy 18: 317–57. Petty, R. E. & J. A. Krosnick, eds. 1995. Attitude Strength: Antecedents and Consequence. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Pieters, R. 1988. ‘Attitude-Behavior Relationships’. In Handbook of Economic Psychology, eds W. F. van Raaij, G. M. Veldhoven, & K.-E. Wärneryd, 144–204. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Ronis, D. L., J. F. Yates & J. P. Kirscht. 1989. ‘Attitudes, Decisions, and Habits as Determinants of Repeated Behavior’. In Attitude Structure and Function, eds A. R. Pratkanis, S. J. Breckler & A. G. Greenwald, 213–39. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. SPSS. 1998. SPSS Base 8.0: Applications Guide 1998. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Stern, P. C. & S. Oskamp. 1987. ‘Managing Scarce Environmental Resources’. In Handbook of Environmental Psychology, eds D. Stokols & I. Altman, 1043–88. New York: Wiley. Thøgersen, J. 1999. ‘Making Ends Meet: A Synthesis of Research on Consumer Behaviour and the Environment’. Working paper no. 99-1, Department of Marketing, Aarhus School of Business. Triandis, H. C. 1977. Interpersonal Behavior. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole. United Nations. 1992. Agenda 21. www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/index.htm (accessed Jan. 2008). Vallacher, R. R. & D. M. Wegner. 1987. ‘What do People Think They’re Doing? Action Identification and Human Behavior’. Psychological Review 94: 3–15. Wicker, A. W. 1969. ‘Attitudes versus Actions’. Journal of Social Issues 25: 41–78. Wonnacott, T. H. & R. J. Wonnacott 1990. Introductory Statistics, 5th edn. New York: John Wiley.

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4 Travelling as pilgrimage: ecotheological contributions to mobility ethics Anders Melin

Introduction Since the 1960s, it has become increasingly apparent that the mobility of modern societies has serious environmental effects. Recently, for instance, car traffic has been recognized as one of the main contributors to global warming. The planning of mobility gives rise to difficult moral problems concerning the relationship between today’s individuals and groups, current and future generations and humans and other life forms.1 To date, rather little has been said about these issues from a religious and ethical perspective. It is the last of the conflicts, the conflict between humans and other life forms, that is the least acknowledged in the public debate and that I shall therefore focus on in this paper (of course, this does not mean that I do not regard the other two forms of conflicts as important). Here I would like to outline the contributions that Christian ecotheology can make to an ethics of mobility.2 I concentrate on Christian theology since Christianity is still the dominant religious tradition in the Western world, and therefore most relevant in this context. I think that such a discussion is of interest above and beyond a theological viewpoint, because it problematizes underlying assumptions about space and nature in the context of the larger public debate about transportation. This is especially true because these assumptions partly have their historic origin in certain interpretations of Christian theology, which have been challenged by contemporary ecotheology. I begin this essay with some theoretical reflections in order to clarify the ways in which I believe Christian ecotheology can contribute to an ethics of mobility. Then I briefly describe the shifting views of nature and mobility in the current public debate as a starting-point for my discussion. I then discuss how ecotheology and environmental philosophy can promote a concern for all living beings and how this can influence our understanding of mobility. I next address the issue of how this

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understanding can be affected by a rediscovery and a resacralization of place. Finally, I discuss how the religious phenomenon of pilgrimage can function as a metaphor for ecologically and ethically sustainable mobility.

Theoretical starting-points One important manner in which Christian ecotheology can contribute to an ethics of mobility is by developing new ways of understanding our relationship to nature and new ways of conceiving what mobility is. This is in line with Sallie McFague’s assertion that the theological enterprise should be understood as mainly metaphorical. She contends that the aim of theology is to ‘remythologize’ rather than to ‘demythologize’, and that theology should develop metaphors that in a powerful way express Christian faith for our time. McFague believes that theologians should be both poets and philosophers. They should be sensitive to metaphors that are both compatible with the Christian faith and appropriate for our day. At the same time they must be able to analyse the implications of these metaphors in a coherent and comprehensive way (McFague 1987: 32–4). McFague’s emphasis on the role of metaphors has much in common with the standpoint that narratives are fundamental for Christian theology and ethics. Stanley Hauerwas is one of the most well-known advocates for such a position. He argues that the foundation of Christian ethics is the set of stories that constitutes the Christian tradition. According to Hauerwas, the Bible tells us that the most fundamental way to talk of God is to tell a story. Narratives are crucial for understanding our relation to God and to other humans. The first task of Christian ethics is to help us see reality in the correct way. It is by becoming members of a Christian community that tries to be faithful to the story of God that we can correctly envisage the world (Hauerwas 2003: 24–30). My own view of the kinds of contributions that ecotheology can make to an ethics of mobility is in line with the theological standpoints of McFague and Hauerwas. I think that ecotheology can contribute mainly by helping us to perceive mobility and our relationship to nature in new ways. It is hoped that these changed perceptions can also affect our transport behaviour. However, a one-sided focus on metaphors and narratives runs the risk of becoming too idealistic. Peter Scott has, for example, criticized the common ecotheological style of interpretation that he labels as ‘symbolic–hermeneutic’, that is, the style of interpretation that focuses on how Christian symbols can be used for raising an ecological consciousness. He argues that such interpretations are seldom firmly connected to the political and ideological situations that characterize modern industrialized societies. The risk is that these interpretations only increase our alienation from nature, since they ignore the material dimension of the human–nature relationship. Scott argues instead that a symbolic–hermeneutic interpretation must start from political– ideological analysis in order to understand the specific relations between humanity and nature. Theologians must begin with a clear picture of the political and social

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constraints within which people must decide which actions to take. According to Scott, theologians must study the political, social and economic processes in society in order to understand the conditions for transforming the relationship between humanity and nature. It is necessary to examine not only people’s views of nature, but also the interplay between these views and the material basis of society (Scott 2003: 26–7). I agree with Scott that it is not enough to focus only on perceptions of reality. Theology must also take into account the material and social conditions that limit people’s freedom of action. Certain institutional changes may also be necessary in order to promote a more environmentally friendly behaviour.

Shifting views of nature and mobility in the current public debate The Swedish anthropologist Olle Hagman argues that since the beginning of the 1960s, our view of nature has shifted in such a way as as to affect our attitudes towards mobility, especially towards the use of cars. Hagman focuses on Swedish society, but a similar development seems to have occurred also in other Western industrialized countries (Hagman 2000).3 He characterizes the view of nature that was dominant in Swedish society until the 1960s as ‘classically modern’. Hagman says that this view has a very long history, in that it can be traced back to the Jewish–Christian dualism that elevated humans above the rest of creation4 and to Greek ancient philosophy. The dualistic understanding of nature was further emphasized by the nature philosophers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, such as Francis Bacon and René Descartes. The Enlightenment philosophers of the eighteenth century assimilated this dualism and said that nature should be used for the sake of humanity. They believed that it was the duty of humans to create welfare by exploiting nature (ibid.: 79–81). Hagman contends that the classically modern view of nature became increasingly influential in Sweden at the beginning of the twentieth century. The bourgeoisie had established itself as the dominant class from a political and economic perspective, and they used science and Enlightenment philosophy as a means to legitimize their position. They distanced themselves from and objectified nature, believing that nature should be demystified through reason and science. However, a new romantic attitude towards nature emerged in reaction to and at the same time as this scientific worldview. In their spare time, inhabitants of the cities used cars in order to travel to rural settings and farm villages in search of their roots. Nature became an object that city dwellers could travel to and from at will (ibid.: 81–2). During the twentieth century, Sweden has been transformed into a modern consumer society and the distance between humans and nature has increased further, in Hagman’s view. The middle class has replaced the bourgeoisie as the dominating cultural group. In the fully developed consumer society in the period after the Second World War, nature represented the authentic and free in contrast to the artificial and commercial. It became a cultural norm to spend some time in the countryside

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during the summer vacation. During the 1950s and 1960s, the economic welfare of the Swedish people drastically improved. It became possible for a large part of the population to own a car. At the same time the five-day working week and the threeweek summer holiday were introduced. In their spare time and during their vacations, people would often use their cars to travel to the country. According to Hagman, the most prominent feature of the classically modern view of nature is the separation of nature into spheres of production and consumption. Nature is divided into a landscape of production with factory areas and natural resources, a landscape that is formed by humans and sacrificed for the sake of economic welfare, and a landscape of consumption or recreation with gardens and natural parks, a landscape that should be protected from human interference as much as possible. The car functions as a connecting link between the spheres of production and recreation by enabling people to travel between them (ibid.: 84–7). Hagman states that since the beginning of the 1960s the negative environmental effects of car traffic have become increasingly obvious. He characterizes the contemporary view of nature as ‘reflexively’ modern. Nature is no longer seen as an inexhaustible source of welfare. Instead, we have become aware of all the environmental risks connected with the production and consumption of goods and services. It has become apparent that humanity is unconditionally dependent on the environment. In the light of our new understanding of the environment it is difficult to maintain the division between areas that should be protected and areas that can be exploited, since the pollution of air and water does not respect such divisions. The shift in our conception of nature has also led to new attitudes towards car traffic, according to Hagman. The car is no longer seen as an essentially helpful means for recreation in natural surroundings, but also as a potential threat to the environment. The environmental movement has always identified car traffic as one of the most important targets for criticism. Since the 1990s, car traffic has been identified as one of the main causes of global warming (ibid.: 91–100). Hagman’s analysis can be augmented by the observation that the dominant view of nature in Sweden and in other parts of the industrialized world still has strong dualistic features. It has been recognized that we are dependent on nature, and in that respect the sharp division between humans and nature has been problematized. What we do to the environment may backfire on us. Nevertheless, the view of nature within environmental politics is dualistic in the respect that nature in most cases is regarded as an object, either for production or consumption (see e.g. Stenmark 2002; Melin 2001). This view of the environment, however, has been questioned by contemporary theologians and philosophers, as I shall describe in the next section.

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The conception of the human–nature relationship in contemporary theology and philosophy Within contemporary theology the view of the environment has been tranformed, much as it has in the rest of society, although the changes have been more far-reaching. The instrumental and dualistic view of nature that often has characterized the history of theology has been increasingly challenged.5 One of the most elaborate versions of Christian environmental ethics has been put forward by Michael S. Northcott, who says that the covenant described in the Bible is not only a covenant between humans and God: it is a ‘cosmic covenant’ that involves all the orders of creation and links them with the rituals, ethics and the society of humans. Northcott argues that the created order represented for the Hebrews a transhistorical and transcultural source of moral and aesthetic value, independent of human perception. Because God cherishes the cosmos, it is valued before humans encounter it. Northcott argues that respect for life is a fundamental moral ideal in the Old Testament. The most important aspect of this principle is the respect for human life, because human life most closely reflects the divine image. This respect, however, exists in conjunction with responsibilities to other life forms. Non-human life is also seen as related to the life-giving Spirit of God and is therefore worthy of respect. According to Hebrew law, domestic animals have a moral claim to space, nourishment and rest. Nevertheless, Northcott contends that we are justified in assigning priority to humankind because we have a special place in creation (1996: 168–83). In the same vein as Northcott, the feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether also endorses a conception of the covenant between God and humanity that encompasses the environment. Ruether claims that the modern interpretation of the Bible has been shaped by the sharp dualism between history and nature found in nineteenth-century Western Protestantism. According to this dualism, history is the realm where humans can experience the presence of God, while nature is seen as something that humans must transcend in order to reach true humanness and freedom. Ruether argues that new exegetical analyses show that the dualism of modern Western Protestantism distorts the biblical perspective. According to the Hebrew understanding of God, history is not opposed to the environment. Instead God is seen as the Lord of both Heaven and Earth, and His power felt in all realms of life. Ruether says that both individual animals and plants and species of animals and plants have an intrinsic moral value, according to the covenant between God and his people. Each life form has its own independent relation to God and ought not to be treated as a thing. Humans and other living beings are part of one community of interdependence (Ruether 1994: 207–27). From the perspective of liberation theology, Sigurd Bergmann argues that nature should be treated as a partner in the dialogue over the construction of theology. Liberation theology has granted epistemological precedence to the poor, where the poor are said to be the most well equipped to distinguish between God and idols because of their social situation. Bergmann states that the principle of listening to repressed theological subjects should be extended to non-humans. He says that

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humans should avoid ‘cultural-ecological violence’, that is, actions that seriously restrict the realization of natural beings’ ecological possibilities. Ecological theology should give precedence to the ‘poor among creatures’ (Bergmann 2005: 270–75).6 The moral belief that non-humans have moral standing has also been defended from a purely philosophical perspective by contemporary environmental ethicists. Holmes Rolston III, for example, proposes an innovative value theory according to which both individual animals and plants as well as ecosystems have intrinsic value. Animals and plants are not good only for humans; they also have a good of their own that they try to realize. Every organism has a good of its own since it defends it own life. As for ecosystems, Rolston claims that neither the concept of instrumental value nor the concept of intrinsic value is appropriate. An ecosystem does not have any value for itself, thus it has no intrinsic value. Nor does it have only an instrumental value because of the life forms it harbours. An ecosystem is a holistic system where every part is connected to the other parts. Thus it is questionable if the parts have a separate identity and a separate value. An ecosystem is a web of relations among different organisms, a system that both produces and supports values. Ecosystems are the foundations of biodiversity, because they are matrices that form value. Rolston claims that the ability to produce and support value is a value in itself. He suggests labelling the kind of value an ecosystem has as a ‘systemic’ value (Rolston 1988; 1989;1994). J. Baird Callicott also advocates the idea that individual animals and plants as well as species have intrinsic value, based on the idea of a biotic community. Callicott says that this belief can be supported by a Darwinian account of morality. Humans have moral sentiments that promote the survival of the human race. If we acknowledge that we are a part of a ‘biotic community’ where all parts are interdependent, we will recognize that we ought to extend our moral sentiments to non-humans because this view will promote our survival. Thus we will value certain parts of nature intrinsically (Callicott 1989; 1999). Gary E. Varner has developed an elaborate ethical theory, in which both animals and plants can have morally relevant interests. He argues that it is primarily beings that can have desires that can have an interest. Therefore we ought to give priority to such beings. A being can have desire if it can form and test hypotheses about how to achieve attractive objects. The paradigm case of the kind of living being that can have desires is an adult, human being, according to Varner’s definition. When a person seeks something, he or she will try out various hypotheses about how he or she may get it. However, Varner states that his definition of a being that has desires and that can act on these desires can also include other mammals and birds and perhaps also reptiles and amphibians. He supports his claim by providing a detailed account of ethological and neurophysiological facts (Varner 1998). The relationship between humans and natural entities has also been discussed by ecofeminist philosophers. Karen J. Warren argues, for instance, for an environmental ethic that gives narratives an important place. Warren says that narratives that describe human experiences of nature take our relationship to nature – including its inanimate parts – more seriously than traditional ethical principles. A traditional ethic only takes relationships seriously if the parties to the relationships are morally

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considerable. Warren gives an example of a first-person narrative of a woman who climbs a rock. As the woman climbs the rock, she changes her view of the rock from seeing it as an object to conquer to experiencing it as a ‘friend’ she wants to care for. Warren argues that such a narrative can acknowledge the value of the relationship between the climber and the rock regardless of the moral status of the rock. The climbing narrative shows us that a proper ethical attitude towards mountains and rocks is an attitude of respect and care, not one of domination and conquest (Warren 1990: 134–6). These recent developments of the view of nature within theology and philosophy can inspire us to also show moral concern for non-humans. Ecological theologians and environmental ethicists give an account of nature where all parts are interconnected and where all beings are worthy of respect. A change to such a view of nature could have important consequences for our view of mobility, especially in those situations where that mobility is an obvious threat to nature. When a rare species will be negatively affected by a road project, for instance, the conflict is in most cases described as being between different groups, such as motorists who want an improved transportation network and members of a nature conservation association who want to protect the environment, and not as a moral conflict between humans and nonhumans. It is seldom assumed that the species itself is morally considerable. Even if we accept this assumption, we can still in some cases be justified in building a road that threatens a rare species since it seems reasonable to give priority to the interests of humans. However, we must be able to show that the road benefits humans to such an extent that the negative effects on other species are justified. If we are to take seriously the moral belief that non-humans are morally considerable, this may require a reduction in our motorized mobility. A shift in people’s perception of the places they travel from, to and through may make it easier to accept such a reduction. In the next section I discuss what such a shift may imply.

Rediscovery and resacralization of place Edward S. Casey argues that in the intellectual history of the West, the understanding of place as something particular, finite and centred has often been subordinated to an understanding of space as something universal, infinite and uncentred. In early Greek philosophy, such as in the writings of Plato and Aristotle, place was recognized as an important aspect of reality. However, the development of medieval theology led to a preoccupation with space. Since God was considered to be limitless in power, His presence in the universe was also seen as unlimited. The belief in divine ubiquity implied the belief in space as infinite. By the end of the eighteenth century, the concept of place had nearly disappeared from theoretical discourses in physics and philosophy. Places were regarded merely as momentary subdivisions in a universal and homogenous space. The specific properties of concrete places were neglected (Casey 1998: 1–136).

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The relevance of the current preoccupation of space for the contemporary ethical attitude towards transportation is highlighted in Zeitler’s pioneering work on transport ethics. He posits that our attitudes towards transportation depend on our conception of space. According to Zeitler, the view of space that prevails in transport research, and among politicians and the public, is a ‘geometric’ view of space. He distinguishes this conception of space from a conception of space as ‘lived space’. According to the conception of geometric space, space is measurable, homogeneous, value-neutral and infinite. It is ‘purged of social and cultural meaning’ (Zeitler 1997: 169–73). Lived space, on the other hand, is space that has a certain meaning. It is characterized by qualitative differences, depending on the species or individuals that inhabit it. It has certain temporal limits, although its horizon changes. A living space is not infinite and empty, but has a centre, because it is a place where living beings dwell (ibid.: 171–2).7 According to Zeitler, the concept of lived space is closely connected to the concept of place. He describes places as ‘meaningful, delimited contexts within the “lived space” of living subjects’ (ibid.: 175). Zeitler states that place is a way of ‘being in the present’, characterized by a strong awareness of the immediate moment. The human agent is conscious of his or her relation to the environment and the need to interact responsibly with it. In Zeitler’s view, a place gives us opportunities for mutual exchanges with other living beings. It gives the universe a presence in our sensation and therefore helps us to experience the universe and its moral challenges. Moreover, a place confirms our identity by providing links to the past (ibid.: 175–6). Zeitler states that from a phenomenological perspective ‘place is a meaningful, living entity’. It should be understood as an organic whole, constituted by its plants, animals and humans (ibid.: 177). Zeitler’s distinction between ‘geometric’ space on the one hand and ‘lived’ space and place on the other seems like a useful approach. It can make us more aware of the ethical implications of different conceptions of space. For instance, if we perceive a certain space as a lived space, we may be more inclined to treat it as morally significant. However, I doubt whether the public debate is as dominated by a geometric conception of space as Zeitler argues. It seems quite common to hear references to personal experiences of space in the public discourse. Zeitler contends that our understanding of space affect our perception of mobility. He claims that according to the view of space as geometric, mobility is mainly understood as ‘the conquest of distance’. Travelling becomes a way of ‘eliminating’ space as we use transportation as a means for reaching a destination. According to Zeitler, technologically mediated mobility can result in a disinterest in one’s immediate environment. The use of high technology such as cars can lead to a disconnection from the natural and social surroundings. Drivers can become insensitive to their local duties and responsibilities (ibid.: 173–4). According to Zeitler, modern streets and roads presuppose and promote a geometric conception of space. They are neutral spaces without a centre and lead to a homogenization of space. Since streets and roads lack a particular significance they urge us to move forwards as rapidly as possible (ibid.: 180–81). Zeitler claims that high-speed transportation is problematic from an ethical

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viewpoint since it requires much more space. For example, a car moving at 10 kilometres per hour needs 18.7 square metres per person, while the need is 60 square metres at 40 kilometres per hour. High-speed ways and tracks for high-speed trains cannot accommodate tight curves and therefore have to be designed to slice through the landscape. A motorway requires three times as much soil as ordinary highways; thus it is a much bigger threat to living organisms (ibid.: 193–4). Here I think Zeitler’s analysis has several interesting points. His description of the intellectual presuppositions for the current focus on high-speed mobility is thoughtprovoking. However, some of his statements need to be problematized. For instance, it seems doubtful whether streets and roads always lead to a homogenization of space and a focus on high-speed mobility. It is easy to think of modern streets and roads that are seen as of value in themselves for travelling along, often at a rather slow pace. Moreover, it is unclear what he is attempting to assert by talking about the ‘elimination’ of distance. Is not transportation always used as a means for reaching a destination and is it morally problematic in itself? That we want to reach a certain destination does not necessarily require that we disregard the places we travel through. Nevertheless, I think Zeitler’s view on how travel eliminates distances has some utility, since it highlights a kind of travelling that is focused on reaching a destination as quickly as possible, which is a way of travelling that has become prevalent in modern industrialized societies. The characteristics of this type of travel are further clarified by Tim Ingold, when he writes about transport in contrast to wayfaring. According to Ingold, transport is destination-oriented. It is a way of carrying people and goods from one place to another in such a manner that their basic nature remains unaffected. In wayfaring, on the other hand, the traveller is not fixated on getting to a predetermined location. The wayfarer creates the trail as he or she travels along. Moreover, the wayfarer is attentive to the surrounding environment (Ingold 2004: 7–8). According to Ingold, ‘the wayfarer has to sustain himself, both perceptually and materially, through an active engagement with the country that opens up along his path’ (ibid.: 7). Ingold describes the travels of different indigenous peoples as forms of wayfaring. For the Foi of Papua New Guinea, for instance, journeying on foot is never only a question of getting from one place to another. They are always looking for fruits or edible insect larvae and in this way they work their way through the tropical forest. To outsiders their trails are barely visible, but they remain etched in the memories of the travellers. Ingold states, however, that wayfaring also can be carried out in motorized vehicles. The Australian Western Desert Aboriginal people, for instance, use their cars as a means for wayfaring. The crucial difference between wayfaring and transport is that in the former locomotion and perception are always connected. In contrast to the wayfarer, the transported traveller does not move, but is rather moved from a location to another (ibid.: 7–10). According to Ingold, ‘the sights, sounds and feeling that accost him during the passage have absolutely no bearing on the motion that carries him forth’ (ibid.: 10–11). Moreover, the transported traveller does not make the journey for its own sake, but for what awaits him at the destination (ibid.: 11).

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As has been described, the general trend since the Middle Ages in the Western history of ideas has been towards an increasing focus on space at the expense of place. However, within contemporary philosophy there are also trends that go in the opposite direction. A new interest in place has appeared in modern philosophy, according to Casey, for example within phenomenology. In the phenomenological philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, our lived body is the medium for our access to the world. We are embedded in specific places through our bodies. Place is also important in the later philosophy of Heidegger. He claims that the things of the world always derive their meaning from the specific places they inhabit. Heidegger argues that concrete places are the presupposition for abstract space (Casey 1998: 228–84). Moreover, place is also essential in the writings of postmodern philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and Luce Irigaray (ibid.: 202–330). Moreover, there is an increasing interest in the relationship between the human being and his or her immediate environment in contemporary psychology (this volume, Ch. 5). The relevance of a phenomenologically based view of place for our attitudes towards transportation is clarified in Zeitler’s ethical analysis. In contrast to the understanding of transportation as ‘elimination’ of space, Zeitler develops his own phenomenological and existential interpretation of travelling as ‘moving by returning home’. He contends that travelling is meaningful only in the light of the fact that one is returning home. If the home is not present during one’s journey, one’s movement is nothing more than ‘the filling of geometric and physical space’. In order to be meaningful, travelling must contribute to our life history (Zeitler 1997: 198). Zeitler defines a meaningful trip as an exploration of our horizons, the borders of our ‘lived spaces’. It widens our perspectives and provides us with new opportunities (ibid.: 199). He argues that the most important feature of travelling is to return home, not only in the physical sense of going back to one’s residence, but ‘to go through with the journey while having one’s heart, one’s soul, one’s sensory-emotional-cognitive abilities, one’s physical and social resources with one’. Zeitler concludes that a journey should not be understood as an individual activity, but as a socionatural phenomenon. To return and be at home while travelling is to acknowledge this fact and its normative commitments. To travel in this sense is to search for a peaceful coexistence with both humans and non-humans (ibid.: 200). Zeitler’s belief that homecoming is an important aspect of travelling is an important contrasting picture to the current emphasis on extensive travelling as a way of freedom, since it underscores the value of being grounded in a certain place. As described by Sager (this volume, Ch. 2), the high level of mobility in current societies is an increasing problem. However, it is doubtful whether Zeitler’s account sufficiently acknowledges the positive values that travelling can also have. To be rooted in one’s environment can sometimes be experienced as oppressive and the opportunity to travel can be a form of freedom. Travelling is sometimes a question of not coming home, for example when someone decides to leave a place in order never to return. On the other hand, it is of course obvious that the high level of mobility in our contemporary societies often has detrimental effects on other living beings. There is also an increasing interest in place within modern theology. Philip Sheldrake, for example, argues for a resacralization of place. He is critical of theologies

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that are interested only in the inner life of humans and that see the external environment merely as an ‘ephemeral shell’ for the inner search for salvation. Sheldrake contends that during the past fifty years, place identities have been undermined in the Western world. Economic and social rationalization has led to increased mobility and weakened place identity. Modern cities are fragmented and divided into areas with different functions, such as living areas, work districts and leisure centres, a fragmentation that is detrimental for the sense of community. Sheldrake contrasts the loss of place in modern cities with the medieval view of cities as holy places. In the Middle Ages, a utopian ideal of civic life developed in which the city was the wordly image of the heavenly Jerusalem. The city was envisaged as a place where different people with different vocations would be able to live together in peace. Sheldrake argues that the medieval cathedrals affirmed the sacredness of people and communities. They functioned as living symbols of the ideals of their communities and as repositories for their collective memory (2001: 148–54). Medieval cities had a clear and recognizable order, Sheldrake says. They had the capacity to attract the attention and care of their inhabitants. Sheldrake argues that modern cities are, in contrast, often regarded as purely functional environments. They do not promote a sense of belonging and citizenship. Modern skyscrapers do not give rise to the same feeling of spiritual presences as the medieval cathedrals. As symbols of pure economic force and power they are often perceived as oppressive and impersonal (ibid.: 154–5). Sheldrake argues that we have to rediscover cities as places. A humane city is a city that promotes a sense of belonging, a city that allows for individual personality but also encourages social participation. It should promote a connection between humans and the environment so that nature is not placed in opposition to the human community, he says (ibid.: 164–6). Sheldrake’s conclusion that a sense of place is often lost in modern cities seems to be valid. However, his account of medieval cities is too romanticized, from my perspective. The theologically justified hierarchic order of medieval cities was probably also experienced as oppressive and not only as spiritually meaningful. Nevertheless, I agree with Sheldrake that it is important to promote a stronger sense of belonging among today’s urban populations. A deeper feeling for local places could affect people’s view of mobility. If our historical consciousness of the places we inhabit becomes stronger, it is more probable that we will appreciate their uniqueness. A sense of the uniqueness of all places would help us to also care for the places we pass through on our journeys. Perhaps it would no longer be so important to cover the distances as fast as possible, and the demand for high-speed mobility may decrease. A rediscovery and resacralization of place could promote an understanding of mobility that is in line with Zeitler’s conviction that we should show more moral concern for the places we travel from, to and through, and for the beings we encounter on our way. It could motivate us to retain our contact both with our inner selves and the external environment we travel through. Maybe we would be less inclined to choose rapid and motorized forms of transportation that risk disconnecting ourselves from our surroundings. If our ability to also identify with the non-human world is strengthened, we would have reasons for choosing modes of transportation that

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consume less energy and space and thus is a lesser threat to non-humans. As stated above, however, I do not believe that an individual change of thinking is sufficient for changing our transport behaviour. It will probably also be necessary to make institutional changes. In order to make people appreciate their local environment more, we will have to plan towns in a different way. Perhaps we will also have to subsidize collective transportation systems more in order to make them more attractive. Changed perceptions of place and mobility are nevertheless important, since this would increase people’s willingness to accept institutional changes. Traditionally, the property of holiness has often been connected only to certain places, such as places associated with important saints or with special revelations. From an ecotheological point of view, however, I think it is necessary to avoid this conception of the sacredness of place. The belief that only certain places are holy is problematic since it has often led to neglect of other non-holy places and sometimes to violence and oppression, for example when two groups of people both believe that a certain holy place has been given to them by God. Instead we should stress that every place has a potential for being regarded as sacred. Every place has a potential for evoking awe and reverence if we treat it well and are open to its unique characteristics. A question that has to be answered is whether the concept of the sacredness of place is meaningful for people who are not religious believers. I think it can be meaningful, because I regard the sacredness of a place as its potential for evoking awe and reverence. These are feelings that people without an implicit religious belief can experience. For instance, one does not have to belong to a religious organization to experience awe and reverence in nature. Traditionally, the notion of a sacred place has been strongly linked to the phenomenon of pilgrimage. In the next section I discuss the ways in which pilgrimage can function as a metaphor for ecologically and ethically sustainable mobility.

Pilgrimage as a metaphor for ecologically and ethically sustainable mobility Zeitler states that before the introduction of motorized forms of transportation, it was apparent that travelling could be physically and mentally demanding. Even if the traveller made use of horses, donkeys or other animals, he or she realized that transportation always involved some form of biological cost. In modern times, the invention of the train, the car and the aeroplane has led to an ideal of effortless transportation. According to Zeitler, this ideal is highly problematic, since motorized transportation has serious ecological side effects. He says that we have to rediscover the idea that travelling essentially is a form of physical and mental work. We have to shift from motorized and effortless forms of transportation to forms that require personal effort and physical power. To accomplish this mental transformation, Zeitler believes that the approach espoused by virtue ethics might be helpful. Laziness and convenience,

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the implicit attitudes that underlie the ideal of effortless transportation, cannot be regarded as virtues (Zeitler 1997: 414–15). I think Zeitler is right when he concludes that motorized mobility can make us forget the energy use that is always associated with travelling. However, it is an oversimplification to say that rapid transportation is only motivated by the vices of laziness and convenience. It can also be a way of saving time and money. Nevertheless, the preponderance of high-speed mobility in contemporary societies is problematic from an environmental perspective. For the sake of current and future generations of humans and non-humans we may have to reorganize our lives so that our need for high-speed transportation decreases. Inspired by McFague’s discussion of metaphors, I think that the concept of pilgrimage can be thought-provoking as a metaphor for mobility. Because it can function as a contrasting image to our current ideal of high-speed and effortless transportation, it can help us rethink what mobility can and should be. Pilgrimage to sacred places is a phenomenon that is a part of many religious traditions. The Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca and the Christian pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela are two of the most well-known examples. Contrary to the ideal of effortless transportation, a pilgrimage is normally connected with certain physical difficulties that the pilgrim has to endure. The pilgrim starts from a familiar place, the home, and travels to a far-off place, the pilgrimage shrine, and then returns home, hopefully spiritually transformed. It is the journey itself that matters, not only the arrival at the destination. A pilgrimage is strongly linked with the idea of the sacredness of place, which makes it different from other forms of travel (Park 1994: 245–85). In this section I first present a brief account of different attitudes towards pilgrimage in the history of Christianity. Then I outline how the concept of pilgrimage can be interpreted from an ecotheological perspective.

Attitudes towards pilgrimage in the history of Christianity In the history of Christianity, pilgrimage first became an important phenomenon in the fourth century. According to Peter Walker, it was then that pilgrimage to Palestine and especially to Jerusalem became more common. Earlier in the history of the Church, the predominant Christian attitude towards Jerusalem was more negative. This attitude was partly a consequence of the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The ‘heavenly Jerusalem’, and not the physical, became the focus of the Church. Jesus Christ, and not any physical place, was perceived as the true centre of God’s purpose. It was not until the reign of Constantine that Jerusalem again became the geographical centre of the Christian Church. Walker states that Constantine needed a symbol that could unite the Roman Empire, which motivated him to accord Jerusalem a place in imperial history. Cyril, who served as bishop in Jerusalem from 348 to 384 CE, was the first to suggest the idea that Jerusalem should be considered a Christian holy city. He argued that Jerusalem should have a pre-eminent place within the Church since it was the scene for the Eucharist’s institution, the Cross, and the Resurrection as well as

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the Ascension. Jerusalem’s rejection of Jesus in the past should not be allowed to affect its status. On the contrary, the holy status of Jerusalem was affirmed by the fact that Christian residents and visitors chose to live in or visit the city (Walker 2004: 75–9). During Constantine’s lifetime, Palestine became increasingly important as a pilgrimage destination. A large number of churches were erected over important Gospel sites and a veritable pilgrimage trail was established. Visitors came from all over the Christian world. According to Walker, it is problematic from the viewpoint of the New Testament to designate certain places as holy. Its doctrine of the Incarnation tells that the Incarnate Son is the ultimate holy place. The presence of God can only be found through Christ, not through any place on earth. Nevertheless, in the fourth century the Church adopted a view of places as holy, despite the theological ambiguities. This was triggered by the rediscovery of the places of the Incarnate Christ and the belief that the Creator God had used his created world to reveal his glory (ibid.: 83–4). During the Middle Ages, pilgrimage became an increasingly important Christian phenomenon and much-frequented pilgrimage sites emerged all over Europe. According to Dee Dyas, however, the medieval Church’s primary understanding of pilgrimage was not that of journeying to holy places, but instead the biblical idea of Christians as pilgrims and strangers in this world who travel towards the spiritual realm. According to the medieval understanding, humans are exiles, separated from God and condemned to wander the world deprived of their true home. The material world was perceived as transient and ultimately unreliable. It was the task of Christians to recognize that this world was not their true home and to begin a journey towards the heavenly Jerusalem. Dyas states that this overarching concept of ‘life pilgrimage’ was expressed through three different strands of practical interpretation, which she classifies as ‘place pilgrimage’, ‘moral pilgrimage’ and ‘interior pilgrimage’. Only the first of these entails what we today commonly think of as pilgrimages, or visits to holy places. Such visits were often criticized during the Middle Ages for being a distraction from genuine devotion. They meant that one left one’s daily responsibilities for long periods of time and exposed oneself to physical and moral danger. Moral pilgrimage instead emphasized stability and responsibility. One should act for the benefit of the needy and sacrifice one’s personal fulfilment in the service of the community. Interior pilgrimage was expressed in the ideal of the contemplative life. It gave priority to spiritual rather than physical journeying. One should retreat from the world and live in prayer and meditation (Dyas 2004: 94–101). After the Reformation, the practice of ‘place pilgrimage’ declined in Protestant countries. Graham Tomlin states that the Reformers were critical of the phenomenon of ‘place pilgrimage’ because it had led to serious abuses. Martin Luther was, for example, critical of the medieval pilgrimage tradition, because it was closely linked with a theology of merit. He strongly rejected the idea that pilgrimage to holy places was important in order to attain justification and salvation. Luther also believed that pilgrimage could lead the Christian away from the places where God has chosen to make himself known. These places are theological rather than geographical locations. According to Luther, God is found in the Word, the water of baptism, the bread and wine of Eucharist and the people of God. All a Christian needs is found in the local

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church, and therefore no pilgrimage to foreign places is necessary. Moreover, Luther stated that pilgrimage often encouraged an escape from the true responsibilities of a Christian life. Large amounts of time and money were spent on pilgrimage, resources that would have been better spent helping the poor. Finally, Luther rejected the financial corruption of the pilgrimage sites. Greedy bishops often exploited the credulity of the pilgrims (Tomlin 2004: 112–16). Tomlin argues, however, that pilgrimage can be justified from a Protestant perspective. The Reformers were mainly critical of the dangerous habits that were associated with pilgrimage, not with the phenomenon in itself. According to Tomlin, pilgrimage can function as a powerful metaphor for the Christian life. The metaphor of pilgrimage tells us that the Christian life is directed towards the destination, the heavenly city, rather than travelling for its own sake. A well-conducted pilgrimage can be a means of restoring the experience of the whole of Christian life as a journey. Tomlin states that rather than being an escape from our difficulties at home, pilgrimage can help us reorient our everyday life as Christians (2004: 123–4). More recently, the interest in pilgrimage has increased in the Western world, including the Protestant countries. In Sweden, for example, a centre for pilgrimage has been established in Vadstena, which is the home town of the Saint Birgitta and a traditional site for pilgrimage. In Norway the number of pilgrims visiting the old pilgrimage site of Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim is growing. For the modern Christian, pilgrimage is often a way of gaining a deeper sense of the meaning of life. The growing interest in pilgrimage can be seen as a reaction against the increased pace and complexity of modern societies. The contemporary pilgrim longs for silence and simplicity. Pilgrimage is a way of ‘reconquering slowness’ (Lindström 1999: 128).

An ecotheological interpretation of the conception of pilgrimage As has been described, the Church throughout its history has had an ambivalent attitude towards physical pilgrimage. Pilgrimage has often been seen as an escape from the true duties at home. Moreover, theologians have often criticized the belief that God can be found in certain geographical places rather than through Jesus Christ, the sacraments and the Church. Today the perception of pilgrimage among Christians in the Western world is quite different. Pilgrimage on foot represents a simpler way of life, in contrast to expensive charter trips to far-off countries. In comparison with experience-filled journeys to exotic countries, a pilgrimage to sites in one’s own country represents an alternative with less intense sensory impressions. The Church’s traditional idea of pilgrimage appears ambiguous from an ecotheological perspective. Theologians have often emphasized the inner aspect of the journey. It is not the places in themselves that are holy; they can only remind us of the holiness of the events that took place there. The stress on the inner aspect of the journey can be a powerful reminder today that travelling should not be carried out for its own sake. Travels should have an explicit goal in order to be meaningful. Moreover, contrary to the current cultural ideal of mobility as a way to freedom, a life

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with frequent journeys and little rootedness is not only positive. It has been shown, for example in Peter Nynäs’ study of participants in international industrial projects (this volume, Ch. 7), that a working life characterized by a great deal of travel can have serious negative psychological effects. On the other hand, the emphasis on the inner aspect of the journey may lead to a neglect of the outer world. Pilgrimage has often been used as a metaphor for spiritual travel away from the earth. Such an interpretation can be dangerous today if it leads us to neglect the physical world. I believe, however, that the metaphor of pilgrimage does not have to be interpreted in such a way if we acknowledge that we humans are also earthly beings, who live and travel in this world. From an ecotheological viewpoint, it is the task of humans to reconcile with the physical world, even if it is not our final destination. In order to reconstruct the notion of pilgrimage we can make use of virtue ethics. In her analysis of virtues under the philosophical and theological discourse on ecological issues, Louke van Wensveen finds that compassion is considered one of the most important virtues. Solidarity with the victims of environmental deterioration is seen as the starting-point for environmental activism. Environmental authors encourage us to feel compassion not only for humans, but also for other living beings. Respect is another essential ecological virtue. Ecotheologians and environmental ethicists emphasize the need to pay attention to the network of relationships we find ourselves in. We should proceed with care in our encounters with both the human and the non-human world. Moreover, attunement is also considered an important virtue in our interaction with nature. We should be receptive to changes in the natural world and try to adapt to them and harmonize with them. Earthiness is still another valuable ecological virtue, according to van Wensveen. It means to see the earth as our home and to be open to its beauty. However, it is not a form of romantic escapism since it involves the readiness to get our hands dirty if our home needs cleaning (van Wensveen 2000: 30–35). The ecotheological pilgrim can be seen as someone who embodies all these four virtues. He or she shows compassion for the living beings encountered on the way. The places he or she travels from and to, as well as through, are considered holy places worthy of respect. Furthermore, the pilgrim adjusts to and interacts responsibly with humans and non-humans encountered along the way. A pilgrim is someone who literally keeps in touch with the earth. He or she becomes well acquainted with local conditions and the natural environment on the journey. For a pilgrim the travel is itself the goal, not solely a way of covering a distance. An ecotheological pilgrim has the pilgrimage site in his or her thoughts, but is also aware of the surroundings he or she travels through and shows appreciation and respect for them. A pilgrimage is an inner journey as well as an outer one, a journey that increases the self-knowledge of the pilgrim. It is a journey that widens the perspectives of the pilgrim and makes him or her more compassionate towards the surroundings after returning home. As shown, for example, by Erling Holden (this volume, Ch. 3), it is often very difficult to influence people’s transport behaviour in a more sustainable direction. Every effort to induce people to change their attitudes towards transportation is therefore important. I think that the metaphor of transportation as pilgrimage could motivate

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at least some individuals to change to slower and more demanding but less energyconsuming and less polluting forms of transportation, such as from air and car traffic to trains and bicycles. Such a shift seems necessary for society as a whole, although I do not want to deny that certain underprivileged groups may need better access to motorized forms of transportation, at least in the short-term (Uteng, this volume, Ch. 8). From an ecotheological perspective, pilgrimage should not be understood only as a leisure pursuit, something that we do in our spare time as an escape from our everyday life in the office or in the factory. Such an understanding will only serve to sustain the current separation of nature into spheres of production and consumption. Instead, the view of transportation as pilgrimage should encompass our everyday transport behaviour. If we regard our everyday travels as pilgrimages from one holy place to another, it will certainly increase our readiness to interact responsibly with the humans and non-humans we encounter. As described earlier, however, we should also acknowledge that certain institutional changes may be necessary in order to promote a transport behaviour that is better adjusted to the environment. I think that the metaphor of travelling as pilgrimage can also be meaningful from a non-religious perspective, since it closely resembles Ingold’s notion of wayfaring. Much like an ecotheological pilgrim, a wayfarer is also attentive to his or her surroundings. The journey has a value in itself, not just as a means of covering a distance.

Conclusions To conclude, ecotheology can supply important contributions to an ethics of mobility by developing new ways of seeing nature, places and mobility. Ecological theologians stress that all parts of nature are interconnected and that all life forms are worthy of respect. Northcott and Ruether argue, for instance, that the covenant between humans and God also should be seen as encompassing nature. Non-humans have a value independent of human valuation. From the perspective of liberation theology, Bergmann contends that nature should be treated as a dialogue partner in the construction of theology. The principle of including repressed theological subjects also should be extended to include non-humans. The belief that animals and plants are morally considerable has also been defended from a purely philosophical view, for example by Rolston, Callicott, Varner and Warren. If we take this belief seriously, it would have important implications for our view of mobility, especially in those cases where mobility poses an obvious threat to living beings. We would be compelled to have stronger reasons for choosing actions that negatively affect the environment. Furthermore, I contend that a rediscovery and a resacralization of place can lead to other attitudes towards mobility. According to Zeitler, transport research and the public debate about transportation is dominated by a ‘geometric’ view of space according to which space is measurable, homogeneous, value-neutral and infinite. He contrasts this conception with an understanding of space as ‘lived space’. According to such a view,

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space has a certain meaning. It is characterized by qualitative differences, depending on the species or individuals that inhabit it. Zeitler states that the concept of lived space is closely connected to the concept of place. He understands places as delimited contexts within lived space. According to the view of space as geometric, mobility is mainly understood as the conquest of distance. This leads to an emphasis on high-speed mobility, which often has detrimental effects on the environment. As an alternative to such an understanding of mobility, Zeitler suggests his own interpretation of travelling as ‘moving by returning home’. Travelling is only meaningful in light of the fact that one is returning home. It must contribute to our life story. Both within current philosophy and theology there is an increasing interest in place. For example, Sheldrake calls for a resacralization of place. He contends that during the past fifty years place identities have been undermined in the Western world. People have lost much of their sense of belonging, both to the human and the natural world. I agree with Sheldrake that it is important to promote a deeper feeling for local places. A stronger sense of belonging could lead to a view of travelling similar to Zeitler’s interpretation of travel as moving by returning home. Such a shift of perspective could make us more inclined to show respect for the places we travel from, through and to and may help us be more motivated to interact responsibly with the beings we encounter. Finally, I suggest that religious pilgrimage could function as a metaphor for ecologically and ethically sustainable mobility. It could function as a contrast picture against the current emphasis on fast, effortless and often polluting transportation. However, I believe that the traditional notion of pilgrimage must be reconstructed from an ecotheological point of view and that virtue ethics can be used for this purpose. I think that an ecotheological pilgrim is someone who shows compassion for the living beings he or she encounters on the way. The places he or she travels from and to as well as through should be considered holy places worthy of respect. Furthermore, the pilgrim adjusts to and interacts responsibly with the surroundings along the way. A pilgrim is someone who literally keeps in touch with the earth. He or she becomes well acquainted with local conditions and the natural environment on the journey. For a pilgrim the travel is itself the goal, not only an elimination of distance. An ecotheological pilgrim has the pilgrimage site in his or her thoughts, but is also aware of the surroundings he or she travels through and shows appreciation and respect for them.

Notes 1. The first of these conflicts, the one between today’s individuals and groups, is acknowledged in Liv Øvstedal’s contribution to this volume (Ch. 9), where she discusses how the transportation system can be better adapted to children, the elderly and the disabled. 2. Another term proposed by Ulli Zeitler (see below) for this field of study in ethics is ‘transport ethics’, but I prefer the concept of mobility instead of transport since it is more comprehensive. Mobility includes all kinds of travels as well as the possibility of not moving. For a discussion of the concept of mobility, see Sager, this volume (Ch. 10). 3. For an account of the environmental history of other Western countries, see, for example, Dalton (1994).

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4. In the light of current scholarship in biblical studies it is probably more correct to claim that the dualistic understanding of nature has its origin in certain Western interpretations of the Bible rather than in the Bible itself. Robert Murray argues, for example, that the covenant spoken about in the Old Testament is a ‘cosmic covenant’ that encompasses both nature and the human society (Murray 1992). 5. For an account of the view of nature in the Christian tradition see, for instance, Santmire (1985). 6. Other works that discuss ecological issues from the perspective of liberation theology are Boff (1997) and McFague (2001). 7. The concept of lived space seems to have some similarities with Juhani Pallasmaa’s concept of ‘existential space’, since it acknowledges the subjective dimension of space; see Nynäs, this volume, Chapter 7.

References Bergmann, S. 2005. Creation Set Free: The Spirit as Liberator of Nature. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans. Boff, L. 1997. Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. Callicott, J. B. 1989. In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Callicott, J. B. 1999. Beyond the Land Ethic: More Essays in Environmental Philosophy. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Casey, E. S. 1998. The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Dalton, R. J. 1994. The Green Rainbow: Environmental Groups in Western Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Dyas, D. 2004. ‘Medieval Patterns of Pilgrimage: A Mirror for Today?. In Explorations in a Christian Theology of Pilgrimage, eds C. Bartholomew & F. Hughes, 92–109. Aldershot: Ashgate. Hagman, O. 2000. Bilen, naturen och det moderna. Om natursynens omvandlingar i det svenska bilsamhället (The car, nature and modernity: On the transformations of the view of nature within the swedish car society) (KFB-Rapport nr 2000:06). Gothenburg. Hauerwas, S. 2003. The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics. London: SCM Press. Ingold, T. 2004. ‘Up, Across and Along’. Unpublished manuscript. Department of Anthropology, University of Aberdeen. Lindström, H.-E. 1999. ‘Inre och yttre vandring. Om olika former av vandringar och om pilgrimens fem kännetecken’ (Inner and outer journeys: About different forms of journeys and about the five characteristics of the pilgrim). In Gå med Gud. Ett sätt att erövra långsamhetens kultur (Walk with God: A way of reconquering the culture of slowness), ed. H.-E. Lindström, 121–34. Gothenburg: Cordia. McFague, S. 1987. Models of God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age. London: SCM Press. McFague, S. 2001. Life Abundant: Rethinking Theology and Economy for a Planet in Peril. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. Melin, A. 2001. Judgements in Equilibrium? An Ethical Analysis of Environmental Impact Assessment, Linköping Studies in Arts and Science No. 235. Linköping University. Murray, R. 1992. The Cosmic Covenant: Biblical Themes of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation. London: Sheed & Ward. Northcott, M. S. 1996. The Environment and Christian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Park, C. C. 1994. Sacred Worlds: An Introduction to Geography and Religion. London: Routledge. Ruether, R. R. 1994. Gaia & God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco. Rolston, H., III. 1988. Environmental Ethics: Duties to and Values in the Natural World. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Rolston, H., III. 1989. Philosophy Gone Wild: Environmental Ethics. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books. Rolston, H., III. 1994. Conserving Natural Value. New York: Columbia University Press. Santmire, P. 1985. The Travail of Nature: The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christian Theology. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

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Scott, P. 2003. A Political Theology of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sheldrake, P. 2001. Spaces for the Sacred: Place, Memory, and Identity. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Stenmark, M. 2002. Environmental Ethics and Policy-making. Aldershot: Ashgate. Tomlin, G. 2004. ‘Protestants and Pilgrimage’. In Explorations in a Christian Theology of Pilgrimage, eds C. Bartholomew & F. Hughes, 110–25. Aldershot: Ashgate. van Wensveen, L. 2000. Dirty Virtues: The Emergence of Ecological Virtue Ethics. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books. Varner, G. E. 1998. In Nature’s Interests? Interests, Animal Rights, and Environmental Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Walker, P. 2004. ‘Pilgrimage in the Early Church’. In Explorations in a Christian Theology of Pilgrimage, eds C. Bartholomew & F. Hughes, 73–91. Aldershot: Ashgate. Warren, K. J. 1990. ‘The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism’. Environmental Ethics 12: 125–46. Zeitler, U. 1997. Transport Ethics: An Ethical Analysis of the Impact of Passenger Transport on Human and Non-human Nature, doctoral dissertation, Centre for Social Science Research on the Environment (CeSaM), Aarhus University.

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5 The bodily basis of control in technically aided movement Kjell Ivar Øvergård, Cato Alexander Bjørkli and Thomas Hoff

Introduction Human society is highly dependent on the existence and use of technical transportation devices. Goods are transported long distances by large cargo ships or by airplane. People commonly use trains, buses or commercial aeroplanes for personal transport. Technical transportation vehicles allow for longer and faster movement than would be possible by foot or on horseback. Thus, cars, trains, boats and aeroplanes result in efficiencies in speed and ability to carry cargo, benefits that have seemingly led society to depend on these tools to maintain its current standard of living. This need for efficiency brings about a search for something that is more efficient than humans themselves: we strive for the possibilities and promises provided by technology. The use of transportation technologies is steadily increasing. Norway, a country with about 4.6 million inhabitants, had about 2.3 million vehicles in 1991, a number that had increased to 2.8 million by 2000. The number of kilometres driven on Norwegian roads has increased by approximately 13 per cent in the decade from 1990 to 2000, from 48 billion km to 54 billion km respectively (Statistics Norway 2002). This increase is a part of a global trend, which results in pollution that threatens the natural environment (see Holden, this volume, Ch. 3). In addition to the negative effects from pollution, transport also entails global threats to humans in terms of deaths and injuries. The first automobile accident occurred in 1869, when a young woman was crushed to death under the wheels of a steam-carriage (Fallon & O’Neill 2005). The subsequent increase in transportation has resulted in an increase in the number of transportation-related casualties. A recent report estimates that about 1.2 million people die each year from injuries sustained in traffic accidents worldwide (Peden et al. 2004). Most of these accidents have been attributed to ‘driver failure’. For example, Hills (1980) claimed that up to 95 per cent of all car accidents can be explained by human

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error and that perceptual error has been shown to be a factor in 44 per cent of all car accidents. High speed was claimed to be a cause of 23 per cent of all accidents. Numerous other surveys and review articles also blame human error as a major cause for accidents and loss of lives (see e.g. Vicente 2004; Reason 1990). Human error is often presented as the major cause of accidents when no other apparent reasons are present. As long as the driver in principle could actually control the boat/car/train/ plane or other vehicle, it is assumed that the driver made a mistake or acted in error (Hollnagel 1993). However, the mere presence of information and the formal ability to control has been shown not to be sufficient to master technological processes. There is now a growing consensus that we have to differentiate between the mere availability of information and control on one side and the information that operators can observe and understand on the other (Woods et al. 2002). A configuration of technology must be anchored not exclusively in terms of ‘objective’ specifications, but also explicitly in relation to the characteristics of the organism operating the system. This means going from observer-independent measures (e.g. classical physics – metres, kilograms and decibels) to observer-dependent measures (e.g. ecological physics – audible, visible, ‘grabbable’ for a given organism in its habitat; Flach 1995; Warren 1995). Following this line of reasoning, design must take into account the psychological and physiological characteristics of the users (Norman 2002; Vicente 1999; 2004). The characteristics of the human mind, and the ways in which people maintain control of their movements, are consequently the important questions that should be addressed. Furthermore, from a human factors perspective, how does technically aided transportation affect the ability of an individual to control the movements of these vehicles? In this essay we shall present an account grounded in ecological psychology and phenomenology. This account relates to how humans control their movements, both with respect to unaided bodily movement, and during technically aided movement. ‘Technically aided movement’ is only intended to mean movement that is aided by mechanical vehicles, where the body does not constrain the movement per se. Natural, unaided movement is, therefore, related to movement that is dependent on, and constrained by, the physical capabilities of the human body. We shall describe a model of human functioning based on recent cross-disciplinary opposition to the information-processing perspective on human functioning (see e.g. Reisberg 2001, for a description of the information-processing approach). This new model has been described as the embodied mind approach (Varela et al. 1991; Lakoff & Johnson 1999). The essay is divided into two parts. Firstly, we ask how control is realized in both unaided bodily movement and technically aided movement. Secondly, we discuss how this model affects our understanding of transportation technologies and their effect on the humans that use them. We seek to present a cross-disciplinary basis for the further investigation of themes related to how technology affects human movement and mobility. We do this by reframing the ways that we understand human interaction with technology on both a psychological and philosophical level.

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THE BODILY BASIS OF CONTROL IN TECHNICALLY AIDED MOVEMENT

The embodied mind The embodied mind approach argues that human interaction with the world is a reciprocal coordination of the actors’ minds, bodies and environment, rather than being guided by internal problem-solving or mental internal representations (Varela et al. 1991; Clark 1997, 1999; see also McDermott 2001; Reisberg 2001). The embodied mind perspective reformulates the question of what constitutes and connects human thought and behaviour. It does this by setting aside the traditional reference to the core axiom of formal structuralism where the ‘mind’ is explained by reference to an abstract structure, preferably logical or mathematical in nature. The embodied approach attacks the issue of human thought and behaviour by emphasizing the coordination and control of action in accordance with a continuously changing context. This further implies a denial of the philosophically cumbersome dualisms of ‘mind– body’ and ‘mind–world’, which originated from the Cartesian heritage in the classical information-processing paradigm (Gibson 1979; Lakoff & Johnson 1999; Ingold 2000; Thelen & Smith 1994). This reformulation of the nature of human thought and behaviour removes the related separations of issues concerning perception– cognition, perception–action and action–cognition. The interlocking of these three aspects beyond their separation in the language of scientists constitutes the basis of an embodied approach to human functioning. The synthesis of the three aspects is recognized as an expression of how humans coordinate and control their action in their habitat and how they adapt to environmental constraints, biomechanical constraints and task constraints.1 Three important features will be explained below, in order to elaborate on the perspective of embodied approach. The first element is the tight coupling of perception and action, which constitutes the basis for cognition. The second aspect is the possibility for a functional extension of the human body. The third and last characteristic of the embodied mind is the cognitive extension of the human mind.

Perception–action coupling The term ‘perception–action coupling’ is used to denote the cyclical relationship between human perception and movement in the world (Gibson 1979). The term emphasizes human perception as a basis for movement, and how this movement in turn guides and facilitates the further perception of salient environmental characteristics, which again shapes and guides the further exploration of the environment (Swenson & Turvey 1991). Action is a way of perceiving and perceiving is a way of acting (Smitsman 1997; Noë 2004). This reflects a dual relationship between perception and action. Action is constitutive for perception, since without movement of the body or the environment there would be no changes in sensory stimulation, and neural adaptation would occur; the world ‘disappears’. This argument is supported in studies of neural adaptation in the ‘fading of visual objects’. When a perceived object is held stationary on the retina for more than a few seconds, it fades from view and is

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Perception

Effective possibilities for perception and action

Action

Figure 1. The interlocking spheres of perception and action.

no longer perceived by the individual (Yarbus 1967; see Martinez-Conde et al. 2004 for a recent review). On a larger scale, perception is assumed to be similarly constitutive for action, where functional action can only occur in those circumstances in which the body is able to respond to the changes in the environment brought forth by movement. If the body cannot perceive meaningful changes following a movement, this movement cannot be controlled in relation to the environment. This means that movement is both enabled and constrained by perception. In other words, perception and action are mutually constraining and constitutive of each other. Action and perception, then, can be described as spheres that represent mutual possibilities and constraints. The effective possibilities for movement are present at the intersection of the perception and action ‘spheres’. Figure 1 presents a graphical representation of the perception and action spheres. The view of perception and action as interlocking capacities of the human body requires that human natural movement is understood as controlled and coordinated by behaviour that is continuously altered and attuned to constraints related to the task to be performed, as opposed to being controlled by pre-defined motor programmes or mental models (Fajen & Warren 2003; Thelen & Smith 1994; Turvey et al. 1978). The embodied mind is thus geared towards controlling action, but it is also based on physical action (Clark 1997; Noë 2004).

The functional extension of the body The second important tenet of the embodied mind approach concerns the body’s boundaries, which are seen as extendable beyond the skin rather than fixed, and may include objects to create a new bodily synthesis. This phenomenon has been approached explicitly from three distinctly different fields of enquiry. The first is casebased research on the phenomenon of phantom limbs. The second is the philosophical endeavour following the phenomenological philosophy of Edmund Husserl. The third is neuropsychological research on macaque monkeys, and humans suffering from neurological injuries. These three fields will be described below.

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Functional extensions: phantom limbs Variations on the phenomenon of phantom limbs have been widely described in medical literature (Ramachandran & Hirstein 1998). Primarily, phantom limbs are defined as the vivid impression that a deafferented or amputated limb is still present, and that the limb still gives rise to various experiences as part of the body (Mitchell 1871; Ramachandran 1993; Ramachandran & Hirstein 1998). The documentation of phantom limbs has primarily been gathered from medical science in the study of pathology in patients after deafferentation. The phantom limb is thus an experience of a missing body part that is no longer a part of the person’s physiological structure (nerves, muscles and so forth). The traditional explanation of this phenomenon has been the malfunction of severed or damaged nerves at the locus of deafferentation. However, the phenomenon of phantom limbs has also been reported in children with congenital missing limbs (La Croix et al. 1992). Here, children born without limbs (e.g. arms or hands) had phantom limb experiences, and were actually able to voluntarily ‘move’ the given phantom limb. This phenomenon undermines the theory of anomalous and abnormal physiological activity after body trauma. Additionally, it is possible to induce phantom limb sensations in normal, healthy individuals. The procedure involves invoking stimulus contingencies for the coordination of the subject’s body’s movement and perception (see Ramachandran & Hirstein 1997; Lackner 1988). Vilayanur Ramachandran and William Hirstein (1998) conclude that body image is far from being a permanent and durable state, but is rather a transitory state that responds in a plastic manner to contextual specifics. Functional extensions: phenomenological philosophy Much like Ramachandran and Hirstein (1998), the phenomenological philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1962) claims that the notion of our body evades traditional physiological and psychological explanations, and that our experience of the body is in flux. The experiential notion of being embodied is not tied to the naturalistic objective categories of ‘present’ or ‘absent’, where the phantom limb offers the paradox of a ‘presence-not-present’ part of the body. Merleau-Ponty goes beyond medical and psychological explanations to establish a phenomenological language for describing the flux of bodily images or experiences. He suggests that the body is the carrier or the instantiation of a being that exists in a context (world). To ‘hold a body’ is to bring oneself together with a context by practical engagement in terms of perceiving and acting through the body. The body being becomes the medium through which we perceive the world: ‘we are our bodies’ (Merleau-Ponty 1962, 1968). This ‘beingto-the-world’ and its intentional engagement in context focuses on encounters with items and objects in praxis. The underpinning for this view is that ‘some form of action precedes or grounds conception’ (Ihde 1983). For Merleau-Ponty, ‘being’ is first and foremost a practical experience. This line of thought builds on the ideas in Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time (1962), where practical engagement is the core of human existence. Humans constitute their world through practical engagement. Heidegger refines earlier works by

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Husserl and his analysis of the Cartesian stance, where Husserl followed the steps in the reduction of existence to a dualistic perspective by Descartes. Where Descartes find human existence to be isolated from the external world (mind apart from world), Husserl argues that humans are present in the world, and that it is this presence that forms the foundation for existence. Further, presence in the world is structured, and the nature of this structure is intentionality. Heidegger builds his arguments on this last line of thought, where the focus is on how beings find themselves in the world. He goes beyond Husserl in specifying this and one distinct difference, to the extent that Heidegger emphasizes practical engagement. Beings always find themselves in a situation by comporting themselves according to possibilities from and through everyday concerns and activities. Praxis becomes the foundation for establishing a relationship with our world. It is by doing that we find our place in this world. Given this approach, tools and technology enter the front stage of analysis of human existence, because humans do not act in isolation or alone. Human action is intertwined with tool use, and practical being is thus the expression of a ‘bodysubject’ in a particular situation of praxis. Merleau-Ponty and Heidegger are brought together by the embodied state of existence (‘body-subject’) and practical everyday tool use (‘Verfallen’). Our comportment with the world is one of practical involvement. Still, there are several ways of comporting oneself in the use of objects. In our primary engagement with the world, we involve ourselves in the world through objects (‘zuhanden’ or ‘ready-to-hand’). This means that objects find their meaning through use in a given context that includes all relevant objects. For example, a carpenter uses his hammer by using it in the context of building a house and the skills included in this activity. The world of that carpenter appears through the various tools that define the worldness of his being. On the other hand, objects may be experienced as detached from their referential and practical context. Objects apart from their use are experienced as objects in themselves; they appear present-at-hand (‘Vorhanden’). By actively using objects that are present-at-hand, these objects become ready-at-hand or appendices that shape the ways that the body can perceive and act (Heidegger 1962, 1977). Through active use, tools can become functional extensions of the body’s action capabilities (Hirose & Nishio 2001; Hirose 2002). The use of a tool effectively alters the body’s ability to act on its environment (Smitsman 1997; Hancock & Chignell 1995). Functional extensions: neuropsychological research Research from neuropsychology has explored the possibility of a functional extension of the body through tools. One line of research is found in studies of patients with hemispheric neglect.2 The results indicate that there are differences in the degree of neglect between the ‘near’ space (the area within manual reach) and the ‘far’ space (area outside the person’s manual reach) on the opposite side of the brain damage (Laeng et al. 2002; Berti & Frassinetti 2000; Vuilleumier et al. 1998). The study by Anna Berti and Francesca Frassinetti (2000) reports interesting findings, where actions within the ‘near’ part of the opposite side of the brain damage were more affected by neglect than the ‘far’ part. However, when the subject used a stick to perform a test task in the

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‘far’ part (and thus extending the ‘near’ space) the degree of neglect was approximately equivalent to the ‘near’ part. This suggests that the patients incorporated the stick as the prolongation of the body, and thus ‘included’ it in the neglect, affecting actions within the manual reach of the patient (ibid.). The ‘far’ space becomes ‘near’ space as tools extend our body and our functional reach into the world. Other manifestations of body extension are found in neuropsychological research on macaque monkeys. These studies have shown that ‘near’ and ‘far’ spaces are associated with activation of different areas in the brain (see Maravita & Iriki 2004 for a recent review). Another study showed that following the use of a rake to extend manual reach, receptive areas in the brain related to the area within manual reach expanded to cover the area covered with the rake (Iriki et al. 1996). Also of importance is that this process depends on the active use of the tool. The organism must actively and freely use the given tool, whereas mere passive wielding is not enough to for the tool to be embodied (Maravita et al. 2002). This dynamic alteration of neural activation patterns following active tool use is arguably a neurological basis for the embodiment of tools and objects (Maravita & Iriki 2004). These findings show that organisms change their experience of space in relation to their body through practical engagement with tools.

The extension of cognition into the environment In addition to ‘perception–action cycles’ and the ‘functional extension of the body’, the third aspect of embodiment is the notion that cognition may also extend into the environment. This line of reasoning follows, to a certain extent, from the argument for the functional extension of the body, in the sense that the context not only offers opportunities for action and movement, but also allows for an action that psychologists label ‘complex problem-solving’. The observation by psychologists of chimpanzees struggling to acquire object outside their reach offered the first observations of cognition that was specifically tied to context beyond mere sensory registration (Koffka 1935; Köhler 1973). For Köhler, the chimpanzees ‘saw’ the solution in the context rather than generating adequate mental algorithms. As pointed out by Gibson (1979), perception is a mode of action, implying that what we perceive is a function of how we act. In philosophy, Merleau-Ponty (1962) discusses the presence of ‘body-subject’ in the world, which may be considered as different from the description of mere objects (e.g. rocks, water, dirt). The body-subject differs in that its presence is situational rather than positional. This means that the body occupies space not just as mass in a three-dimensional space (positions of points of mass), but as a body-subject gestalt of possible actions (situational tasks and activities). Perception is thus practical, not only in terms of functional movement and bodily extension, but also in terms of ways of relating ourselves to the world. The context offers (‘affords’) ways of ‘doing things’, that is, it offers solutions to problems. It allows for the idea of the extension of cognitive abilities beyond the skull and skin of organisms. The situational presence is the doing

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and the active use of the body, not merely introverted thinking and problem-solving by inner calculus. Perceived environmental structures offer not only opportunities for movement, but also for cognition. The cognitive extension hypothesis involves a radical departure from classical cognitive psychology by stating that human cognition is not solely dependent on intracranial cognitive processes, but rather exudes into the environment through the actor’s (re)structuring of the environment (Clark 1997, 1999, 2005; Clark & Chalmers 1998). The notion of internal representations guiding actions also becomes theoretically redundant when we accept that ‘the world is its own best model’ (Brooks 1997: 417). There are considerable advantages in relating to the external world rather than to an ‘internal mental model’ with respect to real-time decisions. One can decide what to do faster and with more precision when using the ‘external world’ than when using an internal computational program to guide one’s actions (Clark 1997). Real-life examples of the extension of cognitive structures beyond the skull of the human are the use of maps during planning and execution of a sea voyage, and the use of a pencil to structure a text in order to ease further reading (see e.g. Hutchins 1995; Clark 1997). In this way, cognition is perceived as being distributed across body, activity and environment (Lave 1988; Ingold 2000).

Summary of the embodied mind’s key features In the sections above, the embodied mind approach is described in terms of key features, where a close interdependency between perception, action and cognition is postulated. The claim is that the borders of the body are fluent and adaptable, as observed during experienced tool use. Another central tenet is that cognition is distributed across the body, activity and environmental artefacts. These characteristics imply that humans are not distant observers separated from the environment, but rather that the environment in which humans are embedded is a vital and indistinguishable part of human cognition and action. This approach is anchored in the supposition that humans are immersed in the world on both the cognitive and perception–action levels. We control our movements in real time as the movements unfold in a world of changing constraints (see e.g. Fajen & Warren 2003; Turvey et al. 1978; Latash & Turvey 1996). Following this approach, we shall now discuss how this perspective affects our understanding of control in both natural and technically aided movement.

Natural unaided human movement Natural, unaided human movement, consisting of only the body and the ground supporting movement, imposes natural limits on the speed, height, length, duration and effect of human movements. Human movement capabilities differ widely among

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individuals, but the best estimate of the absolute boundaries for unaided human movement is probably that of the current world record holders in athletics. Table 1 presents some current (August 2005) world records for athletics and weight lifting. The records presented in Table 1 show the top performance a person can achieve through dedicated bodily training and coordination. For example, the maximum speed that can be reached by a human, calculated using the 100 metre sprint, is approximately 41 km per hour. Table 1. Current world records in sports, showing the limits of the human body for specific types of movement and action. Records Discipline Women Men 100 m sprint 10.49 seconds 9.77 seconds 400 m sprint 47.60 seconds 43.18 seconds 10,000 m 29:31.78 minutes 26:20.31 minutes Long jump 7.52 metres 8.95 metres High jump 2.09 metres 2.45 metres 213 kga / 263.5 kgb Weight lifting (heavy weight) 137.5 kga / 182.5 kgb Javelin 71,70 metres 98,48 metres (a) Snatch ; (b) Clean and jerk

These achievements not only demand superior strength, stamina and cardiovascular performance, but also coordinated dexterity between limbs and between the body and the environment the athlete moves through (Latash & Turvey 1996). For example, to achieve a successful long jump, a person must (i) come as close as possible to the take-off board without stepping over it, (ii) have a body posture at the last step that enables the correct amount of force to be directed both downwards and forwards in order to achieve the optimal jump trajectory, and (iii) have as high a controllable running speed as possible (Berg et al. 1994). To attain objective (i), the long-jumper must coordinate the step length to fit the visually perceived distance to the take-off board. This statement has been corroborated in several studies (ibid.; Lee et al. 1982). Thus, the athlete must engage in active perception–action coupling in order to achieve an optimal distance to the take-off board during the jump. However, long-jumpers cannot pre-train a stereotyped step pattern (motor programme) and then implement it in the given long-jump arena, but must adapt to environmental circumstances (e.g. the distance to the take-off board) and bodily movements that occur during each individual long jump. In order to attain objectives (ii) and (iii), the athlete must be able to perceive the position and movement of the limbs (‘proprioception’). This is a sensory modality that most humans take for granted and are not aware of, but what happens when this sense of positioned bodily being is lost? It seems that control of our movements becomes almost impossible without proprioception, as shown in the case study of a patient given the code name IW (Cole 1995; Gallagher 2005). IW suffers from of a type of neural pathology where large neural fibres below the neck were damaged 109


by infectious mononucleosis, leading to the total loss of proprioception and touch below the neck. The immediate effect of this was that IW lost control of all bodily movements; only after a couple of years of training was he able to control his movements, and then only when he actually could see his movements.3 Today, IW can control his movements with a dexterity that is nearly normal, although he has to concentrate on his body’s position by using his sight in order to maintain and guide movement (Gallagher 2005). This implies that humans without disabilities like those of IW take advantage of the wealth of bodily information from their own body to control their movement, movements that again give rise to a particular set of sensory changes. To sum up, the description of unaided bodily movement emphasizes a continuous dynamic interrelationship between the movements performed by a person and the perception of the altered body posture and the environmental changes brought forth by these movements. For patients like IW, who suffer from disrupted cycles of perception and action, controlled movements depend on the explicit and conscious coordination of perception and body actions. In normal, healthy individuals and dedicated athletes, the coupling of perception and action in the body is highly tuned and refined. The emphasis on the triangulation of body, perception and action suggests that both functional and controlled movements demand that organisms are able to perceive changes in the environment and in their bodies, and that they adapt to these changes by altering movement to fit the current situational and biomechanical constraints (Turvey 1990; Thelen & Smith 1994). However, this entails the question of how we are able to perceive the changes in the environment that signify movement or change of movement. This is the question we shall now attempt to answer.

Relationship between environmental changes and movement As the long-jumper runs towards the take-off board, movement-dependent changes in the athlete’s sensory systems (vision, hearing, touch, etc.) occur. For example, the take-off board takes up more space in the person’s visual field (it comes nearer) and the angle at which it can be seen alters as the person approaches the board. In ecological psychology, this interrelationship between the movements of an observer (or athlete) and the sensory changes in the perception of the environment is seen as complementary to the interrelationship between perception and action (Gibson 1979; see also above). These interrelationships have led ecological psychologists to introduce the term lawful transformations, which originate from the understanding that specific movements are being followed by equally specific changes in the sensory information presented to an observer. In the case of vision, for example, where light rays are emitted from light sources (the sun, lamps, etc.) and are reflected from the surfaces of objects, reflected light ‘fills’ the environment in which humans live. Light rays converge from all possible angles on all possible points of observation. This is the physical basis for human sight and has been called the ‘ambient optic array’ (Gibson

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1979). The ambient optic array can be described as rays of light that are reflected from the surfaces of objects in the visual field of the observer (Johansson 1991). These rays will penetrate the lens and the cornea of the human eye and hit the retina in the back of the eye, which contains nerve cells that react to light. Any movement of the observer’s eyes or head will move the rays of light over the retina, creating an ‘optic flow’. The optic flow over the retina (also called ‘retinal flow’) can then give information about the movement of one’s self and of objects in the world (Gibson 1979; see Lappè et al. 1999 for a recent review). Changes in the origination of the optic flow towards or away from an individual indicates a change in the heading of a movement (Cutting & Readinger 2002). The transformations in optic flow during forward, backward or sideways movement are invariant during a given mode of movement; for example, forward movement entails the same changes in optic flow (flow out from the point of heading) in all cases of this type of movement. This applies also to backward and sideways movement, as well as in changes in heading (Cutting & Readinger 2002). Invariant relationships exist in other sensory modalities such as rotational inertia (Pagano & Turvey 1995) and static torque (Kingma et al. 2004) and in dynamic touch (Turvey 1996). The multitude of sensory systems engaged in natural bodily movement show how the human perceptual systems capitalize on redundancy and constrained variability in the sensory changes following movements, factors that are important in the ability to detect movements and control movements (Waddington & Adams 2003; Davids et al. 2004). Redundancy in sensory systems seems to be the rule rather than the exception. Since there is an invariant relationship between movement and sensory changes, it is possible to state that movement is specified by the invariant changes in environmental stimulation. In an experiential sense, environmental stimulation can act as a substitute for movement. This has been shown in studies of visual kinaesthetics where people were presented with visual information that specified backward or forward movement while they were standing still. Following the visual stimulation, the subjects swayed heavily and even fell to the floor (Lee & Aronson 1974; Lee & Lishman 1975). Similarly, Gunnar Johansson (1977) found that people experienced that they moved up or down when a film of coordinated movement dots was presented to their peripheral vision. The specification of movements by invariant changes in the ambient energy array enables humans to not only experience movement as such, but also perceive the velocity and direction of their movement. A person can see which way he or she moves relative to the environment by passively observing or actively enacting changes in the ambient energy array. Following this, we might argue that the invariant specification of movement by multiple sensory systems is what makes on-line control of movement possible, by allowing the perceptual system to directly detect the higherorder characteristics of self-movement (Fajen & Warren 2003; Gibson 1979). The means to control movement are directly present in the combined perceptual-motor capabilities of the agent, according to this view of human natural unaided movement. However, as we shall see, technical transportation vehicles seriously alter the perceptual and experiential basis for control of self-movement.

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The bodily basis for the control of natural unaided movement At this stage we are ready to describe the central features of how people control their activities and movements. The central features of the human mind as described in the embodied mind approach have as a common component the mutual interlocking relationship between an observer/actor and the environment. The body can be extended to include external objects (Hirose 2002). Cognition is understood as also including the environment external to the skull in problem-solving (Clark 2005). Both these processes depend on activity and movement, and are guided by the interlocking activities of perception and action, which both constrain and constitute the basis for each other (Øvergård 2005; Øvergård & Hoff 2005). This interlocking relationship is exemplified by the presence of invariant transformations in the ambient energy arrays that surround an individual, and indicates that what constitutes the human mind is distributed in the interplay between body and world (Ingold 2000). These features show that humans are actively immersed in their environment, and that the control of activities is directly present in the joint body–environment system. The boundaries for control of unaided movement are realized in the interdependent system of bodily and environmental constraints on perception and action. Since the constraints for action are inherent in the body–environment system, safe, efficient and informative movement is readily realized by the human body (Øvergård 2005; Øvergård & Hoff 2005). When the constraints for human activity are present in the body–environment system, a person is able to maintain control over the activities performed. However, this interlocking relationship between body and environment changes when technology is embodied. This is the focus of the next section.

Technically aided human movement: exceeding bodily constraints What most transportation vehicles have in common is that they are operated by a human, either in the form of a driver inside the vehicles or as a control-room operator who monitors the movement of whole systems of vehicles, such as trains or aeroplanes. However, living and moving with technical implements that exceed human bodily constraints entails problems of its own, which pertain to the human ability to control the movement of the technical transportation vehicle.

Exceeding human bodily capabilities Technical transportation devices increase our ability to move. We can move faster and farther than before. Technical transportation aids may increase our movement capabilities, but they do so without concomitantly increasing our ability to perceive and control this movement. This means that technologies and technical vehicles result in a discrepancy between our normally interlocking action and perception capabilities.

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In the worst-case scenarios, the breach between action and perception may be total, as a person may become totally disorientated by the movement as such, not knowing the direction and speed of the movement. This is exemplified by the following description of a helicopter pilot trying to land in dense fog: The pilot took a waveoff as he attempted to land the helicopter on a spot lighted probably by four flashlights. Because of the extreme denseness of the fog he was unable to find the spot. As he circled to attempt a second landing apparently he became completely disoriented. While he was in a vertiginous state, he circled to the right but thought he was turning to the left. Although he was on instruments, he does not remember altitude or airspeed. As he crashed he stated he became a passenger and rode it in. (Clark & Graybiel 1955, quoted in Holly & McCollum 1996a: 461) Even though the instruments in the cockpit gave the pilot the ability to supervise the helicopter’s movements, it was not sufficient to avoid a crash. The mere presence of these instruments was not enough to inform the pilot of the helicopter’s speed and direction. The increased ability to move about often leads to a discrepancy between the opportunities for action and the ability for perception, as is exemplified in the extract above. The pilot’s situation can be compared with the aforementioned long-jumper. In the case of the long-jumper, his or her movements are immediately present in the context as the body moves. There is nothing obstructing the perception or movement or their particular interlocking as our perception has been attuned and evolved in accordance to the boundaries of our body movement. However, in the case of the pilot, when we add to the basic capabilities of movement, the basis for control is altered. In other words, technology allows us to increase our movements in ways that do not allow us to use our perceptual capabilities to distinguish the qualities of a movement from other possible movements. During some modes of technologically aided mobility, the movement is guided almost exclusively by technological instruments, as in sea or air navigation at night, in dense fog or in shallow waters (Bjørkli et al. 2007). This means that control is exercised on the basis of abstract reasoning (e.g. position determination by observation in formal navigation) rather than by direct perception of the movement per se. The extract above shows that some transportation technologies allow for movements that are specific to a given vehicle. For example, a helicopter allows for a range of movements that are partly distinguishable by the human sense of balance (Holly & McCollum 1996a,b). However, some movements are less distinguishable for the vestibular or proprioceptive sensory systems. Other sensory modalities are needed to know the direction, speed and rotation of the movement. For example, invariant transformation in the visual field (or, more generally, energy fields) can give direct information about the direction and speed of this movement (Gibson 1979; Larish & Flach 1990). Invariant changes in the ambient energy array may then function as a natural externalization of these movements. The perceptual redundancy present

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in the combination of multiple sensory systems allows humans to directly perceive movement direction and speed. The big issue posed by technology-aided mobility is that technology often reduces perceptual redundancy of embodied movement, as control interfaces become intermediates between humans and their surroundings. For example, the flow of visual information to our eyes informs us of relative speed and direction, but in complex technical systems, such as aeroplanes, this information is presented as numbers on a display panel, measured in kilometres per hour and directional degree. So humans end up with an artificially created foundation for controlling their movement, which is lower in ‘redundancy’ than the natural world. These types of control problems are observed in simulator studies, during technically aided movement or when dense fog hinders visual perception. Several reasons for this phenomenon are suggested here. The first is that technical tools introduce discrepancies between perception and action. Another is that technology takes humans into new realms of movement and action, thus creating an environment where the forces of movement create a different set of sensory changes than during unaided bodily movement.

Perception of movement speed: perception–action discrepancies Technologically aided mobility does not allow for the same type of perceptual feedback as natural movement. Technological devices that do not demand physical exertion of the driver (e.g. car, motorized boat, aeroplane, motorbike, train) lead to a perceptually different mode of moving compared with walking and running. Technically aided movement has been found to affect human perception of speed and direction. Some examples taken from automobile driving may exemplify the effect of a technically based engagement with the world. When moving by car (or other transportation vehicles that surround the driver), the most feasible way for a driver to perceive the speed and direction of movement is by the use of vision, as the optical flow pattern provides information about movement. However, the body is to a lesser extent involved in the car movements and the driver is supported by and belted securely in the car seat. This arrangement reduces the sensory feedback from the internal sensory systems (e.g. the proprioceptive and vestibular), leading to a different experiential and physical basis for movement, a basis that may not be well suited to the characteristics of the human embodied mind. Research on the perception of speed while driving has indicated that this perceptually poor way of perceiving self-motion (related to natural bipedal movement) has led to a tendency to underestimate driving speed. This tendency is found while the driver is actually driving, and while an individual is passively trying to estimate speed, both in experimental and real settings (Conchillo et al. 1999, 2000; Evans 1970; Recarte & Nunes 1996). However, the estimation of speed is found to be more accurate when speeds increased, a result that probably was caused by increased noise from the car and road (Recarte & Nunes 1996).

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These studies may be compared with a study by Jürgen Konczak (1994), in which humans moved through a tunnel with movable walls. These walls enabled the researchers to manipulate visual information about the speed of movement by altering the visual flow speed. It was found that the walking speeds of the participants were only to a small degree affected by the manipulation of visual information of movement speeds. This result is understandable, as the subjects’ own movements created stimulation, which could help regulating the speed of walking (Bruce et al. 1996). The results indicate that humans usually err when they evaluate their driving speed. Compared to the results from Konczak (1994), this might indicate that the nature of driving a car, for example, the lack of bodily movement and sensory stimulation that results from travelling by car, leads to a discrepancy between actual and perceived movement speed. Technically aided movement may also exceed the boundaries of human sensory systems. A case describing this aspect is motion parallax, which reflects the fact that visual objects close to the observer seem to move faster than objects further away (Rogers & Graham 1979). When moving in an environment, objects in the visual field will seem to cross over each other: the nearby objects will seem to ‘glide over’ objects further away form the observer. The visual patterns moving over each other, with closer patterns occasionally occluding some parts of more distant patterns, are one type of invariant transformation of optical flow (Gibson 1979). Motion parallax plays an important part in the perception and experience of self-movement (Johansson 1977), and the perception of speed in technological aided movement (Larish & Flach 1990). Given an observer moving in a stationary environment, the retinal flow speed of a given object will depend on two factors: the velocity of the observer’s movement relative to the environment and the distance of the object from the observer (Bruce et al. 1996). This relationship is related to the optical-geometric characteristics of the environment. Retinal flow speed from an object will increase as the observer’s movement relative to the object increases, and it will decrease as the distance to the object increases: retinal flow = velocity[observer]/object distance[lateral & angular]

[1]

However, even though the optical and geometrical aspects of retinal flow are deterministic, the effective psychological use of motion parallax is dependent on the human perceptual systems. By travelling at speeds that greatly exceed the human body’s capabilities, visual invariants related to the mode of movement might be imperceptible as the optical flow field close to the driver does not contain any differentiable structures but rather becomes a blur. At some critical speed, the optical flow over the retina from objects will become indistinguishable for the observer with respect to identifying structures in the environment. The result is that, at a critical value, motion parallax no longer aids the human observer in discerning the speed of the movement. Given the presence of a critical boundary that marks where motion parallax is informative for action and where it is not, formula [1] shows that as speeds increase, perceptible motion parallax will be composed of objects further away from the driver, thus resulting in a lack of visual information close to the driver. This problem is especially important

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when driving in tunnels, as the visual information about movement is presented only in one dimension, along the wall of the tunnel (Sagberg 2002). Whenever this event happens, it may entail the same consequences as the absolute lack of movement and stimulation, as described above (e.g. Yarbus 1967). At high speeds, where the flow of visual information exceeds the ability of the eye and the brain to process that information, the situation is exactly the same as if there was no movement at all, because both conditions are non-informative. Hence, the upper and lower boundaries for perceivable changes probably indicate an ecological niche for human visual perception. The detection of information is only possible within these boundaries. Problems may arise in controlling movement when these boundaries are approached.

Movement mediated by technology As a person moves naturally in the world, their body, with its capabilities for both action and perception, is an inherent part of the action-possibilities laid out for the person. This relationship is fundamentally altered with the use of technical aids to attain a goal. Technologically aided mobility differs from natural human movement and tool use by sometimes demanding that people act in order to move. Hence, the operator has to perform actions – other than those related to bodily movement – to be able to move. We are forced into the micro-world of interfaces with pedals, sticks, steering wheels and buttons. The operator interacts with technology in order to be able to control and perform actions, rather than moving to move as in natural unaided human movement. Technology as such interferes with the ways that humans normally control action, by becoming a medium that mediates the operator’s actions towards the environment while also altering their ability to perceive changes in the environment. Thus, by becoming an artificial link between human action and the world they move in, technology help humans to move faster, further and more efficiently. This effect is the purpose of technology: to extend human perceptual and action capabilities to realms outside the human bodily constraints (Hancock & Chignell 1995). This capability-extending effect of technology shifts the constraints on activity from the body and into the technology–environment system, thereby altering the basis for control of the technological system’s activity (Øvergård & Hoff 2005). The forces of production are externalized; they are no longer directly related to human bodily activities (Ingold 2000). This removes the human operator from the qualities of movement; the body is no longer the basis for the control of activities. This shift in the basis of control requires the operator to work with the technology to control the processes. Additionally, the design of the interface further constrains the modes of operator control over the process. There is now not only the operational constraint of the technology–environment system (operational constraints), but also constraints on operations and system representations (e.g. usability, meaningfulness of representations) in the body–technology system. These two layers of constraints divide the body–technology–environment system into two parallel systems that may not be directly bound together; the body does not act directly on the environment (through

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the technology) but must operate the technology in order to act on the environment. This has led researchers to ask that the operational constraints of the system be represented in the interface (Vicente 1999). This is an effort to bring not only the body but also contextual specifics into the process of embodiment. However, the constraints and possibilities for action present in a technical context are artificial, as there is nothing that limits the relationship between the represented and the representations at the technological interface (Hoff 2004). This implies that technological transportation vehicles can be controlled in any way that is made feasible by existing technologies. Hence, the constraining factor in technologically aided mobility is the technology and its possible applications, and not the body as such. In this sense there are in every technical context both a set of bodily human constraints and a set of technical constraints. It is the combination of these sets of joint constraints that demarcate the borders for safe movement in this system. However, it is not enough that the moving agent is given the means of controlling the activity of moving in a technological vehicle; the way that this control is used, executed and implemented by the agent must be related to the characteristics of the embodied mind and its relationship to the physical movement. The transportation technology must be designed in a way that allows the operator to act directly on the task of moving about, rather than having to act on a technological interface that is between the operator and the task (Øvergård 2005).

Technology enables new experiences of movement The use of technology extends and even exceeds the human body’s capabilities (Hancock & Chignell 1995). This aspect of technology is especially clear when we look at transportation technologies where we are able to move further, faster and in other terrains than before. However, on a personal or existential plane, exceeding human bodily movement capabilities also removes the body from the act of moving, an act that previously was both constrained and performed by the body. As technology alters the modes of movement, it also brings forth new ways to experience movement. The new set of possibilities and settings for human movement also changes the basis for the experience of movement. These new experiences are based on sensorimotor relationships only made possible by technology (Ihde 1993, 2002; Asendorf 1997). By making the technology the constraining factor for movement, the body loses its natural modes of controlling the movement (Øvergård 2005). However, the body is still able to control its behaviour within the transportation device; it is the movements with the transportation device that now become a problem for the body. A side effect of technical transportation devices is the introduction of an existential mode of living that is based on and constrained by technology (Heidegger 1977; Ihde 2002). The world is experienced through technology, and this experience is constrained and structured by the possibilities brought forth by the technology. Given this view, it is possible to say that technical transportation devices not only extend or exceed human movement capabilities, but that these devices have an effect

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that is deeper and more connected to human life than merely as capability-extending artefacts. Technology is (implicitly) intended to reveal an experience and a possibility for action, rather than just allowing the human body to control a given process through the technical device (Heidegger 1977; Ingold 2000). Transportation technologies thus shape the modes of human movement, and they shape it through their design and the possibilities and limitations engendered by their design. Transportation technologies essentially direct how humans move about. This ‘shaping’, ‘enframing’ or ‘direction’ given by technologies is not value-free, as it furthers some types of movement and constrains others. This view of the value-laden nature of transportation technologies is not unique to transportation, but can be extended to all types of technologies (Ihde 2002). Technologies take a part in shaping the ways that humans perform actions, and even allow for some actions that would not be possible (as when riding a helicopter, see above). This structuring of human experience and life as shaped by technology carries with it a type of agency that alters the modes of human thought and action. Technology carries with it a techno-existential mode of being, where our being-inthe-world is technically based and our actions are technically mediated (Heidegger 1977; Ingold 2000; see also Kronlid, this volume, Ch. 6). The world reveals itself in accordance to how we live and with what we live by. In this view, technologies are not merely objects in the world that are used, but are lived, and their existence and use actively shapes our life-world. The above line of argument reframes, in a very fundamental way, the basis for infrastructure design, such as roads and railways, as well as associated vehicles. The description and significance of these implications will be left to future publications.

Conclusion Technology extends the user’s capabilities, as has been noted by numerous previous researchers (Hancock & Chingell 1995; Smitsman 1997), but technology also invades the human on several levels. First, technical implements sometimes alter the forces inherent in the use of tools/technology to a magnitude that exceeds our bodily capacities, so that we have become dependent on technology to be able to sustain our current living standard. Secondly, the design and functionality of transportation devices also alter and constrain the ways that we move and how we perceive movement (Melin, this volume, Ch. 4). Our actions in a technical medium are based on the (technical) premises established by this technology. Thirdly, our understanding of transportation is to some extent based on the existing technical modes of movement made possible by technical transportation devices. This understanding is again reinforced when a designer uses this (implicit) understanding during the process of designing future transportation technologies. This demonstrates that transportation technology is not composed of ‘things’ that can be controlled, but that the technology also engenders ways that we look on ourselves and on our civilization (Ingold 2000; Kronlid, this volume, Ch. 6; Sager, this volume, Chs 2, 10).

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This line of argument also dissolves the division between humans, the environment and technology, and shows that a static differentiation or an identification of ‘essential’ components is not effective in capturing the essential aspects of human movement in the natural–technological world. The focus should be on the interaction as it unfolds over time, rather than on the identification of distinct cognitive and perceptual components of the human mind. In other words, we claim that an interaction-based approach, rather than a component-based approach, is more suitable for the study of human–technology interaction. Similar arguments have, for example, been made in relation to the study of human cognition (Van Orden & Holden 2002; Van Orden et al. 2003). In this interaction-based approach, the borders between the body and the world are generally seen to be fluid; it is a matter of degree rather than a matter of identifying clear-cut differences. As humans interact with their environment and with nature, they alter their relations towards the world, they engage in new ways of body–world couplings, which are not necessarily easily classified when it is agreed that the human experiential and existential basis for this coupling is the human body.

Notes 1. In this essay we shall often refer to the term ‘constraints’. Constraints as a general term will refer to the presence of elements that limit the number of possibilities within a system. Examples of constraints are limitations in human working memory or the angular direction of a creek that determines the direction of water flow. The most basic low-level constraint is described by the second law of thermodynamics, which states that the distribution of energy in a closed system moves towards equilibrium in an irreversible manner (Atkins 1984). A system with no constraints would be totally chaotic, prediction of future states would be impossible and further transformation of energy into work would be impossible (Juarrero 1999). Constraints direct a system’s behaviour by reducing the possible degrees of freedom inherent in the system, thereby making some options for behaviour unavailable (ibid.). Constraints also exist in the psychological and bodily spheres. Both perception and movement are limited by the capabilities of the human body, the characteristics of a person’s sensory systems and the physical constraints for what can be perceived. Similarly, the state of the muscles, tendons, skeleton and the cardiovascular system imposes physical constraints on the movements that a person can perform. The physical bodily limitations on perception and action will be subsumed under the term bodily constraints. 2. Hemispheric neglect is a pathological neurological condition where the person is alienated towards one of the body hemispheres. This body side or parts of it are often reported as not being owned by the person. Persons with hemispheric neglect often do not shave or dress the affected body part, although the body part can be used during daily activities such as walking or eating (Gallagher & Cole 1995). 3. See Cole (1995) or Gallagher (2005) or for a comprehensive description of IW’s case. The description used here is taken from Gallagher (2005) and used only to exemplify the importance of proprioception in the control of movements.

References Asendorf, C. 1997. Super Constellation - Flugzeug und Raumevolution: DieWirkung der Luftfahrt auf Kunst und Kultur der Moderne. Vienna: Springer. Atkins, P. W. 1984. The Second Law. New York: Scientific American Library.

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6 What modes of moving do to me: reflections on technogenic processes of identification David Kronlid

Introduction This essay1 deals with an overlooked issue in the discourse of mobility and environmental ethics:2 what modes of moving do to me. I suggest that this issue makes more sense with regard to current research on ecopsychology, environmental psychology, postmodern theories, ecological feminism, ecotheology and the mobility discourse than the more common question: what are the best environmental consequences of our use of mobile machines? Starting from a social construction of technology or technosocial point of view (Bauchspies et al. 2006), according to which ‘technology is neither autonomous nor neutral, but dependent on particular social origins’ (Deane-Drummond 2004: 90), I suggest that discussions of the environmental ethical significance of mobile machines cannot be limited to their effects on the environment. The main aim of this essay is to introduce the concept of technogenic and impure identification processes and to suggest that this concept can generate new important questions for environmental mobility ethics. I suggest that the idea of technogenic and impure identifications might serve as a starting-point for a new critical ethical endeavour that includes developing an understanding of a sustainable culture of automobility, along with generating new environmental awareness in this context, and a concept of environmental ethics that does not exclude relationships with machines. Accordingly, the main questions are: what does it mean to engage in identification processes with mobile machines; how are technogenic and impure identification processes connected to mobility; what kinds of questions would the concept of technogenic and impure identification processes pose for environmental mobility ethics? The essay is interdisciplinary in so far as I use selected material from sociology, theoretical and empirical ecopsychology, ecotheology, ecological feminism, transport

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and planning research, postmodern theories and robotics. To some extent this is also a transdisciplinary work, since I shall also draw on my own experiences of having relationships with mobile machines. I shall discuss different concepts or views of the relationships between self, nature and machines. That is, I presuppose that individual and cultural views of the self and of machines have a bearing on our understandings of what constitutes a moral issue and how moral issues can be dealt with in the context of sustainable development. I suggest that if we (may) engage in technogenic identification processes, this implies that we may see ourselves as impure mobile moral agents. Furthermore, I argue that the idea of mobile moral agents as impure can help develop our environmental ethical reflections on mobility in the context of sustainable development. The essay consists of eight sections. First, I introduce the main aims and questions of the essay. I then present the theoretical background for my reflections, and discuss the concept of mobility. I suggest that mobility as potential movement allows for the discussion of three modes and spaces of mobility: internal and external embodied space, geographical space and existential space. Additionally, I suggest that potential mobility in existential space (motility) is a prerequisite for identification processes. In the following sections I introduce a typology of anthropogenic, ecogenic and technogenic identification processes. Following research in empirical environmental psychology, I suggest that identification with mobile machines (may) involve the same or similar aspects as identification with non-human organisms. I go on to discuss ideas of impure identification processes and the cyborg as an environmental ethical ideal and impure border dweller. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of what modes of moving may do to us and suggest some implications for environmental mobility ethics that follow from the idea of an individual being an impure mobile agent.

Theoretical background This essay should be seen in the context of mobility research, radical environmental ethics, what can be referred to as postmodern conceptions of the self, and technology ethics. Mimi Sheller (2004) and Mike Michaels (2001) suggest that driving and the problems associated with driving ought to be addressed from the perspective of a hybridization between the machinic body of the car and the biological body of the driver. Sheller suggests that: When cars become not only devices for escaping families, but also members of families, repositories for treasured offspring, and devices for demonstrating love, practicing care, and performing gender, they bring into being non-conscious forms of cognition and embodied dispositions which link human and machine in a deeply emotive bond. (2004: 232–3)

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Michaels expresses a similar view: ‘And of course, as we have noted, neither … driver nor car is itself pure, respectively pure human and pure machine. They come to each other as hybrids – in the concrete circumstance of their meeting, they move through and, are moved by, other humans and non-humans which are likewise hybrid’ (2001: 76). Taken together, these quotes highlight the following. First, we as drivers form deep emotive bonds with the car that are intrinsically intertwined with social (and natural) values associated with our sense of self. Secondly, these emotive bonds are set in context of encounters and relationships between car–person hybrids. I take Sheller’s discussion of emotive bonds as a vantage point for the discussion of technogenic identification processes. Identification processes are an important element of radical environmental ethics and environmental moral psychology. The general idea is that people can and do identify with non-humans (Fox 1995; McFague 1997; Plumwood 1997; Naess 1998; Warren 2000). Furthermore, these identification processes are important for developing non-anthropocentric moral outlooks in the sense that the moral distance (Cuomo & Gruen 1998) between humans and nonhuman organisms diminishes as we identify with them (Clayton & Opotow 2003). In this essay I wish to couple the discussions of what I refer to as ecogenic identification processes and the idea of technogenic identification processes. This will be done in order to discuss whether the fact that we share this world with machines could be explored for similar reasons that we explore the environmental ethical significance of our sharing the world with non-human organisms. Alternative views that do not presuppose a split between the self and society, technology and nature flourish on the fringes of mainstream environmental research and environmental policy-making. These views can be regarded as critique of the ‘purity’ of worldviews that uphold conceptual boundaries between ‘the human’, ‘the environment’ and ‘the machine’. Thus, so called postmodern theories that include robotics raise questions about the fixedness of boundaries between self, nature and technology (Haraway 1991; Cuomo 1998; Michaels 2001; Kember 2003; Warwick 2003) that are reminiscent of the human–car hybridizsation discussions in mobility research (Michaels 2001; Sheller 2004). I wish to explore the idea that the world is impure rather than pure (Latour 1999) – meaning that the world is a mess of continuous interactions between moving and non-moving agents – and that we in Western scientific culture have structured our perceptions of the world into spheres of knowledge according to the different separate spheres of life: the human sphere, nature’s sphere and the sphere of technology (Latour 1999; Götz 2001). These ideas of hybrid selves and intraspecies identifications challenge the mainstream Anglo-American model of technology ethics, which in general is instrumental and teleological in nature (Mitcham & Nissenbaum 1998).3 Roughly, this model involves two significant traits. First, machines are regarded as autonomous and neutral (Deane-Drummond 2004: 88-92). Accordingly, mobile machines are regarded as having an ethically neutral standing in the world in the sense that they are regarded as neither right

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nor wrong in and of themselves but are seens as means to better or worse ends.4 Although the idea of machines as being autonomous and neutral has been contested (ibid.: 90), this approach is still the most influential model in the mainstream academic and public discourse of Anglo-American philosophy of technology (Kroes 2005). Secondly, environmental, social and economic consequences or effects of the use of machines are the primary issues in the discourse of environmental ethics and technology (Northcott 1996: 68; Hansson 2005; Kroes 2005). Accordingly, the crucial ethical issues are the effects that car use has on global ecological systems, the effects that applied biotechnology might have on local ecosystems or the effects that transport systems based on non-renewable sources of energy might have on future generations in general, as examples. The main question here is whether the consequences of our use of technology are acceptable from an environmental ethics perspective (Hansson 2005: 6; Northcott 1996). The effects of machine use are ethically significant from an environmental ethics perspective. However, focusing only or primarily on the consequences of machine use ignores the power and the empowering potentials that result from processes of identification with mobile machines.

A mobile world inhabited by potential movers It is rather that the world of our experience is a world suspended in movement, that is continually coming into being as we – through our own movement – contribute to its formation. (Ingold 2002: 242) Anthropologist Tim Ingold suggests here that our world is a world inhabited by movers. In the following two sections I shall explore the concept of mobility. The purpose is to make it clear that the phenomenon of being mobile and being potentially mobile is important in order to understand the development of a sense of self. Following this, I suggest that mobility is ethically significant because it enables and constrains encounters, and the opportunity to engage in relationships, with others. Hence being mobile is necessary for identification processes to occur. Ingold describes a view of the world as innately moving and inhabited by movers, where movements are essential to the processes of life and meaning-making: Where nothing moves there is nothing to which one can respond: at such times – as before a storm, or during an eclipse – the experienced traveller can lose his bearings even in familiar terrain. These observations should finally lay to rest the cartographic illusion, namely that the world is pre-prepared as a stage upon which living things propel themselves about, from one location to another. Life, in this view, is an internal property of objects, transported upon the exterior surface of a lifeless earth. In the view I have set forth here, by contrast, the world

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is not ready-made for life to occupy … life is not contained within things, nor is it transported about. It is rather laid down along paths of movement, of action and perception. Every living being, accordingly, grows and reaches out into the environment along the sum of its paths. To find one’s way is to advance along a line of growth, in a world which is never quite the same from one moment to the next, and whose future configuration can never be fully known. Ways of life are not therefore determined in advance, as routes to be followed, but have continually to be worked out anew. And these ways, far from being inscribed upon the surface of an inanimate world, are the very threads from which the living world is woven. (2002: 242) Ingold’s worldview is supported by ecology, according to which embodied nonmovements are not possible. The view of a moving world inhabited by movers is also supported by the ‘embodied mind theory’ and by ecological psychology (Gibson 1979). The embodied mind theory provides an answer to the question of what the human mind is (and where it is located) and explains why movements are necessary for the construction of meaning.5 As embodied minds we are on the move from the moment we enter the chain of life. As embodied minds we for the most part continue on our paths of life by biodegradation in the biogeochemical cycle of the earth/atmosphere system (Kemp 1998: 43–5; Sundqvist 2003: 65–6).6 Thus, the idea of ‘non-movement’ is in a sense imaginary. According to Øvergård et al. (this volume, Ch. 5), theories on the human mind are shifting from ideas of the mind as ‘a passive biological information processor to a controller of contextually embedded processes’. One aspect of this latter idea is that the mind is embodied and that activity and movement form the basis of perception. From this it follows that humans are perceived as agents embedded in dynamic contexts involving fluent boundaries between the individual human, technology and non-human organisms (ibid.). Thus, the mind is understood to be based on and constrained by the human body and its movement in the world. That is, without movement there would be no changes in sensory stimulation, and you cannot move without the physical capabilities of the body and of it perceiving changes in the environment (ibid.). Accordingly, embodied mind theory and ecological psychology support the idea that movements are significant for meaning-making processes, and hence for understanding identification processes.

Developing senses of self through embodied mobility Following developmental psychology, the infant’s emergent sense of self develops through processes of internal and external bodily ‘inputs’ (Stern 2000: xvii). According to this perspective (which coheres with embodied mind theory and ecological psychology) there are no sharp boundaries between ‘mental acts’ such as perception, feeling, cognition and remembering on the one hand and internal and external bodily inputs on the other.

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According to Daniel Stern, while internal bodily inputs involve ‘momentary states of arousal, activation, tonicity, levels of motivational activation or satiety (in various systems), and well-being’, external bodily inputs involve: ‘all the things the body does or must do to permit, support, amplify (etc.) the ongoing mental activity (perceiving, thinking, etc.), such as postures formed or held, movements (of the eyes, head, or body), displacements in space, and contractions and relaxations of muscular tone. The body is never doing nothing’ (ibid.: xvii, emphasis added). Thus, from Stern’s perspective, the development of the infant’s sense of self is based on and constrained by external as well as internal bodily movements. (What are arousal, activation and levels of motivational activation if not expressions of ‘internal’ mobility?) Further, this process evolves throughout a person’s lifetime. In other words, we make organized meaning of the world, of self and of others as we move our embodied mind in a world of mobile others. As I shall make clear in the next section, the conception of mobility as being potentially moveable becomes important in order to clarify the processes of developing moral outlooks in adult life. Mobility, which involves the Latin term mobilitas, that is, ‘moveability’ with its roots mobilis, ‘moveable’ and moveo ‘to move’ or ‘to put in motion’, is commonly seen as the equivalent of movement. However, ‘movement’ makes sense only when ‘non-movement’ is an option. That is, conceptually, the meaning of bodies that are non-moving makes sense only when bodies can be seen as potentially being still. What is more, the meaning of bodies that are in motion makes sense only when bodies are considered to be potentially non-moving. Thus, I wish to interpret Ingold’s idea of life as ‘paths of movements’ from the quote in the beginning of this section, rather as ‘paths of potential movements’ (Sager, this volume, Ch. 10). The idea of mobility as potential movement is also found in Per G. Berg’s work (1996). He suggests that moveability (walking, travel, transport) and rootedness (resting, inhabiting well-known home places, geographical roots) are two basic and seemingly contradictory global human needs (Berg 1996: 35). Thus to be mobile is to engage in the irregular shifting between being still and being on the road. Being mobile is therefore different from being moving (Berg 1996: 34–5). From this it follows that a mobile person should be seen as a person who has capabilities and opportunities to move: a person that is potentially moving. To conclude, from an ecological perspective, embodied movements are essential for the processes of life. In addition, perception and development of senses of self are based on and constrained by our and others’ movements in the world. Thus, identification processes depend on actual embodied encounters and relationships, which would be impossible if our world was not a moving world inhabited by movers. However, to bridge the conceptual gap between movements and identification processes, that is, understanding the relationship between embodied movements and identification processes, the concept of mobility as potential movement needs to be elaborated further. In the following, I suggest that the concept of motility in existential space can clarify the relationship between embodied movements and identification processes.

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Motility in existential space In the following, I suggest that embodied movements are necessary but not sufficient for identification processes to evolve in adult life and that, in order for identification processes to occur, we need to be existentially motile. Theoretically we can make the distinction between external and internal embodied space, geographical space and existential space. Following Stern’s conceptions of internal and external bodily inputs, embodied space is the intimate space that is demarcated by the scope of the internal and external capacities of our ‘natural’ bodies. Geographical space is a wider space, which for many of us is demarcated by machine-enhanced movements, such as, for instance, the space in which we travel by car, bus or aeroplane. I suggest that the concept of existential space can be used as a middle space that connects internal embodied space with external embodied and geographical space. Following the discussion in the previous section, embodied movements are necessary for perception and for development of senses of self. From this it follows that, as we mature into moral agents and engage in identification processes, our external embodied and geographical movements are enhanced in quantity and quality partly by means of mobile machines. As we encounter people, non-human organisms and machines as identification objects, our (the identification subject) ‘internal’ mobility of ideas, thoughts, emotions and beliefs are necessary for the identification processes to take place at all. However, embodied internal and external mobility, along with geographical mobility and encounters with others, do not automatically lead to identification processes with these others. There is an important connection between embodied external and geographical movements on the one hand and embodied internal movements and mental acts on the other hand, which can be clarified by the notion of motility in existential space.

Motility … Motility refers to the individual’s opportunities for movement but also to the individual capabilities to appropriate what is possible in the domain of mobility. Citing Vincent Kaufmann (2002), Tanu Priya Uteng defines motility as ‘a way in which an individual appropriates what is possible in the domain of mobility and puts this potential to use for his or her activities’ (this volume, Ch. 8). Inspired by embodied mind theories and by Stern’s research, I suggest that such acts of appropriation feed on embodied and geographical movements, and that they take place in what Peter Nynäs (this volume, Ch. 7), following Juhani Pallasmaa and others, refers to as existential space.

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… in existential space According to Nynäs, existential space is a middle or third space. This third space connects to internal embodied mobile space and external embodied mobile space. In the context of identification processes, existential space can be seen as created by ‘distances’ between the perceptions of my present and future senses of self. Thus, existential space is a space inhabited by a number of potential selves and is therefore inherent to identification processes. The concept of ‘existential space’ clarifies how individuals can imagine becoming someone else. The scope for such change of identifications is limited and constituted by our own imaginations, social sanctions according to cultural identity categories, and our physical encounters with other moving bodies in geographical space.7 Following Nynäs, I suggest that we view existential space as a potential space in which reinterpretations of self occur. Thus existential space is a transitional space located between the individual and the environment (Nynäs, this volume, Ch. 7). These reinterpretations of self can be seen as continuous, fluctuating movements between the sense of who I am now and of who I might become in the future. It is the possibility and capability to engage in such reinterpretations or not (to move away from current towards new self-images or to stay within current self- images) that create the space needed for engaging in identification processes. Thus existential space is created in and through the processes of potential embodied and geographical movements, or the processes of becoming someone. Nynäs’s discussion of potential spaces as intermediate areas fits well with how Ingold understands places as nodes constituted by meetings between humans and non-humans and physical locations (Ingold 2002: 53). Based on anthropological research on the lives of people in pre-modern cultures, Ingold argues that ‘as people move around in the landscape, in hunting and trapping, in setting up camp in one locality after another, their own life histories are woven into the country’ (ibid.: 54). Thus, a location in external embodied space becomes a place because it is from the outset interwoven with our life histories, with our capacity to be existentially motile (ibid.: 192). Hence, as we move and not move in the world, we co-create our own and others’ life histories. These life histories include identification processes that are fused by our encounters with other moving or non-moving bodies. In sum, the opportunity to be existentially motile creates the potential space needed for individuals to engage in meaning-making activities through their encounters with other moving bodies, regardless of whether these bodies are human, the bodies of non-human organisms or machinic bodies.

Anthropogenic and ecogenic identification processes With whom do we identify? Is it reasonable to assume that we (may) identify with nonhuman organisms and with mobile machines? In the following two sections I shall

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introduce a typology of identification processes according to three different categories of identification objects. Although this typology follows what can be characterized as a pure view of the world as separated into a human, a natural and a technological sphere, the typology is important to substantiate the suggestion that identification processes involving mobile machines as identification objects are possible and common.

Individual processes of identification and cultural identity categories In an important sense, identification processes in general involve both establishing and transgressing boundaries between self and other (self–other differentiation). However, in this essay, the expressions ‘boundary breaking’ and ‘transgressing boundaries’ are used with reference to the conceptual boundaries between the human, the non-human organism and the machine. According to Stern, a sense of self develops through intraspecies and contextual interaction (Stern 2000; Nynäs, this volume, Ch. 7). Furthermore, Stern suggests that the process of developing a sense of self occurs in several stages (Stern 2000; Nynäs, this volume, Ch. 7). However, going from one stage to another (maturing) does not mean leaving the preceding stage of development. Rather, all stages are integrated parts of the forms that constitute the adult sense of self (selves) throughout life (Stern 2000: xxv, Fig. 2.2; Nynäs, this volume, Ch. 7). As Nynäs points out, Stern claims that the self is a main organizing principle in life and that the self dwells in ‘continuous restructuring throughout life’ (Nynäs this volume, Ch. 7, p. 165), hence the self is growing and evolving rather than fixed. A sense of core self is a domain in the evolving of the self whose boundaries protect the self from ‘fragmentation, depersonalisation and disintegration’ (ibid.: 166).8 Thus, identification processes involve a continuous contextual fixing and refixing of boundaries between self and other. This view coheres with the two meanings of ‘identity’ (from the Latin term identitas and its root idem), or absolute sameness and difference. Thus, as we engage in identification processes, we are redrawing boundaries between self and other, which signify experiences of difference and sameness between self and other (Månsson 2003: 11). Mary Douglas’ (2004) work on purity and danger inspires us to regard identification processes as always situated in cultural contexts. This involves a view of culture as the public standardized values of a community. Douglas states that culture, although mediating the experiences of individuals, ‘provides in advance some basic categories, a positive pattern in which ideas and values are tidily ordered’ (ibid.: 48). I take this as a thesis that also concerns public identity categories. In the context of environmental ethics and sustainable development there are three particularly interesting public identity categories; ‘humans’, ‘animals/nature’ and ‘technology/machines’. Douglas states that although cultural categories are public and thus rigid, and therefore ‘cannot so easily be subject to revision’, a ‘private person may revise his pattern of assumptions or not’ (ibid.: 48). In other words, although cultural public identity categories of humans, nature and technology are powerful, they may be

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revised by individuals, thus creating new patterns of reality; new identities. Creating new identities is critical boundary breaking and creative work, which, I suggest, takes place in existential space.

Anthropogenic identification processes The dominant view of identification processes in general in Western culture is that these are intraspecies processes, that is, what I would refer to as anthropogenic identification processes. Thus, we tend to perceive identification processes as only occurring within the same cultural identity category: between a human identification subject and human identification objects.9 The fact that anthropogenic identification processes involve identification subjects and objects belonging to the same cultural identity category of ‘humans’ is not to say that anthropogenic processes are not boundary breaking. All identification processes involve to some extent transgressing boundaries between self and other.10 However, the mainstream view of identification processes tends to include only humans. Thus, anthropogenic identification processes maintain that the meaning of being ‘human’ is something separate from the meaning of being ‘animal/nature’ and from being ‘machine’. Now, what radical environmental ethics and environmental psychology suggest is that beings that are traditionally seen as belonging to the cultural identity category of nature, qualify as identification objects in processes of identification. In the following I shall suggest that existential motility cannot be restricted to intraspecies identification processes but includes engaging in interspecies identification processes.

Five aspects of ecogenic identification processes Environmental psychology supports the claim of radical environmental ethics that identification with non-human others is plausible, and shows that our encounters with non-human organisms may influence who we perceive ourselves to be (Clayton & Opotow 2003). Hence, it is plausible to assume that our sense of self develops as we encounter not only other humans but also as we encounter non-human organisms. Ecogenic identification processes involve non-human organisms and perhaps ecosystems and the land as identification objects.11 These processes are possible because we encounter non-human organisms owing to their and our movements in embodied and geographical space and because we interpret these encounters in existential space. Ecogenic identification processes resemble what environmental psychologists call environmental identity: ‘A broadened conception of identity [which includes] how people see themselves in the context of nature, how people see animate and inanimate aspects of the natural world, how people relate to the natural world as a whole, and how people relate to each other in the context of larger environmental issues’ (ibid.: 6).

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What happens in existential space as we identify with non-human organisms? Empirical research in environmental psychology shows that what I refer to as ecogenic identification processes involve (at least) the following five aspects (Clayton 2003: 46): • Experiences of sameness and difference are decisive (Myers & Russell 2003: 77). When we identify with non-human organisms we experience that we share similar qualities, and that they are different from us (Gebhard et al. 2003: 107). • Ecogenic identification processes include anthropomorphic and physiomorphic interpretations of non-human organisms. Anthropomorphic interpretations mean that we interpret non-human organisms as having human mental, social or emotional capabilities (ibid.: 97–8).12 Physiomorphic interpretations entail that we, as we are trying to understand ourselves, refer to our experiences of encounters with non-human organisms. According to Gebhard et al., anthropomorphic and physiomorphic interpretations create an ‘interpretive circle’: ‘Thus we may draw upon experiences with natural objects for understanding ourselves (physiomorphism), but in turn our representations of these natural objects will have arisen by interpreting them in terms of ourselves and our personal experiences (anthropomorphism)’ (ibid.: 104). • Ecogenic identification processes mean that we experience and perceive nonhuman organisms as subjects. This includes perceiving them as individuals with personalities and agency (Myers & Russell 2003: 78–9). That is, we perceive them as having a standing in the world independent of us.13 • An important aspect of perceiving non-human others as subjects is the experience that they have ‘a point of view on one’s self ’ (ibid.: 80). This corresponds with ecotheologian Sallie McFague’s model of non-human organisms and communities as subjects. She asserts that they, ‘as agents, influence, often in broad and deep ways, human well-being’ (1997: 111). That is, ecogenic identification processes involve the experience of non-humans having a position from which they influence us. • It is concluded that people who identify with non-human organisms experience that these organisms communicate their subject-hood in their behaviour (Myers & Russell 2003: 78). Regarding the aspect of experiencing non-human others as subjects, I would like to suggest a shift in terminology from ‘subject’ to ‘agent’. One reason for this shift, in the context of non-anthropocentric environmental ethics, is that the term ‘subject’ often reflects the normative ethical standpoint that non-human organisms have moral standing (Goodpaster 1998) independent of their instrumental value or use for humans (Taylor 1989; Regan 1993; McFague 1997; Plumwood 1997). However, the purpose of this essay is not to suggest that non-human organisms and mobile machines have moral standing.14 Furthermore, I believe it is a mistake to look on ecogenic identification processes as necessarily inconsistent with anthropocentric environmental ethics.15 Further, the term agent stresses the other as active (Merchant 1996; Plumwood 1997: 136–40), which coheres with environmental psychology’s term ‘subject’ and with the view of the world as inhabited by movers, as presented by Ingold:

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To coin a term, the constitutive quality of their [hunter-gatherers’] world is not intersubjectivity but interagentivity. To speak of the forest as a parent is not, then, to model object relations in terms of primary intersubjectivity, but to recognize that at root, the constitutive quality of intimate relations with non-human and human components of the environment is one and the same. (2002: 47) Moreover, I believe that speaking of non-humans in terms of agents rather than in terms of subjects helps in refraining from moral extentionism, that is, from making the non-human other more human-like (Plumwood 1997). Furthermore, I believe that the claim that humans and non-human organisms, as well as machines, are agents rather than subjects is, from a cross-disciplinary perspective, easier to digest. To conclude, ecogenic identification processes involve: (i) experiences of sameness and differences between self and non-human others; (ii) a circle of anthropomorphic and physiomorphic interpretations of encounters with non-human others; (iii) experiences of non-human others as subjects; (iv) that non-human others have a point of view on one’s self; and (v) that non-human others communicate their agenthood in their behaviour. In the fields of radical environmental ethics and anthropology, scholars have specifically debated the boundary between the categories ‘human’ and ‘animal/nature’ (Fox 1995; McFague 1997; Warren 2000; Ingold 2002). However, the boundary between ‘organism’ and ‘machine’ has recently gained increased scholarly attention (Haraway 1991; Cuomo 1998; Michaels 2001; Warwick 2003).

Technogenic identification processes In the following I suggest that our encounters with mobile machines and with others by means of mobile machines involve potential technogenic identification processes. In other words, mobile machines have entered existential space, and existential space is inhabited by multiple potential impure selves. Ignatio L. Götz and others16 argue that what is referred to as existential space in this essay can also be seen as a technological space: ‘The mental distance that exists between ourselves and our circumstances allows us the luxury of mentation, and it is this mental respite from the material and its needs, in this ‘space’ between mind and nature, that technology is born’ (Götz 2001: 25). As we travel through and within the world, we find that technological devices have been co-travellers in what we usually think of as a uniquely human endeavour (Ingold 2002). Götz puts it like this: ‘It is not just that the contemporary human situation cannot be understood except in relation to technology, but that the human condition itself cannot be understood except in this relation’ (Götz 2001: 32). From this it follows that technology is ‘inextricably entwined with the evolution of the human person’ (ibid.). Thus, technology (from low-tech to hi-tech) should not be seen as an instrument set apart from the human sphere of life but intrinsic to it.

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Technical relations are, in Ingold’s words, ‘one aspect of human sociality’ (2002: 314).17 Thus, from the perspective of the world as inhabited by moving bodies, whether categorized as humans, non-human organisms or machines, our encounters with mobile machines may actually involve some or all of the five aspects of ecogenic identification processes.

Mobile machines as agents The car is perhaps the mobile machine in Western economies, loaded with significance, meaning and emotion (Sheller 2004). Berg describes it thus: It [the car] is about completely different issues. The use of cars touches the depth of human behaviour and roots of culture. The car is for most young and older people (mostly men) – sometimes experienced as a well-balanced salt in a wellbalanced life, and sometimes as a condition of narcotic addiction – a part of or the meaning of life. (1996: 39, my translation) In our global culture of economic growth, the car as a mobile machine is one of our most powerful symbols for personal development (Tengström 1991; Sheller 2004). We identify ourselves and others as environmentalists, common people, adventurers, yuppies, hippies and so on on the basis of what cars we own or drive. Thus, whether or not we drive a Buick, Volkswagen Lupo 3L TDI, Volvo kombi or a City Chrysler Jeep is important for our self-image. Some cars are loaded with ‘femininity’ and others with ‘masculinity’ (Sheller 2004). Some people choose public transportation or car-pooling for economic or environmental reason. Thus, in general, the positive and negative values and meaning of cars are dependent on the context (Berg 1996: 37–9, 61–4). In the following quote from Berg, we can detect several of the five aspects of ecogenic identification processes: Our faithful friend and servant of the family has its own personality. As car researcher Kaneheira Mauro puts it: ‘It has a special voice (the engine), eyes and mouth (the front), a stylish profile (its rear-end)’. Further, the car has certain scents, secretions, soft cosy and strong hard surfaces. It has diseases and flaws, which we are able to cure with relative ease by using technical skill, spare parts and improvisation – in a worst case scenario at one of the cars’ own medical centres. (1996: 38, my translation) First, the car is described in a sensuous or even erotic language as an agent, a friend and servant, who occasionally needs to be taken to the doctor. The fact that it has eyes means that we can find ourselves in its gaze. Further, the fact that we sometimes need to take it to the doctor implies that it communicates its condition through its organs, its voice, scents and secretions.

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The experience of mobile machines as agents can also be illustrated with an example from my childhood. In those days, during the dark hours of winter tractors roamed the streets in the evenings and early mornings, scooping up the snow into large heaps in which the children played during the days. These machines often astonished me; their headlight eyes were searching the area in irrational twitching movements of their dinosaur-like heads. As I recall my experience of their bodies in the context of the current essay, I perceived them neither like machines nor like animals but as something in between. The sense of fear from being in their gaze filled me as I tried to hide from them. I perceived these machines as agents with no clear boundaries between their operators and themselves. They were communicating their puzzling intentions with their sounds, smells and irrational movements in the darkness of winter. A third example of technogenic identification processes comes from the research project ‘Man and Technology’ at NTNU in Trondheim. The research team is conducting empirical studies (film) on the relationship between the crew and the technology of speed boats in the process of high-speed sailing in the confined waters of a Norwegian archipelago. In the following transcript, the second officer is turning too slowly and the navigator compares the behaviour of the second officer to a 6-13 torpedo, which is a model known for its inefficient turning ability. Navigator: There was a little bit too much of a turn there to catch up, like, it is a little too much of that 6-13 mentality, like. Second officer: 6-13 mentality? Navigator: Because it [the 6-13 torpedo] thinks like, it is always on the outer edge of the turn. It begins with one degree and then two and then three and then four and then five and then finally thousand. You should get the boat to turn properly from the outset and ease up as you go along. I interpret this event as an example of anthropomorphic and physiomorphic interpretation. The behaviour of the second officer is explained in terms of the behaviour of a mobile machine: the torpedo. Furthermore, according to the navigator who makes the comparison, the torpedo ‘thinks’. Thus, it is possible to notice several similarities between the second officer and the torpedo. First, both are perceived as having a mentality or a state of mind, which is expressed by their movements through the water. Secondly, the embodied external and geographical movements are comparable in quality (Bjørkli 2005, pers. comm.). A second example from the same project shows yet another dramatic sequence. The navigator is having problems as he suddenly is not sure of where they are. PhD student and researcher Cato Alexander Bjørkli describes the situation like this: It is night and we are sailing in confined waters. According to the route, we can expect a light to appear on the port side at a given moment, but it does not. The navigator begins to look for it with binoculars while he is talking to himself. He makes the following remark several times: ‘The light has not turned up’. This

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remark indicates that the light has the ability to move. Possibly, the situation can be interpreted as an experience that the light has a ‘will’ not to turn up and that it refuses to appear. (Bjørkli 2005, pers. comm.) Bjørkli suggests that it is possible to interpret this particular situation as if the navigator perceives the light as an agent with a will not to turn up; it refuses to appear. To conclude, following the examples above, I suggest that there are reasons to believe that people identify with mobile machines in particular situations. This is to say that the language we use to address mobile machines and to describe our encounters with them indicates self-differentiation, anthropomorphic and physiomorphic interpretations, and that we perceive mobile machines as communicating agents. So far I have clarified three separate identification processes in which the identification agent interprets encounters with human, natural, and technological identification objects. However, this is not sufficient to acknowledge the tendency to emphasize impurity, which is found in postmodern literature, ecological feminism and the mobility discourse.

Impure identification processes From the vantage point of anthropogenic, ecogenic and technogenic identification processes, I shall now introduce the concept of impure identification processes. In order to clarify the meaning of impure identification processes, a definition of pure identity is needed. What I have in mind here is something that can be labelled ‘conceptual purity’, which follows Douglas’s view on culture as the public and standardized values of a community. Douglas says that culture, while mediating the experiences of individuals, ‘provides in advance some basic categories, a positive pattern in which ideas and values are tidily ordered’ (2004: 48).18 In addition, Bruno Latour describes the practice of ‘purification’ as creating ‘two entirely distinct ontological zones: that of being human beings on the one hand; that of nonhumans on the other’ (1999: 10–11). Following this, I suggest that the global economic growth culture involves the powerful identity categories19 of ‘humans’, ‘nature’ and ‘machines’. Thus, these categories and their meaning and value are part of the positive pattern or order of the global economic growth culture. The ‘purity’ of this particular conceptual framework is that the ‘members’ of these categories are perceived as having distinctive essential characteristics, which separate them from members of other categories.20 Environmental psychology research on children shows that it is common for children to include non-human organisms, such as trees, in their identity. However, somewhere along the line of our development into mature moral agents, nonhumans become separated from the category of humans (Gebhard et al. 2003: 107). Nevertheless, although cultural categories are powerful cultural patterns, they may be revised by individuals, thus creating new patterns of reality, a new sense of self.

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Impure identification processes are challenging Impure identification processes deal with the transgression of ‘ontological’ boundaries of identity categories (as cultural categories we perceive them as ‘the way things are’). This means that these processes are created by couplings of identification subjects and objects that seem awkward, absurd, out of place and morally challenging or even blasphemous in the light of public values, norms and identity categories. To identify with what is essentially other requires breaking out of the boundaries of cultural identity categories and revolting against dominant ideas of what it means to be human.21 Thus, impure identification processes always challenge the mainstream (public) ideas of what it means to be human in the process of transgressing the boundaries of public identity categories. There is no absolute ‘impurity’, just as there is no absolute ‘dirt’ (Douglas 2004: 2) and in the context of global sustainable development, challenging a ‘pure worldview’ means challenging ideas of distinct conceptual boundaries between human, nature and machine. However, all interspecies identification processes do not challenge boundaries between cultural identity categories, because sometimes the purpose or consequence of identifying with non-humans is to reinterpret the meaning of being human while consolidating the boundaries between the human, the organism and the machine. Ecological feminist philosopher Chris Cuomo eloquently explains the meaning of what I refer to as challenging impure identification processes: Like cyborg being, ecological feminism entails resistance to most given conceptions of what human selves are or can be – as gendered, as racialized, as members of a species which, more often than not, characterizes itself as disconnected from nature. However, flourishing on the boundaries of nature/culture is not just a matter of dwelling on the overlapping borders of identities, practices and characteristics which are not supposed to occur within the same body – it requires claiming a space there: cultured animal, mutt, anti-feminine woman, race-traitor, computer-enhanced forest dweller. It also requires active opposition to unifying logics that aim to fix us, and that have aimed, variously, to fix Others since time immemorial. (Cuomo 1998: 88–9) Thus, impure identification processes are impure because they challenge identity categories in terms of not aiming towards new fixed identity categories. Rather, as we engage in impure identification processes, we claim new places, new senses of self, empowered by motility in existential space as we flourish on the ‘ontological’ boundaries of identity categories.

Individual identification processes versus cultural identity categories Impure identifications refer to processes and not to fixed identity categories, which involve safety and rigidity. As Douglas puts it, ‘the yearning for rigidity is in us all’, and

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‘it is part of our human condition to long for hard lines and clear concepts’, but ‘purity is the enemy of change, of ambiguity and compromise’ (2004: 200).22 Hence, unlike pure identification processes, which establish the hard boundaries of the identity categories of human, nature and machine, impure identification processes do not develop into a pre-existing identity. From this it follows that impure identification processes have no established goal, ethos or final value; they can be seen as ongoing processes of hybridization, which involve something new, unexpected and different (Babha 1999: 286).23 Thus, the introduction of the concept of impure identification processes illuminates the possibility of maintaining existential spaces of motility and embracing the potential selves who dwell therein.

Impure identification processes as practices Impure identification processes are creative practices. Linda Kalof explains how ‘identity’ gains this new meaning in a postmodern feminist context: Thus ‘similarity’, ‘difference’ and ‘identity’ all take on new meanings in the postmodern feminist context of blurred boundaries between nature and culture. Identity is considered fluid – a practice, not a category, and a distinctive move away from essentialist conceptual categories such as gender and race. Identities are actively constructed performances rather than preexisting roles … Thus the emphasis is placed on our kinship with those with whom we have a community of interest rather than a sameness of essential character. (2003: 163) This quote accentuates the point made earlier that embodied external mobility and encounters with and by the means of humans, non-human organisms and machines in geographical space do not automatically grow into identification processes. In order for impure identification processes to occur in adulthood, choice is required. We need to claim our right to establish our own existential spaces of motility in the process of identifying with ontological others.24 The argument that ‘identity’ is a performance and not a category and that ‘identities’ are considered ‘fluid’, can easily be understood as impure identification processes, as activities are movements from fixed identities to fluid identification processes. From such a perspective, ‘fluid’ denotes insecurity, ambivalence and instability in a negative meaning. I suggest that one reason why we often assign negative connotations to ideas of fluid identities is that we regard these as alternatives to fixed identities. It is as if we are moving away from secure categories according to which we have directions and a place in the world, to the unknown; from the pure to the impure (and in a sense we are). However, Latour (1999) suggests that when we question the world view of ‘modernity’, we will find that we have never been modern. Similarly, I would suggest that when we question pure identities, that is, cultural identity categories, we will find that we have never been pure:

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As soon as we direct our attention simultaneously to the work of purification and the work of hybridization, we immediately stop being wholly modern, and our future begins to change. At the same time we stop having been modern, because we become retrospectively aware that the two sets of practices have always already been at work in the historical period that is ending. (Latour 1999: 11) Thus, if we have never been pure, that is, if there is no location in time and place from which we depart as pure moral agents, we might be able to see the fluidity of impure identification processes as opportunities to change the way to become. Surely, we have always needed boundaries between ourselves and others. But these are temporary, pragmatic boundaries rather than categorical, essential and fixed boundaries. As individuals, we have always had the potential to transgress boundaries in existential space. Following Homi Babha’s work on cultural hybridization processes (1999: 286), we might say that in a third existential space, there is no hierarchy of senses of self, only preceding, occurring and coming becoming of self.

Impure existential motility Following these arguments to their logical conclusion leads to the notion of impure existential motility. First, if we as individuals did not have the capability of existential motility, there would be no processes of identification at all. The fact that to be human entails the capacity to self-differentiate involves a capacity to be motile in existential space and even more so with regard to impure identification processes. The process of becoming someone, of developing and changing our sense of self, is dependent on encounters with others, regardless of category. These encounters are possible since we live in a mobile world inhabited by mobile others. However, we are capable of imagining future selves different from our current self. We are capable of imagining our selves becoming, and we are to certain degrees capable of taking active part in these processes. In other words, taking part in identification processes as such, but even more so in impure identification processes, accentuates our individual capabilities to be motile in existential space, which, in some cases, requires courage and support from others. To conclude, impure identification processes are creative practices that are chosen and/or imposed by external forces. Participating in such processes requires a great deal of courage and wits. The processes have no fixed ethos or goal other than enabling the ongoing process of challenging seemingly ontological boundaries that delineate the pure human self; such processes are only possible because of the human capacity to be motile in existential space.

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Re-search for impure people: the cyborg as environmental ethical ideal I find the cyborg to be an instructive muse for explorations of ecological, feminist ethics precisely because her flourishing does not rest on purity: of nature and culture, human and animal, organic unity or technological salvation. Rather, she is the product of ‘fruitful couplings’ of disparate universes of meaning (Haraway 1991: 150). As a result the cyborg offers a picture of flourishing that fits the impossible rubric of twenty-first century postindustrial life, and such a rich, messy notion of flourishing can help ground ecological feminist values and guidelines. And, I must add, this mythical image appeal to me because of my politics, my identities, my aesthetic sensibilities. And because she is not nice. (Cuomo 1998: 84–5) Following this, it is possible to claim that the cyborg embodies impure identification processes. There are three reasons why I have mentioned the cyborg here. First, the cyborg as an environmental ethical ideal (Cuomo 1998) has already been established. Secondly, the cyborg affiliates with machines. Or rather, although ‘cyborgs dwell on any number of discursive and ontological borders – human/animal/machine is only one possible hybridity’ (ibid.: 86), we usually associate the cyborg with technology, machines and technoscience (Haraway 1991; Kember 2003: 178). The discussion of identification across human/nature boundaries has become increasingly common in the field of radical environmental ethics. However, some scholars within the field express worries about identifications across human/machine boundaries. For example, Cuomo suggests that ‘because we don’t know exactly what the cyborg’s connections to others are, we cannot know the bases for her evaluations and decisions’ (Cuomo 1998: 85). Further, there is a worry that ‘the mechanistic qualities of the cyborg evoke a lack of trust’ and ‘there is, in fact, a sense in which she [the cyborg] fits too well, or makes too much sense, in sterile worlds – like the worlds of science and technology – which has been so toxic for women and nature, and in which so much of what we (all) are is incomprehensible’ (ibid.: 86). Without downplaying these worries, I suggest that we regard the cyborg as empowering inspiration, especially for people in situations in which cultural identity categories are experienced as limiting their agency. The cyborg becomes someone who embodies performances, which can be associated with impure identification processes: A cyborg world might be about lived social and bodily realities in which people are not afraid of their joint kinship with animals and machines, not afraid of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints. The political struggle is to see from both perspectives at once because each reveals both dominations and possibilities unimaginable from the other vantage point. (Haraway 1991:154, quoted in Cuomo 1998: 83)

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Thus, as an ethico-political ideal, the cyborg does not respect cultural identity categories, but moves across the boundaries that define these categories. According to Cuomo, ‘part of the attraction lies in how the cyborg occupies a life at the intersections of nature and culture, and how she flourishes and thrives in her context’ (1998: 85). This, I believe, is a way of describing the cyborg as having a well-developed ability to act on the potential movements in existential space; as an ethical ideal she has the power to resist being fixed by cultural categories. What is a cyborg? The literature offers many different explanations. Basically, a cyborg is a biological–technological hybrid agent linking technology with biology. However, relationships between organisms and machines differ25 and it is sometimes argued that it is only reasonable to talk of cyborg beings when there is an established connection between a machine and the human nervous system (Warwick 2003).26 However, I would argue that whether we identify ourselves as cyborgs or not depends on the ability to be motile in existential space. That is, impure identification processes are not dependent on machine relationships in the flesh; rather, impure identification processes are dependent on our abilities and possibilities to identify with beings from other identity categories. Thus it is our activities in existential space that are crucial. Hence, I believe it is a mistake to reserve the term ‘cyborg’ for humans who have had physical or mental qualities technologically enhanced. Becoming a border dweller or a cyborg depends on how we perceive and interpret our relationships with technology and not on whether these relationships involve permanent couplings with the flesh. In the next section, I shall outline some consequences of the notion of technogenic and impure identification processes in the context of environmental ethics and the mobility discourse.

What modes of moving do to me In the preceding sections of this essay, I have suggested that the idea of technogenic and impure identification processes are plausible. What does this mean for environmental mobility ethics? First, if movements and non-movements in embodied and geographical space are necessary for encounters between identification subjects (moral agents) and identification objects, we need to ask ourselves what machine-enhanced modes of moving do to us. One aspect of this issue is underscored by Sheller (2004), who argues that the culture of automobility includes certain values and norms regarding positive feelings and behaviour towards cars, our selves and our family, and non-human organisms. Sheller claims that the hybridization of the machinic body of the car and the biologic body of the driver produces kinship qualities towards the car that cannot easily be separated from the ‘human kinship practices’ that driving a car supports (ibid.: 232). As shown in environmental psychology research, processes of identification with non-human organisms involve both cognitive and emotional elements. Hence,

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knowledge about and feelings for the non-human other are important aspects of identification processes (Kals & Ittner 2003: 135–57). Following Sheller, the same could be said about identification with cars. Sheller argues that ‘the “dominant culture of auto mobility” is implicated in a deep context of affective and embodied relations between people, machines and spaces of mobility and dwelling, in which emotions and the senses play a key part’ (2004: 221). Sheller’s standpoint is reminiscent of Douglas’s perspective that culture ‘provides in advance some basic categories, a positive pattern in which ideas and values are tidily ordered’ (Douglas 2004: 48). Sheller puts it like this: As Hochschild argues, ‘there are social patterns to feeling itself’, based on ‘feeling rules’ that ‘define what we imagine we should and shouldn’t feel and would like to feel over a range of circumstances; they show how we judge feeling’ (Hochschild 2003: 82, 86). Emotions, in this perspective, are not simply ‘felt’ and ‘expressed’, but are rather elicited, invoked, regulated and managed through a variety of expectations, patterns and anticipations. (Sheller 2004: 226) Thus, the culture of automobility provides an established positive pattern concerning what a car is, what a driver is, what the car is supposed to be used for and the sorts of feelings we should have towards the car. Further, this cultural pattern is to a large extent provided, established and maintained by the economic powers of the automobile industry. The fact that these values become part of our self-understanding is one explanation why it seems so hard to establish an environmentally friendly culture of automobility despite the knowledge and technological know-how about the damage that cars do to people and nature (ibid.). Since it is possible to assume that we identify ourselves with our mobile machines, it is possible to stop regarding cars as autonomous and ethically neutral artefacts. Furthermore, this implies that environmental mobility ethics should not to such a large extent be restricted to analyses of this or that good or bad consequence for people and non-human organisms. I suggest that we need to take into account what modes of moving do to us, and, as a result, who we may become as a result of the modes in which we move or not move. We also need to consider whether there are ethically relevant differences between encounters on highways and city roads and encounters between people, animals and the land as we stroll, walk, exercise, climb and so on. What kind of identification processes do high-speed encounters on the highway allow for? Sheller suggests that: In societies of automobility, the car is deeply entrenched in the ways in which we inhabit the physical world … it transforms the way we sense the world and the capacities of human bodies to interact with the world through the visual, aural, olfactory, interoceptive and proprioceptive senses. We not only feel the car, but we feel through the car and with the car. (Ibid.: 228)

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In other words, who are the potential selves that are invited into our existential space as we cruise the streets? To what extent are the potential selves of the culture of automobility engaged in the wellbeing of other car–person hybrids, of our family and of the environment as a whole? Do we like these potential people? Are they good for us? Secondly, if we take into account that the conception of technogenic and impure identification processes also involve transgressing intrahuman subcategories such as categories of gender, race, ethnicity and so on, the idea of technogenic and impure identification processes may emancipate us. In a sense, the emotional patterns in the culture of automobility maintain ‘ethical rules and systems’ that tend ‘to maintain social power and the ability to control others in the hands of the privileged’ (Cuomo 1998: 47). In other words, I suggest that the culture of automobility involves what Iris Marion Young calls ‘the institutional conditions’ that form and constrain the way individuals exercise their capacities (1990: 39). The cyborg is not nice, and therefore she can inspire us to rebel against the institutional conditions of the culture of automobility. Since impure identifications involve individual skills of border dwelling – that is, efforts to identify across the ontological boundaries of ‘humans’, ‘nature’ and ‘machine’, as well as across the boundaries of categories such as ‘woman’ and ‘man’ – the cyborg, as an ideal impure border dweller, might help us to (i) detect and (ii) not surrender to the values of the culture of automobility in a given context. Our embodied and geographical movements and non-movements are to a large extent regulated by cultural and public identity categories. That is, the category we as individuals ‘belong’ to (women, men, gay, heterosexual, cultural beings, natural beings, etc.) is affirmed by and also determines the modes of embodied and geographical movements and non-movements that members of respective categories are expected to engage in. For example, I grew up during the 1960s and 1970s in a community called Mellansel, outside the city of Örnsköldsvik in the mid-north of Sweden. In this context, the safest and most effective way to affirm our manhood was to get a driving licence and buy a car. Young women, on the other hand, were restricted to the role of being passengers. If a girl got a driving licence and a car, her activities challenged the meaning of being and becoming a woman. Further, as my four-years-older sister and her best friend were the first and only young women who owned and drove their own mopeds, they were considered ‘different’. It is clear that the fact that they identified themselves as moped drivers and not someone who ‘waited until someone came and picked us up’ (Johanna Kronlid, pers. comm.) was an important element of their self-image and in exercising their right to become what they were not expected to become. These are fairly conventional examples of how modes of machine-enhanced potential movement (car and moped driving) affirm or do not affirm the cultural identity categories of being and becoming a ‘man’ and a ‘woman’. That is, some modes of movement challenge the identity category that we are supposed to belong to, while other modes of movements affirm these categories. Thus, when young women identify with cars and mopeds in contexts where such activities are associated with maleness, the

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meaning of becoming a woman (and man) is altered. At some level, these women want to become someone else and are not satisfied with the kind of embodied movements in geographical space that the identity category ‘woman’ allows and affirms. Their new machine-enhanced mobility allows them to gain control of their own external embodied and geographical space, to drive where and when they want to drive and not to be restricted to the passive role of the passenger. In other words, in terms of existential motility, the fact that they have become drivers and are not merely passengers means that they act on a potential self. Furthermore, as a result, they have an opportunity to expand their geographical space, allowing for new and different encounters with other potential identification objects. As cyborgs we are allowed to revolt against any cultural norms and behavioural patterns and to some extent choose what kind of human–animal–plant–machine hybrids we would like to become. As Cuomo puts it, cyborgs are not nice, and one of the constructive and positive aspects of the cyborg as an environmental ethical ideal is that she can inspire us to rebel against the culture of automobility. Thirdly, I suggest that it is fruitful to relate the idea of the ability to engage in technogenic and impure identification processes to the concept of an expanded ecological self in deep ecology, an important tradition in radical environmental ethics (Fox 1995; Zimmerman 1994; Naess 1998). According to deep ecology, the conception of an expanded self includes a process of individual ‘self-realization’ (Fox 1995; Devall & Sessions 1998; Naess 1998). Thus, ‘The deep ecology sense of self requires … an identification which goes beyond humanity to include the nonhuman world’ (Devall & Sessions 1998: 222). Furthermore, selfrealization means that we must ‘see beyond our narrow contemporary cultural assumptions and values, and the conventional wisdom of our time and place’ (ibid.: 222). The conception of technogenic and impure identification processes and the deep ecology process of self-realization share the idea that processes of identification are one path to a more sustainable way of life and to a more critical stance towards contemporary values. However, the two views also differ in several important respects. First, even though ‘the non-human world’ is included in the deep ecology identification process, merely organic beings are referred to: ‘This process of the full unfolding of the self … includes not only me, an individual human, but all humans, whales, grizzly bears, whole rain forest ecosystems, mountains and rivers, the tiniest microbes in the soil, and so on’ (ibid.). Machines have no place on this list of potential identification objects. And while the conception of technogenic impure identification processes recognizes the importance of – although temporary and socially constructed – boundaries between self and other, there is a tendency in deep ecology to incorporate others in the self, as Val Plumwood has argued: The difference between radical exclusion (the atomistic self) and incorporation (the ecological self) corresponds to two distinct elements in denying the other: radical exclusion corresponds to the conception of self as self-contained and of other as alien which denies relationship and continuity, while incorporation

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corresponds to the totalising denial which denies the other by denying difference, treating the other as a form of the same or self. (1997: 155) Having clarified this, it is important to ask ourselves what constitutes the outcomes of technogenic and impure identification processes. The deep ecology standpoint is: ‘If reality is experienced by the ecological Self [with a capital “S”, that is, the organic whole of which the individual self, with a lower case “s”, identifies], our behavior naturally and beautifully follows norms of strict environmental ethics’ (Naess 1998: 230). In other words, the outcome of the deep ecology identification process is not a specific moral outlook or morally grounded behavior. Rather, the outcome is an alternative to ‘the extensive moralizing within the ecological movement’ (ibid.: 230): ‘The requisite care flows naturally if the self is widened and deepened so that protection of free nature is felt and conceived of as protection of our very selves’ (ibid.). Similarly, the conception of technogenic and impure identification processes should not be seen as an argument for a specific normative environmental ethical position. Choosing to become a hybrid does not necessarily mean that we embrace a non-anthropocentric moral outlook. However, in contrast to deep ecology, I suggest that the outcome of technogenic and impure identification processes is less like discovering who we are than it is discovering that we are becoming, and that we have potential capabilities to choose who we might become. Deep ecology is grounded in a view of the world that is established, ‘the organic whole’. The conception of technogenic and impure identification processes do not require that the world or we are ready-made. If our world is organic, it is also mechanic. Mobile machines are an important part of our sense of self. Instead of focusing solely on identifying with ‘nature’, leaving the machines to do their job on our self-images in the background, we should embrace the fact that cars, mopeds, aeroplanes and so on are important elements in the processes of becoming someone. The fact that machines and mobile machines cause detrimental environmental and social problems, that technology is what Götz calls ‘inextricably entwined with the evolution of the human person’ (2001: 32), and that they are inhabitants in our existential spaces, means that we should ask ourselves what kind of hybrid persons we would like to become with them, not without them. Fourthly, it is important to address a specific downside to all the talk of identification processes. In a straightforward attack on what he refers to as ‘mystical ecology’ (deep ecology), Murray Bookchin, the father of social ecology, argues that to focus solely on identification processes among ‘human beings’ fails to acknowledge the fact that ‘human beings’ are divided by oppressions (1998: 233). In the context of this essay this means two things. First, it is necessary to consider the fact that the possibility to act on our potential hybrid selves and to engage in technogenic and impure identification processes is more or less restricted by who we are in the social hierarchy in our specific cultural context. Secondly, however emancipating the conception of technogenic and impure identification processes may be for ‘individuals’, this approach risks placing the responsibility for a shift towards a sustainable culture of automobility on all car-driving individuals without considering social status

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due to oppressions of race, sex, ethnicity, age and so on. The emancipating process discussed above could easily backlash into a claim that all that is needed to create environmental awareness is for individuals to change their sense of self. However, the strength of the conception of technogenic impure identification processes is that they can function as both institutional critique and individual potentially emancipating and constructive self-critique. Finally, I have elsewhere suggested that we need to bring environmental ethics into the sustainable development discourse (Kronlid 2005). This means that we need to move beyond the idea that environmental ethics is environmental axiology, or, environmental value theory, and we need to expand the discussion and move beyond the sole focus on the relationship between humanity and nature. This perspective overlooks the deep impact that technology has on the meaning of human life. Global warming and emissions of carbon dioxide are just as much a social problem as an ecological and a technological/technical one (Latour 1999; Simmons 1997). From a sustainable development perspective, this is an uncontested fact. Furthermore, the fact that we keep on driving despite the undisputed facts concerning the impact on humans and non-human organisms cannot be sufficiently explained in terms of whether we ascribe moral standing to non-human organisms or not, nor in terms of whether we have not developed ‘environmentally friendly’ machines. The idea of technogenic and impure identification processes suggests that we look on seemingly merely technology-caused environmental problems as clusters of technological, environmental and social values and self-images that are part of and maintained within specific technological practices such as driving cars. Accordingly, these problems should be addressed not only as matters of technological knowledge and skill but also as a matter of intimacy, love and passion developed between car drivers/ passengers and the car. From the perspective of an impure worldview, we need to create a language that captures this man–machine intimacy. One step in the process of creating such a language has been taken within the disciplines described in this essay. I have attempted to take another step in the same direction by linking mobility to identification processes, thus accentuating the intimate connections between the driver of the car, the car, non-human organisms and other humans. I do believe that Sheller is correct in concluding that ‘Emotional investments in the car go beyond any economic calculation of costs and benefits, and outweigh any reasoned arguments about the public good or the future of the planet … To create a new ethics of auto mobility, in sum, will require a deep shift in automotive emotions …’ (2004: 236). Such an ethics means that our mobile machines can no longer be seen as autonomous and ethically neutral artefacts. Furthermore, the idea of a pure human moral agent becomes questionable. Thus, we need to engage in discussions about what modes of moving are doing to us, and, about the kind of environmental morals a hybrid mobile moral agent should develop. Who we can become as a result of the ways in which we move/not move cannot be satisfactorily answered apart from the cultural context and from the technological

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means by which we move. The speed, looks and scope of mobile machines surely affect our embodied and geographical mobility as well as the mode in which we encounter and identify with mobile others. One potential future of environmental mobility ethics lies in the fact that our movements/non-movements in the world do affect our identification with mobile machines, and that we as impure border dwellers can find new perspectives on the environmental ethical dimension of car use.

Notes 1. I would like to express my thanks to the members of the MOTEROM research group at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim. A special thanks to Cato Bjørkli, Sigurd Bergmann, Peter Nynäs, Tore Sager and Kjell Øvergård for commenting on earlier versions of this essay. Also, thanks to Staffan Nilsson at the Faculty of Theology, Uppsala University, for important suggestions, and to Petra Hansson at the Department of Curriculum Studies, Uppsala University, for helping me with my English. 2. In this essay ‘environmental ethics’ refers to a discourse of reflection on moral values, ideals and concepts that takes place in the environment and development context. The object of environmental ethics does not involve only relationships between moral agents and non-human nature; rather, the environmental ethics discourse involves inter-human relationships and relationships with humans and agents other than humans, including machines (Kronlid 2005). That is, I use ‘environment’ not as equivalent to ‘natural world’ but to a socio/techno/natural world. 3. This is not surprising partly because the discourse of sustainable development is permeated with the idea of the present generation’s responsibilities for coming generations’ welfare (or equal opportunities to provide a standard of living similar to that of present generations). Also, framing environmental ethics in terms of consequences fits well with the utilitarian framework of the Anglo-American culture of growth (Northcott 1996: 69). 4. One reason why the dominant model in technology ethics assumes that technology is neutral is probably because technological determinism might be interpreted as essentially normative. According to Bauchspies et al., technological determinism means ‘that technologies follow trajectories of development whose logic is innate and not tied to social and cultural factors; and that technology’s impact or influence on society is unidirectional’ (2006: 127). 5. See also Bergmann (2005: 217) for a discussion of the significance of technologically enhanced movements in relation to a reduced sensual experience of the physical world. 6. Consider the following quote from ecofeminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether: ‘The material substances of our bodies live on in plants and animals, just as our own bodies are composed from minute to minute of substances that once were parts of other animals and plants, stretching back through time to prehistoric ferns and reptiles, to ancient biota that floated in the primal seas of earth’ (1993: 252). 7. See Bergmann on how the artist’s ‘image of the landscape has … created a correlation between the inner and the outer landscape’ (1998: 106). From this perspective, there is nothing mystical or ‘magic’ about motility in existential space; we all have traces of existential movements/non-movements hanging on the walls of our homes. 8. For a more detailed presentation of Stern’s theory of the development of a sense of self, see Nynäs, this volume, Chapter 7. 9. Of course, intraspecies identification processes are also boundary breaking. For instance, the discourse of sex/gender identity includes such experiences. However interesting and important it is, I do not address this question here. 10. The extended feminist literature on gender/sex categories, including hetero, homo-, bi- and transsexual identities, exemplifies quite powerful, as well as socially and ethically challenging, intraspecies

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boundary-breaking identification processes. These discussions are about transgressing the boundaries of different intraspecies, cultural sub-categories of identities. 11. The term ‘ecogenic identification processes’ includes identification objects in singularis, pluralis and as ecological wholes. Whether or not our processes of identification with non-human individual organisms, several organisms and species, ecosystems and landscapes differ and overlap is an interesting question that should be addressed. However, here I discuss ecogenic identification processes in general. 12. For example, the ability to be self-conscious, to suffer, to speak, to experience happiness and despair and so on. 13. This idea is reminiscent of what animal rights ethicist Tom Regan refers to as the view that certain animals are ‘subjects of a life that is better or worse for them, logically independently of whether they are valued by anyone else’ (1993: 44). See also Paul Taylor (1989) for a similar, biocentric standpoint. Moreover, Sallie McFague outlines what she refers to as the subject–subjects model of the world. In this model, the human subject relates to the non-human other as ‘a multitude, a myriad of subjects’ (McFague 1997: 39). 14. Of course, mobile machines might be regarded as having moral standing. 15. For instance, Bryan G. Norton’s (1987) concept of instrumental transformative value (the idea that one aspect of nature’s instrumental value is that it is valuable because encountering nature might transform our moral outlooks) could be applied to humans, non-human organisms and mobile machines alike. The concept seems to cohere with the phenomenon labelled here as ecogenic and technogenic identification processes. 16. See www.ntnu.no/tverrfag/mobilitetens_tekniske_rom.php (accessed Jan. 2008) for the programme description of an ongoing research project ‘Mennesket og teknologien’ (Man and technology) at NTNU, Trondheim. See also, Bergmann on ‘centred, organised, and compressed space’ created by ‘technical media’ (2005: 215–19). 17. There is a vast discourse on philosophies of technology, and ‘technology’ is much like ‘nature’ in that it is a concept with varying contextual meaning. I do not intend to enter this discussion. My purpose is rather to discuss whether it is reasonable to assume that we may enter into identification processes with mobile machines. See Ingold (2002: pt 3) for an interesting anthropological discussion on the meaning and use of technology. 18. Thus impure identification processes involve a ‘creative movement’ (Douglas 2004: 3, my emphasis) and should be seen as positive efforts ‘to organise the environment’ (ibid.: 2). As such, what processes of impurification and purification have in common is that they are parts of our positive efforts to create meaning in the world. 19. Categorical identities are established as we classify things, people, animals and so on as members of a certain category based on criteria such as ‘the ability to feel pain and the quality of being alive’, for example (Gebhard et al. 2003: 107). 20. Some of the qualities that are ascribed to members of these categories are that humans are seen as users of nature (which is only being used) by means of technology and machines (which are only means) for the purpose of development. See also Karen Warren’s (2000) work on a patriarchal oppressive conceptual framework. 21. Of course, the same sometimes goes for engaging in intraspecies identification processes as well. However, intraspecies identification processes are often morally challenging because they challenge dominant ideas of what it means to be truly human or what it means to be truly female or male, and so on. 22. Others, such as Iris Marion Young who follows Adorno, highlight that ‘the logic of identity’ involves the endeavour to ‘conceptualize entities in terms of substance rather than process or relation; substance is the self-same entity that underlies change, that can be identified, counted, measured’ (Young 1990: 98). Further, she holds that ‘the logic of identity goes beyond the attempt to order and compare the order of particulars of experience. It constructs totalizing systems in which the unifying categories are themselves unified under principles, where the ideal is to reduce everything to one first principle’ (ibid.). 23. Regarding the development of cultures, see Bergmann (1998) on the relationship between landscape and unifying cultural identity. Bergmann accentuates that it is also possible to include the landscape

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in a co-creative ongoing process of constructing ethnicity, a process empowered by the encounter of a population and a local landscape (ibid.: 108–9). 24. Of course, this involves activities in social and geographical space as well, because nothing impure will happen in existential space without us engaging in direct or indirect encounters with non-human others. 25. On the one hand, there are cases in which technological devices are connected to people’s or animals’ nervous systems, as in experiments on stroke patients, cockroaches and rats (Kennedy et al. 2000, cited in Warwick 2003). On the other hand, there are cases in which we enhance physical or other qualities by using outer artificial or semi-artificial attachments (glasses, shoe implants, canes, cars, trains, aeroplanes), or by using inner devices (pacemakers, shunts). Furthermore, in some cases the artificial attachments or machines have both inner and outer locations (hearing aids, ‘false’ teeth, etc.) (Warwick 2003:131). 26. Kevin Warwick argues that only when machines or technical devices are connected to our nervous system can we say that we are cyborgs, because only in these cases does the organism/machine-encounter alter our self-awareness. However, this view does not take into consideration that our sense of self develops in context and that awareness is located not within the human body (Overgaard et al., this volume, Ch. 5) but rather takes place in the intermediate space of the self and other (Kember 2003: 10–13).

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Goodpaster, K. E. [1978] 1998. ‘On Being Morally Considerable’. See Van de Veer & Pierce (1998), 141–7. Götz, I. L. 2001. Technology and the Spirit. Westport, CN: Praeger. Hansson, S.-O. [2004] 2005. Kompendium Teknik och etik. www.infra.kth.se/~soh/tekniketik.pdf (accessed Jan. 2008). Haraway, D. J. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. London: Routledge. Hochschild, A. R. [1983] 2003. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Ingold, T. [2000] 2002. The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill. London: Routledge. Kalof, L. 2003. ‘The Human Self and the Animal Other’. See Clayton & Opotow (2003), 161–78. Kals, E. & H. Ittner. 2003. ‘Children’s Environmental Identity: Indicators and Behavioral Impacts’. See Clayton & Opotow (2003), 135–57. Kaufmann, V. 2002. Rethinking Mobility. Aldershot: Ashgate. Kember, S. 2003. Cyberfeminism and Artificial Life. London: Routledge. Kemp, D. 1998. The Environment Dictionary. London: Routledge. Kennedy, P. R., R. A. E. Bakay, M. M. Moore et al. 2000. ‘Direct Control of a Computer from the Human Nervous System’. IEEE Transactions on Rehabilitation Engineering 8(2): 198–202. Kroes, P. 2005. ‘Technology, Philosophy of ’. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, version 2.0, http:// www.rep.routledge.com (accessed Jan. 2008; subscriber only) Kronlid, D. 2005. Miljöetik i praktiken – åtta fall ur svensk miljö- och utvecklingshistoria. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Latour, B. [1993] 1999. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Månsson, N. 2003. ‘En värld ogästvänlig för nomader’, STINT (Stiftelsen för internationalisering av högre utbildning och forskning) report, Scottish Traveller Education Programme, Moray House School of Education, University of Edinburgh. McFague, S. 1997. Super, Natural, Christians: How We Should Love Nature. London: SCM Press. Merchant, C. 1996. Earthcare: Women and the Environment. London: Routledge. Michaels, M. 2001. ‘The Invisible Car: The Cultural Purification of Road Rage. In Car Cultures, ed. D. Miller, 59–80. Oxford: Berg. Mitcham, C. & H. Nissenbaum. 1998. ‘Technology and Ethics’. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, version 1.0, http://www.rep.routledge.com (accessed Jan. 2008; subscriber only) Myers, G. & A. Russell. 2003. ‘Human Identity in Relation to Wild Black Bears: A Natural-Social Ecology of Subjective Creatures’. See Clayton & Opotow (2003), 67–90. Naess, A. [1988] 1998. ‘Self-Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World’. See Van de Veer & Pierce (1998), 226–9. Norton, B. G. 1987. Why Preserve Natural Variety?, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Northcott, M. 1996. The Environment and Christian Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Plumwood, V. [1993] 1997. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge. Radford Ruther, R. 1993. Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing. London: SCM Press. Regan, T. [1980] 1993. ‘Animal Rights, Human Wrongs’. In Environmental Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology, ed. M. E. Zimmerman, 33–48. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Sheller, M. 2004. ‘Automotive Emotions: Feeling the Car’. Theory, Culture & Society Vol. 21(4–5): 221–42. Simmons, I. G. 1997. Humanity and Environment: A Cultural Ecology. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman. Stern, D. N. [1985] 2000. The Interpersonal World of the Infant: A View from Psychoanalysis and Development Psychology. New York: Basic Books. Sundqvist, G. 2003. Uthållig utveckling – mänsklighetens framtid. Lund: Studentlitteratur,. Taylor, P. W. [1986] 1989. Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tengström, E. 1991. Bilismen i kris? En bok om bilen, människan, samhället och miljön. Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren. Van de Veer, D. & C. Pierce, eds. 1998. The Environmental Ethics and Policy Book: Philosophy, Ecology, Economic, 2nd edn. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

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7 Global vagabonds, place and the self: the existential dimension of mobility Peter Nynäs

Introduction You might expect a pilgrimage or a ritual activity to end in an ecstatic, or otherwise sweeping and profound, experience; pilgrimages are, after all, characterized by an experience of spiritual transformation (Gothóni 1993). Movements and ways of moving are important dimensions of human spirituality. Religious studies recognize a complex reciprocal interaction between ways of moving, the environment and human experience: ‘ritual-like behaviour demonstrates the importance of the body and its way of moving in space and time. The body acts within an environment that appears to require it to respond in certain ways’ (Bell 1997: 139). Is this reciprocal interaction typical of religion only, or is it a more general feature of human existence, that is, a complex interplay between place, moving and the human self? In this article I suggest that we need to account for an existential dimension of mobility. The concept ‘existential place’ describes a transformative potential in the relationship between place and the human self that is significant for the understanding of mobility. It suggests that mobility, moving and movements correspond with a deep-seated human relatedness, which thus can influence one’s worldview. This is, however, a broad topic. In the following I shall focus mainly on international work-related mobility in industrial projects. International work-related mobility is not just exotic adventures, fancy hotels and high salaries. Because of their continuous mobility – the intensification of time and place – global vagabonds lose their relatedness to specific places. How does this life in the grey corridors of globalization affect these travellers as subjects and at a more profound level? Does it have an influence on patterns of feeling, thinking and acting? In this essay I ask these questions as a means to exemplify the intimate relationship between place and the human self, and the relevance of this relatedness for the existential dimension of mobility.

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Projects and global vagabonds Industrial projects, such as power-plant construction, are complex and temporary international networks consisting of different suppliers and sub-suppliers, financiers, authorities, logistic entrepreneurs, end-users, owners and so on. The different roles of all these parties are integrated in the project according to the functionality of the project. The result of this is an increase of global functional networks, with strong international and multicultural ingredients. These projects are a part of the globalization process.1 They are characterized by more than the extension of economic activities across national boundaries. They present a functional integration of internationally dispersed activities in a widespread process of a political and cultural nature, a process mediated by the actions of both individuals and institutions (Dicken 1998: 5; Rankin 2003: 710). Mobility has increased enormously over the past decades, partly due to the more global nature of the world’s economies. Mobility is one of the primary mechanisms of globalization (Bach 2003: 230). International projects are dependent on a high level of mobility, with the mobility related to international projects categorized into two interrelated types. One relates to the increasing amount of travel to specific locations in order to establish and maintain the functionality of specific projects. People from different places meet to negotiate, to work together and so on. The second is a pattern of continuous global mobility, as a result of the fact that one project follows another, with the projects often overlapping. This long-distance international work mobility is typical of the ‘knowledge industry’, that is, organizations in the global knowledge- and network-based economy (Castells 1996: 77). Thus, job descriptions of industrial project managers, for example, often include continuous international travel. Travelling is an everyday routine for people working on international projects. Nevertheless, progress on industrial projects is dependent on both local infrastructures and international networks. Having one foot in local cultures and the other in the global economy can be characterized as a stressful ‘time-space intensification’ (Riain 2000: 179). Urry (2000) emphasizes the relevance of mobility and argues for a ‘sociology of mobility’. In this essay, however, I will not highlight the effects of global mobility and ‘time-space intensification’ from a sociological perspective. Instead, I ask how people are affected on a psychological level by continuously moving from one place to another, and how this influences them and their worldview. The specific aim is to describe an existential dimension of work-related human mobility in international projects. For this purpose I have explored some common experiences from industrial projects as articulated in diaries. The diaries were written by students, mostly male, from economics or engineering departments at universities in Sweden and Finland from the time when they were working at power plant construction sites in different parts of the world (Latin America, South America, Asia and Africa). Their stays abroad lasted between six and twelve months; each of the eight diarists wrote 100–250 pages during their stay. The diarists had been asked to write the diaries and knew that the diaries were intended for research purposes, which means the material should not be thought of as information found in ordinary private diaries, but more of the type found in a personal report (Patel & Davidson 1994: 57).

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Qualitative methods have been used to analyse these diaries, so that the results rely on reasoning and argumentation and not on statistical relations. My goal has been to make sense of the personal experiences described in the diaries. I have thus been attentive to how the experiences have been described, articulated and what they are constitutive of (Taylor 1985). On the one hand, the diaries reflect the students’ first experiences working abroad on projects, that is, the culture shock they experience in relation to the local culture and in relation to the subculture of the project team. On the other hand, the diaries also reflect what it is like to work and live in association with an international project. As one of the diarists stated: ‘Again it became evident to me that once you have started to travel around in the world it becomes very hard to stop. You are not comfortable anymore in your home country. Back home, it feels like something is wrong.’ It is not surprising that project members are explicitly described in the diaries as ‘vagabonds’. These large-scale international projects confront us with more than a way of working; they entail an entire lifestyle characterized by mobility. We encounter the kind of mobility Bauman (1999: 89) refers to in his reflection on the human consequences of globalization, where he distinguishes between the inhabitants of the first and the second world. The first group, he writes, travels at will and enjoys their travel, while the second group often travels illegally and, if they are unlucky, can be arrested or deported. But the first group does not always travel as glamorously as this brief description might lead us to believe. In contrast to tourists, who are drawn from place to place by the experiences and sights they seek, global vagabonds are forced to move on by their perceptions of inhospitable or hostile surroundings (Bauman 1999: 93). The important ‘feel’ of a place and the attachment to a place can take a long time to acquire. These feelings need to be integrated in both the body and the subconscious (Tuan 2003: 183ff.). Common experiences and categories like this need further interpretation and reflection. Why might the surroundings be perceived as inhospitable or hostile? Since I am searching for an underlying existential dimension – a deep structure – in such experiences, my analysis can be defined as a deep hermeneutic analysis (Latomaa 2005). In terms of methods, this means that common experiences – the explicit first text – are extracted and interpreted in terms of a second text. To a large extent this method is dependent on theory. Generally, I have analysed the material from an object relations perspective, from which humans are understood as primarily object-seeking. The need for internal and external relationships at both conscious and unconscious levels is considered a primary need (Gomez 1997: 2). This methodological perspective has helped me grasp the complex relationships among the human self, place and patterns of feeling, thinking and acting.

Place as experience and existence The dimension of increasing global mobility is to a large extent constituted by the changing experience of place and, as argued by many, by the intensification of time and space. Still, in the context of place, mobility needs to be reflected on as a highly

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complex process. Mobility entails more than moving from one geographical location to another. When we ask where a place is located we usually get a precise answer, but when we ask what a place is like, we get several different answers that relate to the biographical characters and subjective meanings of the place (Karjalainen 1996: 11). Thus, we need to acknowledge the experiential and subjective dimensions of place (Relph 1996: 907). Places are shaped by memories, expectations and by stories of real and imagined events. Places are of significance to people and are infused with feelings and meanings, which include perceiving, doing, thinking and feeling in a certain way. Furthermore, places are permeated with visceral feelings. They are known not only through the eyes and mind but also through more direct modes of experience, which resist objectification (Tuan 2003). Generally, this means that places can be viewed from different perspectives: (i) the physical–geographical dimension, (ii) the sensory– emotional dimension, and (ii) the sociocultural dimension (Karjalainen 1997: 41).2 In this essay I argue that we also need to discern a fourth dimension of place, an existential dimension. This can be developed from Juhani Pallasmaa’s (2001) study of architectural images in film. He uses the concept ‘existential space’ to highlight the profound significance of spaces and places we enter. Referring to works by the film director Andrei Tarkovsky (1986: 150), Pallasmaa (2001: 9) describes the existential dimension of space using the poetic dimensions of films and images. Poetic images are condensed from numerous experiences and invigorate our imagination by opening up streams of association and affect. They sensitize us to the boundary between the world and ourselves. It should be noted that Pallasmaa is an architect, however, so that his ideas are grounded in a more general enquiry into man and the (built) environment (see Pallasmaa 2005: e.g. 69ff.). From a perspective of psychology of religion, the relationship between place and the human self can be seen as a symbolic relatedness. This means that place is understood as an objectified and external symbol corresponding with inner existential space, that is, affective structures and motifs rooted in early life experiences. This symbolic correspondence plays an important role in human life. It is a vital component in the maturing process, contributing to experiences of meaningfulness, for example (Holm 1995). It is also a vital part in the creation of order and structure in life, offering the individual a perspective on his or her life (Bergstrand et al. 1990: 9). The existential dimension might be described as a correspondence between the human self and place, which strengthens or nurtures the sense of being a self. It entails a relatedness to place that contributes to keeping our humanity alive and helps us to stay in touch with the life of the self (Wright 1995: 50). This is, however, an insufficient description if we are trying to understand the correspondence between the human self in place in a more neutral manner. Pallasmaa also highlights existential space in terms of images ‘impregnated in our minds through the forgotten and frightened child who inhabits the adult body of each and everyone of us’ (2001: 114). Corresponding with the self in a profound way, place also touches on general fears of dissolution and petrifaction (Wright 2005: 50), and of being trapped in repetition in a way that is deeply antagonistic to the necessity for inner change and development (Callard 2003). Generally, the existential dimension of place could be

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described as the correspondence between place and the self that touches on inner affective structures significant to the sense of being a self. Even though we need the distinction between an inner psychological space – or existence space – on the one hand, and an external space on the other hand, neither Pallasmaa’s concept of existential space nor the perspective on symbols is properly described as either internal or external. They are theoretical constructs. Instead we need to recognize this as an intermediate area between the individual and the environment. In terms of object relations theory, the existential dimension can be grasped as a potential or transitional space. This is also constituted by early life experiences, but is also characterized by the human capacity to nurture and develop the fundamental relatedness between self and other through play, fantasy, creativity and growth (Winnicott 2002). The existential dimension of place concerns the profound evocative influence that places might have on people. An extreme example of this is the Jerusalem syndrome. People visiting Jerusalem might experience strong emotions that drive them to adopt religious models and act in unexpected ways, to the point of even perceiving themselves as prophets. Some might become psychotic, but an individual history of psychopathology does not explain the character of the syndrome, as there is no clear correspondence between people affected by the syndrome and a history of mental illness (Leppäkari 2005). The city of Jerusalem becomes a symbol, an existential place, evocative of affective structures and manifesting itself in transformed patterns of acting, thinking and relating. A similar phenomenon is ‘la sindrome de Stendhal’, in which people visiting Florence were hospitalized in psychiatric clinics due to the intense and overwhelming aesthetic experience of the city (Magherini & Zanobini 1987). This syndrome sheds light on how an aesthetic experience can create a strong inner sense of longing and an emptiness (Kjellqvist 2004: 127). However, an existential dimension need not be applied only to extreme phenomena. It might also be a part of more ordinary experiences, as is found in the following example from Ken Wright: As a child, I spent a lot of time wandering about on my own. In some ways, the world was not dangerous as now, and my mother gave me considerable freedom to wander as I pleased. So, for me, the fields, the woods, the trees, perhaps even the sky were like an extension of home. They were part of my territory – a kind of outreach of it – but one in which I could feel alive and nourished, rather than oppressed and hemmed in. (1996: 71) Through his relatedness to the other, symbolically present in the environment, Wright was able to relate to himself in a profound and life-sustaining way. A way to understand the transformations of common patterns of thinking, acting, relating and feeling experienced as a consequence of international mobility is to acknowledge the existential dimension of place. Both the foreign culture in itself – its otherness – and ‘the intensification of time and place’ might be evocative in a way that that touches on inner affective structures significant to the sense of being a self.

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In the following I shall explore these aspects of mobility by examining in more detail the interplay between place and self. In the following analysis we can also see that the existential dimension is related to the other three dimensions mentioned earlier. The experiences reflected in the material are dependent on the movement from one physical location to another. The experiences are also constituted by the way the place is sensed and felt and by the sociocultural interpretation of this. In addition to this I think we can also sense a more profound dimension, that is, that these experiences also have an intimate relationship to the self in a way that is very significant.

A real journey into fantasy With respect to the general experiences of place recorded in the diaries, it is everyday things and incidents that strike the diarists and get their attention. It is obvious from the diaries that the environment is felt in the skin, it strikes the eye, and it invades the mouth and the nose. As highlighted by Øvergaard et al. (this volume, Ch. 5), the environment is a vital and indistinguishable part of human cognition and action. The experience of place is primarily reinforced in a direct mode by perception and through the senses. However, attention is not solely paid to the various qualities of these separate stimuli and perceptions. The diarists also become aware of the commonalities of these perceptions, that is, their unfamiliar character. Together, these features strengthen the experience of otherness. The food has a specific taste; the noise and smell of the city differs. The common feature of these separate and minor experiences of things feeling, smelling, tasting and looking different are very quickly transformed into a general experience of the place. This is usually expressed in a simple manner with words such as ‘here’, ‘this culture’, ‘this place’, ‘this country’ and ‘this environment’. In addition to the effect that this experience by necessity has on cognition and action, it evokes emotional reactions: liking or disliking, attraction or fear. A combination of different perspectives helps to shed light on the specific character of the experiences recalled in the diaries. On the one hand, it is possible to recognize the different interpretative processes that are involved, of both an individual and a social nature. On the other hand, these patterns of interpretation clearly correspond to an inner existence space of an unconscious or pre-verbal nature. The experience of moving from one culture to another is partly structured as a fantasy. Taken together, these perspectives exemplify how places become locations of experiences – or profound centres of human existence – including perceiving, doing, thinking and feeling in a certain way (Relph 1976: 141; Walter 1980–81: 162). Experiences of places are constituted by a combination of the otherness that is experienced, and the need to relate to this otherness. This leaves room for a significant process of articulation. This suggests that experiences of place and environment are dependent on interpretations. However, it also illustrates that experiences are described in very similar ways, in that they are interpreted and structured according

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to specific patterns or models at hand. The diarists find interpretative models in media stories and fiction but the diaries also reveal how experiences of the environment are affected and reshaped in dialogue with feelings of social solidarity. The diarists’ socialization into the project team in taking part in a linguistic screen of stories and jokes, for example, is similar to the pre-understanding shaped by media stories. Both seem to exert a strong influence on the individual’s way of interpreting, understanding and experiencing the new environment. They enter a place that is socioculturally constructed. These interpretative patterns reinforced an experience of the place that usually connotes conflicts and problems. The sense of something ordinary is relegated to the background and leaves a place for an expectation of the adventurous. This also implies that the unpleasant and frightening is perceived as natural or expected in the specific environment. The places where these diarists lived and worked was generally perceived as chaotic, meaningless and threatening, whereas they remembered their home as harmonious, accommodating and efficient. Individuals tended to view their location with suspicion and uncertainty, and to experience a dissolution of acquired norms. For example, the fear that they might have been cheated by a taxi driver or a waiter was a reminder of the ‘well-known fact’ that one should always be suspicious in places like this. These interpretative patterns offer meaning, and in a symbolic way they structure the dialogue between the outer world and the inner existence space, that is, ‘through both a contextually and culturally bound process and an individual reflective process where values, emotions and expectations play a part’ (Illman 2004: 262). Additionally, the diaries reflect significant elements of imagination. Travelling abroad is usually perceived as an adventure, a journey into the unknown. The diarists tend to describe their new place in relation to fiction, for example, as the most beautiful place on earth (with reference to a movie) or as the home of an adventurous character from some novel they have read. Their new location was also experienced as unreal, a subjective experience described as if playing a part in a movie, being on the planet Mars or as being wholly separate from the events that took place. When something out of the ordinary crosses our horizon, ‘alternative models can take over as perceptionstructuring patterns’ (Holm 1995: 131). The experience of place touches people’s imagination, their fantasies, their desires and their unconscious fears. The journey into the unknown – into the otherness – becomes a journey into the unconscious. For example, the diaries reflected this in the strongly ambivalent character of the experience of the foreign place. In the beginning or before the journey, the place quite easily evokes a longing for something that is more perfect and more contiguous with the self, that is, the potential or transitional dimension embedded in human mobility. This aspect of the imagination is vulnerable – an unarticulated hope – and it disappears very rapidly when confronted with the new environment and interpretative patterns at hand. The longed-for journey to a warm and beautiful paradise ends up as a hot and stinking hell, a godforsaken place. A pendulum swinging between the desire for a paradise and the fear of a hell seems to be hidden in the depth of the experience, similar to the experience we have of the

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otherness of people we meet. This ambivalence is one of both strong sympathy and aggression (Kristeva 1988). One of the diarists wrote: Honestly speaking I would like to go home at once. This country is so dirty and seems to be pretty awful in other ways too. A war is all that is missing, but I hope that they will not start something like that. You could sure call this place if not hell on earth but at least a big ass-hole. Maybe I will feel differently later, but I dare to say that it is more probable that this impression just will grow stronger. Here, the diarist explains how the place is a disappointment and an overwhelming threat. The experience of place is not a constantly moving pendulum. Over the long run, the effects of time–space intensification are transformed. During an interview one project manager explained to me how well he remembered the excitement he felt at the start of his career when he travelled abroad. Now, after many years of travelling it was totally different: ‘Now, it is just waiting all the time, in airports, hotels and so on, and in between that there is nothing.’ In this he acknowledges another side of international work-related mobility that is not only about the other culture in itself but just as much about the conformity that the worker experiences in these global places: airports, hotels and offices look the same around the world and require the same norms of being and acting, but are somehow also associated with lack of identity and relatedness. This also highlights a very significant pattern. The inner hope for a transitional movement to another way of being, projected onto the next place, is continuously transformed into disappointment. This disappointment evolves into an inarticulated threat, that is, disintegration, petrifaction or emptiness of the self. The diaries describe experiences of the local place as often revolving around a triptych of something alien, chaotic and hostile. Separate experiences are recorded and interpreted in a similar fashion and are also infused with strong and negative feelings. Uncertainty and irritation aroused by minor everyday experiences are reinforced by more extreme experiences, possibly in a narrative form and described by colleagues. Altogether this contributes to creating an overall and generalized experience of the place that is characterized by a subjective position of estrangement, suspicion and hostility, contrasted mainly by the non-place of the global corridor of nothingness. These experiences seem to correspond with the inner self of affective structures and elements of fantasy in a manner that will be further explored in the following section.

Acting out the fantasy Imagination is an essential part of place, but as Yi-Fu Tuan points out, ‘imagination can lead us astray – into … the unreal, and the grotesque; and it can tempt us into first

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picturing, then (too often) acting out evil’ (1998: xv). This exemplifies the possible disruption of transitional (or potential) space discussed by Thomas Ogden (1985). In the intermediate space between fantasy, reality and the subject who is doing the interpreting, human creativity becomes possible and communication meaningful. This is the transitional space where we are alive as humans. A disruption of this balance may take the form of unbalance, where the ‘dialectic of reality and fantasy collapses in the direction of fantasy’ (ibid.: 133). This means that fantasy invades potential space in a way that negates the real presence of the other and, with that, the possible meaning that creates symbolic relationships. This disruption of the balance between the real and the imagined is an important dimension of the patterns of behaviour revealed in the diaries. The general experience of place was also manifested in the ways that people acted. As will be described, these might be seen as inappropriate, as over-reactions to the actual situation when considering the different goals of the project team. Instead, the patterns of action are meaningful against the background of fantasies embodied in the experiences of the place. Furthermore, it is of significance that these patterns include an implicit negation of the other. It was expected that members of the project team would be assimilated into the team, which implies that they would have to surrender some of their individuality. This was explicitly recognized by the diarists themselves. Sometimes the diarists strongly disapproved of and contested, or joked about, assimilation into the team. The process of assimilation also involved the expectation that the newcomers would adopt the group’s separatist attitudes towards the new culture.3 Local people were generally approached with suspicion and intolerance. They were commonly referred to in derogatory terms, such as as children. This was a way of expressing how foreign workers on the team experienced the incompetence and lack of independence on the part of the local workers, and implied that the local workers could not be entrusted with responsibilities. A similar pattern was evident in references to local authorities, but here it was of course necessary for the team to be more respectful. This did not, however, prevent team members from perceiving the local authorities as dishonest and inconsistent. These kinds of attitudes clearly correspond to the way actual relationships are structured. With respect to the general feeling of suspicion and hostility, one of the diarists recalled a sense of ambivalence: ‘I was asked to come and play football at the local Spanish Club by the guy who sold me my washing machine. He had also taken me to lunch once and he was a nice guy. But these kinds of situations are difficult. You are not used to them and instantly ask yourself what the hell that guy wants from me.’ For this diarist it had become difficult to react with any other feeling than that of suspicion even though he was uncomfortable with his reactions. The ability to cooperate and communicate in intercultural encounters is dependent on interpretative patterns formed by underlying attitudes. How we experience and report cultural encounters in our language creates a way of experiencing the reality by which different relationships are established (Nynäs 2001, 2004; Illman & Nynäs 2005). Opinions, questions, suggestions, offers and problems are not immediately

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taken seriously but examined through the lens of distance and distrust as superficial, trivial or unreliable. In a similar manner arguments made by the local workers are easily considered to be irrelevant, lacking in objectivity or manipulative. The locals are neither believed nor trusted. Attitudes affect relationships at several levels in a concrete way. Sometimes the locals are even assaulted, and they become targets for aggression and derogatory behaviour more easily. One of the diarists recalls the following incident: ‘At that time he was so drunk that he first suspected that the waiter had stolen 50 dollars from him. Later he started to suspect that it was the host (i.e. the customer) who had stolen the money. His official dinner did not go so well and the customer was not satisfied.’ Apart from the aggressive and derogatory behaviour following from the estrangement between the team and the local environment, the experience of the place also corresponds to a specific way of being. One of the most significant contexts of interpersonal relatedness is the self state (Stern 2003: 843). To this complexity we also need to add place as a dimension. Gadamer’s (1999) contribution to the reflection on human understanding and interpretation makes use of a spatial metaphor: ‘fusion of horizons’. Mutual understanding, communication and interaction, that is, relatedness in general, includes a construction or reconstruction of place. Shifting from one place, home, to another place, the destination, includes shifting from one form of self-other relatedness to another. The relevance of place and mobility was vividly expressed by one of the experienced engineers, as he explained the character of the lifestyle to one of the diarists: ‘Look at us old men here. We are lechers, alcoholics, divorced, ageing vagabonds, but the truth is that we built this factory and it will be a flagship of our company. These project jobs are like this: When the boss commands the team to go to the destination place, all Ten Commandments have already been broken.’ This correspondence between mobility and place on the one hand, and morality on the other, needs further examination. This way of being entails a feeling of detachment on a more profound level. This has also been reflected in a lack of interest and will to listen, but on a more fundamental level we encounter indifference, ignorance and apathy. As the following quote points out, the indifference implies even more than the elimination of a moral sense: ‘In this place you just get into bad shape and what little sense of responsibility and energy that remains is ruined. Even though you do not drink alcohol, the common depression and the circumstances kill your capacity for thinking.’ On the one hand, this exemplifies how the place shapes feelings, attitudes and behaviour from the inside. On the other hand, we can see how this experience has a particular character. The subject feels he has lost his own subjectivity; in other words, his experience is losing a sense of being a self. The place becomes a fundamental threat to the human self. In psychoanalysis the term ‘acting out’ refers to action that on a deeper level builds on an inner and more or less subconscious conflict. It is a way of escaping conscious confrontation that is inherent in verbalizing the desires or wishes evoked in specific situations by acting these out in another situation (Hamilton 1990: 219; Blanck & Blanck 1994: 223). This concept might shed some light on the experience and behaviour described above. The attitudes and behaviour are misplaced and inappropriate.

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They are clearly counterproductive with regard to the explicit ambitions of the project team. The project is heavily dependent on the local infrastructure. The attitudes and behaviour are instead meaningful only in the context of the profound feelings of losing the sense of being a self.

The vulnerable self Earlier in the text, I highlighted how the diaries reflect the transformation in patterns of acting, thinking and relating. I suggest that this change is partly due to the intimate relationship between place and the human self, and that it exemplifies how ‘the world and the self inform and redefine each other constantly’ (Pallasmaa 1996: 27). Man is an inseparable part of his surroundings: ‘far from being of little or no account to human personality development, [the non-human environment] constitutes one of the most basically important ingredients of human psychological existence’ (Searles 1960: 5ff., 23). Human relatedness and object-seeking are not directed towards humans alone but also towards the non-human environment. We need an extended understanding of the human self to be able to grasp the transformative relatedness between man and place, which is implicit in the use of the concept of existential place. Phillip Cary (2000) argues that the idea of a human self dates back to Augustine, and later, in the nineteenth century it was used as a way to comprehend the depths of human being. For example, William James (1890) separated the ‘me’ from the ‘I’, so that ‘me’ is the publicly recognizable and empirically knowable aspects of the self, and the ‘I’ refers to the self as knower, the subjectively based agency. With modernism and the behaviourist school, the notion of the ‘I’ self was more or less lost and we faced an explosion of data on the ‘me’ self. Under this discourse of modernity the self was conceptualized as a unitary, autonomous and machine-like entity that was knowable though scientific research. The cognitive school of today is seen as the main heir to this approach to the human self (Brinich & Shelley 2002: 9ff.). The modernist understanding of the human self is unable to account for a relation between self and place, due to its strong focus on consciousness (Casey 2001: 405). The assumption that place is evocative of inner affective structures implies that the human self is not fixed in a cemented structure but is intimately related to both the human and non-human surroundings in transformative ways. Today, the growing interest in human intersubjectivity offers theoretical tools to grasp the transformative relatedness between man and place. Among several contributors from the perspective of psychology (Meltzoff 1985, 1990; Trevarthen 1998; Beebe et al. 2005), Daniel Stern’s understanding of the human self is most useful. The self is put at the centre of his thinking as an intersubjective matrix (Brinich & Shelley 2002: 40ff.). Stern (1991) considers the self to be a main organizing principle in human life. Further, he considers the self to exist in a state of continuous restructuring throughout life due to its intersubjective nature. Thus, the central character of the human self is

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one of growing and evolving, as opposed to that of a fixed stable being. This understanding of the human self is based on research on development in infants. According to Stern (1991: 39ff.) a sense of self develops during infancy through different processes of relatedness between self and other. The earliest development is characterized by cumulative integration and organization when different perceptions are linked to each other in the continuous interaction between the self and the environment. Later, this evolves into a sense of being separate from the environment. Senses of contiguity, continuity and coherence are experienced in relatedness to the other, and become a barrier to the threat of fragmentation, depersonalization and disintegration. Once relatedness is recognized and realized as a potential, a sense of subjectivity on behalf of both self and other follow, based on sharing affects, attention, intention and, naturally, their converse. Finally, verbal relatedness evolves and symbolic relatedness is developed as language, which transforms the intersubjectivity between self and other into a less direct and more impersonal form. Stern’s theoretical perspective is important in several ways. The first implication is that place and environment are one of the fundamental building blocks of the human self. Early experiences of sensory contiguity define a surface, a sense of place, with which later experience is created and organized (Ogden 2004: 31ff.). The organizing, structuring and meaning-creating capacity of the human mind (in other words, later developmental achievements) originates in early self-environment relatedness. This spatial relatedness has an ontogenetic character, as the sense of the self and the other – and reality in general – is rooted in it. Different dimensions of the sense of being a self are therefore related to, or dependent on, spatiality. Thus, the general emphasis of intersubjectivity suggests more than a reciprocal influence. It tries to account for a relationship between place and the human self in which the two constitute each other. ‘In effect, there is no place without self; and no self without place’ as Casey (2001: 406) argues. This sheds some light on why place – and mobility – is associated with strong underlying hopes and fears. It further explains why, when the experience of a place is negative, as when a paradise turns into a hell, this affects the sense of being a self in all its varied forms: senses of contiguity, continuity and order, senses of subjectivity, agency and being able to communicate (Stern 1991: 21). The diaries revealed that none of these senses were self-evident in the foreign place. The diarists fought feelings of disintegration, indifference, contiguity and losing their sense of being a self. Following Pallasmaa’s definition of the general task of architecture (1996: 16, 22), I suggest that the existential role of place is ‘to reconstruct the experience of an undifferentiated interior world, in which we are not mere spectators, but to which we inseparably belong’ (ibid.: 16). Another implication of Stern’s perspective is that human experience is complex. The different forms of relatedness between the human self and its environment do not replace each other as they develop during infancy. They are integrated and included in the following form, and thus implicitly interrelated. This is easily highlighted by simple examples, as in, we are touched by the words of another. Or temporality and spatiality might speak to us somehow, even though we might be unable

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to articulate it. This translation between modalities and forms of experience and relatedness sheds light on why different experiences cannot be kept separate from each other. Instead they influence each other and form a more general orientation towards the surroundings. The experiences of people affect the perception of place and the other way around. Generally, this implies that the three dimensions of place – (i) the physical–geographical dimension, (ii) the sensory–emotional dimension, and (iii) the sociocultural dimension – are strongly interwoven. The environment is perceived more in the way that a swimmer senses the flow of water against the skin (Pallasmaa 1996: 24). It further implies that correspondence between these is important in understanding the existential dimension and the influence of place on the human self. In this analysis we can see how an experience of the otherness of the place was reinforced at several levels, and how this constituted a strong threat to the self. On a general level, Stern’s theory meets the requirements implicitly suggested by the idea of an existential dimension of place. His theory offers a way to comprehend the correspondence between place and the human self, in that he articulates a fundamental vulnerability of the human self, located in continuous intersubjective relatedness between man and his surrounding. The human self is dependent on the environment in a constitutive and radical way. Thus, it illuminates how mobility is experienced in an ambivalent way, both as an inner possibility and an inner risk strongly related to the sense of being someone. The global mobility reflected in the diaries corresponds with fundamental affective patterns of the continuously evolving human self: the longing for contiguity and continuity and experiences of order and meaning. Still, to judge by the diaries, the place – as encountered by the individual at a phenomenological, psychological and interpretative level – does not have the capacity to facilitate the fundamental need of the human self, that is, relatedness. Consequently the self deteriorates and this threat is actualized.

Between trust and distrust From a perspective of object relations theory, we can say that place sensitizes us to an archaic and significant relationship between self and other. In a symbolic way, place evokes the memory of the primary object, and the significance of the relatedness to this object for the existence and development of the subjective sense of being a self. The primary object is not just a subconscious memory of significant persons in early development. It originates from the early sensory relatedness between the body and its environment. It is an implicit recognition of the ontogenetic and transformative capacity of intersubjective relatedness in general, and is symbolically enacted throughout life (Bollas 1987). It plays an existential role in human life, helping us to stay in touch with the life of the self and keeping our humanity alive. Some experiences of architecture, place and environment take on such a function in a way that is more obvious to us.

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However, to judge by the diaries, this potential was not fulfilled. On the contrary, mobility and the place did not facilitate a sense of self. The environment was experienced as chaotic, alien and hostile. From a perspective of human symbolic dependency on the primary object, such an experience of place equates to a threat, that is, the loss of life-sustaining relatedness. This corresponds with the general patterns of attitude and behaviour of the project team. On the one hand, we can interpret these patterns in terms of underlying positions. On the other hand, we might further understand this as a form of depression related to the loss of the significant relatedness to the primary object. In the 1940s Melanie Klein (1997) introduced the idea of a distinction between a schizo-paranoid position and an integrative position in human beings. These positions can be described as fundamental self and object relations in early development, and particularly as reactions to the growing awareness of the primary object as an autonomous subject. More recently, Ogden (2004) has defined these positions in a more general manner as modes of experience and relatedness, and indicated their relevance as underlying patterns of thinking, feeling and acting in the normal adult. Lavinia Gomez (1997: 200) describes the two positions in a comprehensive way. On the one hand, we have a need to be in affinity with others and experience similarity, mutuality and contiguity. This is the integrative position. It gives the relationships between self and others a quality of basic trust. Out of this grows the human ability to share, feel empathy and communicate, that is, a basic sense of relatedness. On the other hand, we have a need for individuality. This schizo-paranoid position constitutes experiences of difference, distance and conflict, and is structured by distrust. It is the more selfish part of the human self in search of possible threats and ways to dominate and control the environment. These modes of experience shape human relatedness on a pre-verbal level. They include both affective and cognitive elements. In normal cases they intertwine. The human self relies on the two modes simultaneously, not one or the other. However, when we experience a change that touches on or challenges our fundamental relatedness, these positions are brought to the surface, a phenomenon that is reflected in the diaries. Entering the other place unconsciously corresponds with a movement towards the longed-for transformative relatedness to the other. The integrative position dominates as a fantasy of contiguity, affinity and understanding. However, the strong experience of otherness equates the loss of this inner contiguity to the other. As the human self is intimately dependent on the other, losing the other is experienced as losing parts of the self. In the diaries, this fear of losing parts of oneself is often reflected as feelings such as suspicion towards local people, a common suspicion that others are trying to cheat or deprive one of something. The threat of the disintegrated self, falling apart, is also reflected in the perception that the environment is chaotic and lacks order. Fundamental threats like these activate an aggressive need to defend the self. The schizo-paranoid mode of experience dominates and is expressed as a strong tendency towards suspicion, conflicts and emotional indifference. This is a familiar phenomenon. Displaced people are known to experience psychological effects. Their displacement erodes traditional psychological support systems.

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Thus, feelings of insecurity, fear and loss of identity might be felt by the displaced, may be manifested in various forms of violence (Kakar 1995). The tendency to aggressively destroy or ruin important relationships, both personal and professional, through a negative or abusive attitude and through concrete negative behaviour, might be seen as a parallel to symptoms of depression. Hugo Bleichmar states that in such cases, depression is ‘the result of a failure in the creation of conditions that allow for the realisation of wishes that are central to the person’ (1996: 941). For the diarists, the condition that is lacking is the contiguity to place, in which the relatedness to the primary object is symbolically sought. This is reflected in the way the project team relates to local people. They stress the lack of understanding and communication and describe the local people in a stereotypical and derogative manner and deprive the interaction of mutuality and affinity. Further, their experience of the place as meaningless also corresponds to this fundamental attitude, as do general feelings of indifference. Together, these feelings and experiences reveal a sense of lacking relatedness between the place and the self. Tuan (2003: 158) points out that the nomads of modern society also share a common human attachment to the homeland. They have a craving for a permanent place to think about as home, but they adapt to various circumstances out of necessity. For example, the project members might find a sense of home among co-workers or in particular places they start to visit regularly. The project team serves as a substitute for home, and this subculture gains a shared spatial structure through regular movements between a hotel or apartments, the work site, a bar along the road and a sauna. This subculture tends to highly value the homeland and retains a strong sense of nationality. In the long run, this is not just a temporary substitute for something more real and more authentic. As pointed out earlier, members of the project team no longer feel comfortable in their home country. When they visit their families and their home, ‘they find themselves sitting alone on the sofa, when everybody else is at work or at school’. They also experience difficulties in sharing their exotic experiences of faraway places with friends, who have only been to regular holiday resorts abroad. Thus, they start longing for the next project, and in the long run they are stuck in a lifestyle. There are other reasons for these experiences of being alone and not being understood at home, and of not feeling a part of the home. This is not only about replacing attachments, but about the difficulty of creating an attachment to the local culture and exchanging attachment with the homeland for attachment to a subculture. Behind these transformations is the general experience of a deteriorating relatedness between place and self. The ability of the self to relate to other has deteriorated, which affects all relationships. It also weakens the attachment to the homeland. It is not only the relationship between the self and a specific culture that is deteriorating, but the inner relatedness fundamental to human being. Thus, what is left is only the place of conformity and grey corridors of international mobility as an image of an empty and terrified self. Authenticity is replaced with superficiality.

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Place and moral orientation How should we conceive of the two modes of experience that have been described here as a consequence of international mobility? They seem to form underlying patterns of acting, thinking and feeling, based on either trust or distrust, but is it possible to understand them in terms of morality and worldviews?4 If yes, place is not only a constituent of the human self, but also a key dimension of moral orientation and worldview. Tage Kurtén (1997) has criticized our understanding of worldview and pointed out that the emphasis on the theoretical and conscious elements is so strong that some deeper, and more central, attitudinal elements tend to be ignored. This, he writes, gives the false impression that we are able to choose our worldview. What is neglected is that parts of our worldviews are not rational in that they are not conscious choices. Instead, Kurtén uses the term ‘profound orientation’ to direct our attention behind the facade of the rational choice. He writes: ‘A dimension of basic trust seems to provide us with a clue to how people, on a deeper level, cope with their lives … There seems to be a connection between the way in which basic trust is anchored and the levels on which a person finds important values in his or her life’ (1997: 167). Following Kurtén in this argument, we find that the interrelatedness of self and place and its connection to inner modes of experience such as positions of trust and distrust are, to some degree constitutive for worldviews. The existential dimension of international workrelated mobility affects worldview from the inside. In this case we are of course not looking at the rational opinion people have of their worldviews, but on the attitudes and the behaviour expressed in everyday life, and how they might be understood as profound and dynamic orientations. A similar argument can be made concerning morality. Before experiencing a moral dilemma or the moral aspect of an action, the world has appeared to the subject as moral in some sense.5 As a result of our modern worldview, we have misinterpreted ethics and morals as rational constructs and have neglected how a fundamental and ambivalent relatedness makes us moral. Zygmunt Baumann (2002) argues that our first sense of being a self is through relatedness and is therefore also deeply rooted in trust. We ourselves are thus continuously constituted in our morality. Morality is more or less the recognition of our vulnerability in our dependence on others and vice versa. This sense of relatedness is not the same as acting according to certain norms or values. Underneath articulated norms and values dwells a moral subject constituted by its ability to experience relatedness. When the diarists recognize both that ‘regular rules do not apply in this place’ and that the place deprives them of their sense of responsibility, these perceptions can be understood as a deteriorating sense of being a moral subject. One diarist quoted a senior project manager: ‘Everything is allowed in love and war, and in building power plants.’ The dissolution of acquired moral norms and standards is intimately related to the correspondence between inner detachment and experience of the place. Various forms of attachment to place influence worldview and morality. Robert Sack (2001) points out an intrinsic relationship between place, reality, and morality. He argues that

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some places increase and enrich reality, while others may diminish our awareness of reality. In view of the arguments made in this essay, it is intriguing that Sack considers lack of awareness of reality as both a cause and a consequence of evil (ibid.: 235). A moral place is thus a place that helps us see the real, he argues. In this analysis we can discern a similar pattern. Experience of reality is affected by the construction of place as unreal at both a sociocultural level and a subjective level. On a sociocultural level, stereotypical ‘glasses’ distort the experience of place. On a subjective level, inner unconscious fantasy distorts the experience. As a consequence of this, the aspect of morality is erased from the landscape at an interpersonal level. From this follows an important question of general concern. Are the places that are constructed in a process of time–space intensification immoral places? The difficulty of dwelling in reality need not be typical of this kind of international mobility only. Tim Oakes highlights a somewhat similar problem when he reflects on the need for reflexivity in the encounter between tourists and place: ‘The reflexive subject, in other words, is a product of encounter, but more precisely of an effort to derive meaning and a sense of place from that encounter’ (2005: 53). In this case the subjectivity of the other is distorted and negated in a subtler manner. The other is objectified in a process constructed by the need to consume the exotic and the attractive. The integrative mode of experience is relied on in a one-sided manner. Thus, another kind of global mobility entails another kind of inner transformation that is relevant to morality and worldview. Generally, place and mobility evoke a general human dilemma of ambiguity due to their capacity to sensitize the self: On the one hand, we need to maintain a sense of the internal equilibrium between mental forces. … On the other, we need to be integrated into the social world, in which we must respect the separateness [subjectivity] of other minds, while being able to build flexible bridges across that separateness, to create close emotional and working relationships. (Fonagy et al. 2004: 19ff.) This dilemma is manifest in the imbalance between different modes of experience, and the imbalance between trust and distrust that results from international workrelated mobility. The imbalance is translated into an escape from place and the self, an escape from the real, and finally an escape from moral subjectivity in interpersonal relatedness.

Some final remarks The radical character of global mobility in industrial projects suggests the need for a further exploration of the existential dimension of place and mobility. The existential dimension is strongly related to other dimensions of mobility: the physical– geographical dimension, the sensory–emotional dimension and the sociocultural

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dimension. In addition to these, I have described a deep-seated structure of symbolic correspondence between place and the human self. This is of relevance for the understanding of how mobility affects patterns of acting, thinking and feeling. This existential dimension is, of course, scientifically evasive, relying heavily on both qualitative analyses and theoretical reflections. From a perspective of global mobility in industrial projects, intensification of time and place is a troublesome phenomenon, especially at a level of human subjectivity. There are radical psychological effects from global work-related mobility in international project cooperation. Attachment to place is a vital part of human existence, but it seems to be difficult to achieve or sustain under these circumstances. A high level of international mobility is typically followed by a loss of attachment to place. This corresponds with losing a sense of self and a sense of the real. Thus, it constitutes a threat to the human self, which is consequently acted on and defended against. Inner affective and cognitive structures of distrust and conflict are easily provoked, especially if they are reinforced at a sociocultural level. This suggests that the time–space intensification in project cooperation takes on an amoral character at a more general level. There is dissolution of the moral subject, owing to both the inner loss of self– other relatedness and the reactions this evokes in the self. In this particular context, time–space intensification results in the creation of an amoral place. The continuous mobility associated with international project cooperation that has been analysed in this essay is to some extent characteristic of modern day globalization. Globalization entails an increase in both mobility and international project networks. Therefore, it seems important to be attentive to more existential dimensions of mobility in modern societies. On the one hand, this entails an acknowledgement of problems that arise from rootlessness and a deteriorating sense of being a self. These might be more evident in the future, both on an individual and on a societal level. On the other hand, we also need to be attentive to new and alternative forms of attachment between place and the self that become manifest through various forms of mobility. The intimate interaction between place and the self also constitutes a creative potential for the human self. As Steve Pile writes in his study on the unconscious depths of the city, ‘there are always possibilities for dreaming the real city anew’ (2005: 182). The reality of a place is also embedded in the complex dynamics of sociocultural construction and imagination. Tore Sager (this volume, Ch. 10) sheds light on the problematic link between mobility and freedom. Mobility is easily associated with freedom, but Sager stresses that freedom of movement also implies the right not to move. This raises a question: does mobility associated with globalization processes really represent such a freedom? Are the modern global vagabonds mobile in this sense, or are they objectified and moved around by the strong functionality inherent in the globalization process? The complexity of this question is obvious in that it is possible to answer it in several ways. The vagabonds of global economic networks are strong symbols of neoliberal free agency. However, these modern-day wanderers seem to be forced to move, trapped in repetition at an inner and subjective level. There is thus an underlying tension between global work-related mobility and freedom of mobility. Furthermore, freedom

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in terms of the capacity to move or not move is also dependent on a sense of the real. The concept of freedom of mobility loses its relevance if the landscape that is experienced is deprived of its fundamental aspect of reality and the other. Thus, freedom of mobility is dependent on relatedness. This is another underlying tension. Finally, the problems of human relatedness linked to time–space intensification and forms of mobility might be of relevance to the global discussion of ecologically sustainable development. Melin (this volume, Ch. 4) puts forward the idea that a reconstructed image of religious pilgrimage, based on virtue ethics, could function as a metaphor for ecologically and ethically sustainable mobility. From a perspective of an existential dimension of mobility I suggest that this argument can be further developed. Increasing mobility is not only a threat to a sustainable development because of its ecological effects (pollution, global warming); it is also a threat to the modern moral subject. Different forms of mobility constitute different selves. Time–space intensification caused by increased mobility in the globalization process impairs attachment to the environment and the inner subjectivity on behalf of both self and other. Does this mean that the moral subject, capable of adjusting to the environment and acting in a responsible way with regard to the environment, will disappear? An additional important question is whether or not the symptomatic violence directed towards important interpersonal relations is also directed towards the environment. From a perspective of object relations theory, both are significant targets of human object-seeking. Thus, both are targets of subconscious aggression caused by a sense of lost relatedness. Time–space intensification might not construct an amoral place; it might also transform this place into a target for human despair and destruction.

Notes 1. For a discussion of industrial projects see Gustafsson and Wikström (2004); Nynäs (2004). 2. See also Bergmann’s use of human ecology in his discussion of how a ‘spiritual perspective retains a significance for our understanding of secular architecture’ (2005: 46, 55). 3. See Berry (1990) for a discussion of different aspects of acculturation such as assimilation and separatism. 4. Martin Buber’s well-known distinction between I–Thou and I–It relationships might also shed light on these positions. Illman (2004) has showed how Buber’s distinction offers a comprehensive way to grasp the interpretative dynamic of intercultural encounters. 5. Raimond Gaita led me to observe this fact in a lecture he held at Åbo Akademi University, Finland, 13 October 2003.

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8 Mobility: discourses from the non-Western immigrant groups in Norway Tanu Priya Uteng

Introduction Technological and social developments are not mutually exclusive forces. Mobility, one of these forces, exists in a perpetual state of symbiosis between technology and society. Although this concept can be found in various disciplines, including civil engineering, transport planning, geography and social and development theory, mobility still remains marginalized in its visualization as a convergent and divergent resource and a product that crosscuts these disciplines. This calls for a more coherent and comprehensive conceptualization of the idea. The following essay analyses mobility in the context of transport planning but ventures beyond its restrictive borders and attempts to extend the discourse surrounding this theme. As Peter Jones (1987: 45) notes, the proposition that travel-related mobility problems need to be studied in the broader context parallels a similar concern voiced in many other subject areas on the need to broaden the context in which topics are examined. Fritjof Capra (1982) outlines similar developments in the fields of physics, medicine and economics, as researchers in these areas also get to grips with the notion of society and life as much more interconnected phenomena than was appreciated within the Newtonian–Cartesian mode of thought (as quoted in Jones 1987: 45). An interesting expression of the way transport and physical mobility is a doxa of social theory is Anthony Giddens’s analysis of modernity (1991). The phenomena he addresses, such as the change of meaning of time and space, the dialectic of disembedding and re-embedding and the circularity of the universal and local, clearly depend on the sociotechnological system of mobility. But a coherent understanding of this system, beyond a mere abstraction, is missing. As an abstract idea, mobility has been explored in various disciplines and, accordingly, assigned different meanings. Importantly, the theme that links these various meanings has been of movement, a

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modern and progressive movement. In terms of transport, we see the emergence of a new understanding between mobility and freedom. Although engineers, industrialists and the leading actors on the market today still advertise mobility as a concept composed of just two aspects – speed and overcoming distance – the understanding of mobility has crossed the narrow confines of speed and distance and entered the wider realm of discussion on identity formation, freedom and rights. In an effort to recapitulate this evolvement, Tore Sager notes: The links between mobility, freedom and rights have long been recognized and are well established. The first paragraph of Article 13 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 declares that ‘everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state’. The idea of mobility as a right is consistently found in important policy documents, such as the policy guidelines of the EU’s White Paper on European transport policy, which state: ‘Personal mobility, which increased from 17 km a day in 1970 to 35 km in 1998, is now more or less seen as an acquired right’ (European Commission 2001: 11). The connection between freedom and mobility is easily seen, as high mobility implies many opportunities to travel, which in turn is a prerequisite for self-decision regarding what activities to participate in. (Sager, this volume, Ch. 10, 243–4) Similarly, in the issue of immigrants and their mobility, discontent expressed during the French riots of October 2005 have sent out strong warning signals to the entire European continent.1 Not to be discarded as a singular ‘French phenomenon’, the French riots should be taken as a more generic statement of the discontent felt by immigrants. A multicultural and multi-ethnic society brings with it myriad issues that must be taken seriously and urgently in the interest of host countries. Riva Kastoryano (Fontanella 2005), an expert on identity, ethnicity and immigration, notes that the main problem in the French setting was the social and spatial immobility that existed in the ‘ghetto’ areas of France. The French riots offer valuable lessons to be learned for remodelling the precepts of the role of mobility in a multiethnic society. Fiona Raje et al. (2004) pioneered a structured approach to address the issue of ethnicity and mobility disadvantage in the United Kingdom, where despite a raft of research on ethnicity, they note that ‘the advent of multi-cultural society has not been accompanied by any refinement of the analysis of individual entitlement to movement’ (ibid.: 36). This essay features one such learning process based on analysing the patterns of social and spatial (im)mobility of the non-Western immigrant groups in Norway. Mobility is no longer a value-free neutral fact. The following sections analyse the theoretical evolution of this concept and the attempts to streamline it as a phenomenon that is more complex than a mere function of ‘movement’ and ‘connectivity’.

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Mobilizing mobility Discourses on the concept of mobility have traditionally described it as physical movement (operating in the domains of geography, urban planning and transport) on one hand and a change in social status on the other (a sociological construct). Peter Mayer (2005) contends that: from the 80s, this barrier started to melt away with numerous attempts from both sides to integrate approaches and to mutually get involved into scientific discourse. This involved addressing space, place and locality as a cultural and social category (see Gregory and Urry, 1985; Featherstone, 1990; Lash and Urry, 1994; Urry, 2000; Latour, 1999, Bonß and Kesselring, 2001 and 2004). (2005: 10) He further sketches the cohesive nature of social and spatial mobility, contending that a change in geographical/spatial mobility patterns affects the individual space of options and action, thus producing varying terrains of social mobility. On a similar note, Celeste Langan describes the theme of mobility as a desired end, an end that is not only a function of personal achievement but a product of several constituent and affecting parameters: Rousseau long ago declared in The Social Contract that the cripple who wants to run and the able-bodied man who doesn’t will both remain where they are. But by focusing on internal resources and intentions, Rousseau forgot to mention all those whose mobility is affected by external constraints. To consider those constraints is to notice how the built environment – social practices and material infrastructures – can create mobility-disabilities that diminish the difference between the ‘cripple’ and the ambulatory person who may well wish to move. (2001: 459) Concurring with the importance of context in production of mobility, Tim Cresswell (2001: 20) espouses mobility as a movement that is socially produced, is variable across space and time, and has visible effects on people, places and things, and the relationships between them. Mobility, unlike movement, is therefore a contextualized phenomenon. Jones (1987: 34) puts forward the three components ‘individual action’, ‘potential’ and ‘freedom of action’ to express mobility. In short, they are interpreted as follows: • Individual action: in the form of observed movement or travel; • Potential action: in terms of journeys that people would like to make, but are unable to because of limitations in the transport system and/or their own commitments restricting them in time and space, or financial restraints; and • Freedom of action: which may never manifest in action, but gives the individual options from which to select and the knowledge that he or she could do something.

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James Dunn defines mobility as ‘the potential for movement’, in contrast to the ‘revealed mobility’, which is the actual number of kilometres travelled, or ‘access’, which tells us about the ability to get from one place to another (1998: 143). Andreas Knie (1997) introduces a related understanding of the concept, and emphasizes that mobility is about the construction of possibilities for movement, rather than actual traffic. Knut Sørensen (1999) notes that the analysis of mobility is basically about the performance, real as well as symbolic, of the provision of physical movement in society. Vincent Kaufmann (2002: 37) proposes to replace the term ‘mobility’ with a new conceptual framework spawned around the word ‘motility’, which encompasses a focus on interactions, structures and contexts. He defines motility as a way in which an individual appropriates what is possible in the domain of mobility and puts this potential to use for his or her activities. In the following points Kaufmann postulates the three determining factors shaping the mobility levels and patterns of the individual: • Access to mobility-scapes (representing transport and communication infrastructure as potential opportunities) including both the availability and the usability (such as the price level, schedule, etc.) of these. • Competence referring to the ‘skills and abilities’ necessary to use the accessible mobility scapes. • Appropriation, as a third factor, involving all behavioural components, such as the need and willingness to make use of the scapes, to become mobile. Kaufmann also espouses the idea of mobility as a restricted good. These opportunities emerge as a function of market relations; for example, being related to and being limited by geographical locations (the vicinity of transportation scapes and access points such as motorways, hub airports and railways). Peter Nijkamp et al. (1990: 22– 4) argue that an analysis of mobility and the underlying causes for its demand should be undertaken on a broad scale in the context of the following four themes: • Socioeconomic context of analysis, which focuses attention on the influences of exogenous socioeconomic conditions on spatial patterns of interaction; • Technological context of analysis, which deals with the implications of changes in the technological environment on the spatial behaviour of individuals or groups in our society; • Behavioural analysis, which focuses attention on motives, constraints and uncertainties facing individuals, households and groups when taking decisions regarding transport, communication and mobility; and • Policy analysis, which concerns the evaluation of actions, usually the application of policy instruments or measures of decision-making agencies regarding transport. Sørensen (1999) summarizes these thoughts under the term ‘mobility regimes’ to highlight the historical and cultural basis of mobility. A mobility regime results

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from a number of factors, some of which consist of the physical shaping of cities and landscapes, the available transport systems, the relationship between mobility and economic, social and cultural activities and the meaning attributed to mobility. Mayer reinstates the questions of interplay of social and spatial mobility with regard to deprivation (in spatial mobility): ‘Those who for some reason – should this be mental, social, geographical or economic – do not have access to all kinds of latest-standard mobilities will only have limited choice of options and therefore a disadvantageous position both on consumer and labour markets’ (2005: 13). These reflections from theoretical insights suggest that mobility cannot be analysed in a purely instrumental, objectivist mode and that it remains a subjective dimension differing with the distribution pattern of the constituent resources. A differential accessibility to these resources maps out different mobility regimes distinguishable at the levels of people, places and processes. Mobility, thus, emerges as an enabling characteristic, a sought after rather than given ‘good/commodity’. The next section reinforces these ideas by highlighting the heterogeneous distribution of mobility potentials in a society.

The social content of mobility It is widely assumed that ‘the convergent effects of globalization and cross-border organizational learning have rapidly outpaced the divergent effects of cultures, national institutions and social systems’ (Mueller 1994, as quoted in Yeung 1998: 292). Products of unrestricted mobility and the markers of postmodern times, time–space compression and social fluidification, have come to be accepted as given characteristics of the present times. Yet both these concepts remain grossly under-examined in terms of their social distribution. Kaufmann, in an analysis of social fluidification, notes that: the crux of the debate over social fluidification is whether or not the compression of time-space goes hand in hand with a decrease in certain social constraints that discourage action. It is thus a question of analyzing who has access to which relevant technology and the degree of freedom afforded by the usage of this technology. (Kaufmann 2002: 14, emphasis added) The very idea of fluidification supposes that social and territorial structures take the backseat to a context that is capable of accommodating the most diverse aspirations (ibid.: 87). But is that the truth? Doreen Massey, in a critique of David Harvey’s all-encompassing notion of time–space compression, remarks that ‘different social groups have distinct relationships to this anyway-differentiated mobility; some are more in charge of it than others; some initiate flows and movement, others don’t; some are more on the receiving end of it than others; some are effectively imprisoned by it’ (1993: 61). Cresswell succinctly captures this point of view:

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The question of how mobilities get produced – both materially and in terms of ‘ideas’ of mobility – means asking: who moves? How do they move? How do particular forms of mobility become meaningful? What other movements are enabled or constrained in the process? Who benefits from this movement? Questions such as these should get us beyond either an ignorance of mobility on the one hand or sweeping generalizations on the other. (2001: 25) In the milieu of dissecting mobility, past research has demonstrated that access to mobility entails processes that are essentially highly differentiated along the lines of structural differences in society, related to gender, class, race, caste and so on. Cresswell comments on the issue in his note on the production of mobilities: Janet Wolff (1993: 253) has noted how discourses of mobility tend to ignore gendering of motion. She insists that the actual practices of mobility have tended to exclude women and that thus exclusion is carried over into theoretical travel: ‘… the problem with terms like “nomad”, “maps” and “travel” is that they are not usually located and hence (and purposely) they ungrounded and unbounded movement – since the whole point is to resist selves/viewers/ subjects. But the consequent suggestion of free and equal mobility is itself a deception, since we don’t all have the same access to the road’. It is for this reason that an analysis of the production of mobility becomes both useful and necessary. (2001: 19) A similar line of research under the aegis of the now-disbanded Social Exclusion Unit in the United Kingdom was promoted under the theme ‘transport and social exclusion’.2 Three interpretations of ‘social exclusion’ are as follows (Lyons 2003a: 340): 1. ‘Experiencing public service failure’ – this recognizes that while it is the individual or community that suffers the consequences of social exclusion, it is the system or societal structure that has given rise to exclusion. 2. ‘The discrepancy between what you can do and what you want to do’ – this is a helpful interpretation that reflects the perspective of the individual concerned and suggests the beginnings of a means to measure in absolute and relative terms the extent of exclusion experienced. 3. ‘A spectrum of deprivation’ – this interpretation aims to underscore that social exclusion is not something that has a binary state (i.e. an individual A is excluded or included) but rather that everyone in society can be found on a multidimensional scale of exclusion or deprivation. Social policy and benchmarking then determine the point on that scale beyond which the level of deprivation is considered unacceptable. Margaret Grieco (2003) notes that despite promises made, transport and social exclusion research remains relatively weak in its appreciation of processes and equally

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weak in its determination of what should be measured. Nonetheless, certain key points can be gleaned from this research agenda to enlarge the discussion on differential mobility, with reference to issues such as categorization of excluded groups, public transport and exclusion, the time–space interplay and its differential structure, and place–social category–person-based measures. The theme of ‘transport and social exclusion’ also introduces the notion of mobility as a part of citizen entitlement. ‘Demand responsive transport systems developed on an intelligent technology footing can ensure that accessibility and mobility constraints to essential services are removed or minimised in line with identified benchmark levels of citizen entitlement’ (Grieco 2003). As a critique of this approach, we may say that it places overt stress on physical accessibility. The four accessibility items analysed under this approach are: access to a food store, access to primary health care, access to a primary school and access to a post office. These accessibility criteria are clearly restrictive as a measure of social deprivation or social exclusion. Although acceptable as a departure point, there exists the need to develop a better sense of the comprehension of physical accessibility as a subset of mobility. Since accessibility comes before mobility in a material hierarchy, it is here that we must delve into the ‘potential aspect’ of mobility to comment on physical accessibility when accessibility is blocked. Clarifying this line of distinction, Jonathan Levine and Yaakov Garb note that: Mobility is defined … as ease of movement; accessibility is defined as ease of reaching destinations. The concepts are related, but readily distinguishable. Where destinations are close by, great accessibility can be afforded even if mobility is constrained; where destinations are remote, mobility may be high without concomitant high-level accessibility. (2002: 179) The next section touches on the ethical content of mobility and the necessity of its acceptance as an important theme while discussing a modern society.

The ethical content of mobility The ethical content of mobility derives its root from its emergence as an essential parameter of modernity, its fragmented distribution, its acceptance as a need and its connotations with the idea and ideal of freedom. Since this essay is based on the nonWestern immigrants in Norway, it also roots mobility in the framework of ethics and urges the establishment of this framework to reflect on the present policy for refugees and asylum seekers. Ethical enquiry, as Aristotle insists, must be what we might call ‘value-relative’.3 That is, these are not ‘pure’ enquiries conducted in a void; they are questions about living people asked by communities of humans who are actually engaged in living and valuing. What will count as an appropriate, and even a true, outcome of such enquiry is constrained, and appropriately constrained, by what humans antecedently value and need (Nussbaum & Sen 1987).

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Giddens (1991) notes that class divisions and other fundamental lines of inequality, such as those connected with gender or ethnicity, can be partly defined in terms of differential access to forms of self-actualization and empowerment. Modernity, one should not forget, produces difference, exclusion and marginalization. Rephrasing his words to reflect the discussion on mobility in the previous sections, the emergence of a strong semblance between modernity and mobility is evident, where one end of the spectrum consists of terms such as ‘self-actualization’ and ‘empowerment’ and the other end is defined by difference, exclusion and marginalization. Giddens further notes that the reflexivity of modernity has to be distinguished from the reflexive monitoring of action intrinsic to all human activity. Modernity’s reflexivity refers to the susceptibility of most aspects of social activity, and material relation with nature, to chronic revision in the light of new information or knowledge. In the research agenda on mobility, reflexivity has primarily been centred on the issue of material (transport) relation with nature under the theme of sustainable mobility and theology, stressing the need to incorporate new technologies for an environmentally friendly transport system. Measures such as new fuels for vehicles, better exhaust emission controls, increasing fuel taxes and tightening regulations on emissions from vehicles, limiting urban sprawl, locating activities near public transport facilities, limiting carparking at work, limiting road investments, providing better facilities for cyclists and pedestrians, introducing urban tolls with the clear aim of reducing the amount of traffic in the city, and developing and promoting public transport systems are some of the recommendations proposed both by theologians and transport planners (Herrens 1989; OECD 1995; Melin, this volume, Ch. 4).4 ‘Energy-saving’ and ‘less pollution’ have been the essence of these standpoints. Questions regarding the false promises of independence and freedom that are associated with motorized mobility have also been raised but left relatively unexplored (Melin, this volume, Ch. 4; Sager 2005). This necessitates reverting back to a critical analysis of these ethical considerations since they do not operate in a void. Distribution of mobility opportunities is highly skewed along the lines of social divisions (which an attempt has been made to explore under the theme of social exclusion in transport, mainly in the UK). Thus, on ethical grounds, we may claim to raise the mobility of a certain underprivileged group before embarking on restrictive mobility patterns. In the following sections this issue is discussed in light of the two other points of reflexivity raised by Giddens: susceptibility of most aspects of social activity, and chronic revision in the light of new information or knowledge.

A framework of analysis If mobility and power are intertwined (Bauman 1992), then it is imperative to generate a better understanding of the powers that are created by mobility. What resources are being produced due to mobility and denied due to an absence of it? With regard to power, the cross-cutting affiliations produced by differential access to power and

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differential location due to production forces consequently generate a complex multifaceted stratification system in any society. Sen’s capability approach (Sen 1980, 1992, 1993, 1999) provides valuable insights to address this situation. As an enabling principle, this approach refuses to see people primarily as patients, who can be helped by giving them a handout or a cure that they can take or leave, but rather sees them as agents who can and should be given the power and the necessary conditions to take their lives in their own hands. For example, in the case of immigrants, discrimination is one of those factors influencing conversion of not only income but other commodities as well. More generally, group-dependent constraints, such as prejudices, social norms, habits and traditions, can affect the conversion of the characteristics of the commodities into capabilities. The capability approach acknowledges the importance of societal structures that impact differently on different groups, which might have repercussions on the ability to procure a job, participate in the economic and social arena and perform vital functions in the society that a person values, thus expanding the real freedoms of a people. Since mobility has been linked to freedom, it necessitates an appreciation of the difference between negative and positive freedom. Freedom in ‘positive terms’ concentrates on what a person can choose to do or achieve, rather than on the absence of any particular type of restraint that prevents him or her from doing one thing or other. In contrast, the ‘negative’ view of freedom focuses precisely on the absence of a class of restraints that one person may exercise over another, or the state may exercise over individuals. In most of the analyses including discussions on mobility, it is the negative perspective of freedom that tends to be the dominant one. Sen further argues that a person’s capability set, comprising all the capabilities of a person, represents her freedom (positive) to achieve wellbeing, and that this is the dimension that should form the informational basis for assessments of inequality, poverty, justice and development. However, as a person’s capabilities are her real and genuine opportunities to do what she wants to do and be the person she wants to be, these capabilities obviously are difficult to observe. Instead, what we can observe are those capabilities that she has chosen to act on, the capabilities that she has chosen to realize. These realized capabilities are called her ‘achieved functionings’: the doings and beings that a person has chosen to realize by exercising a positive freedom. In the following analysis, one of these realized capabilities, mobility, will be critically examined as an influencing factor for the expansion of basic freedom of the non-Western immigrants in Norway.

Method This essay attempts to further the discussion on mobility in the three categories of people, place and processes, through the case study of a particular subset of the population, namely the non-Western immigrants in Norway (i.e. those that come from Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe). The key findings are derived from a questionnaire survey of 125 immigrants distributed among the large, medium and

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small urban settings of Oslo,5 Trondheim6 and Finnsnes,7 respectively. The findings presented in this paper are a representative picture of the three urban settings in a Scandinavian context. This study should ideally be seen as a pilot study, as it is the first of its kind to be undertaken in Norwegian transport research. The mobility patterns of non-Western immigrants are in most cases differentiated from those of Norwegians, presumably owing to cultural, political or social factors. Essentially, it would be wrong to assume that many of the issues raised by the immigrant groups are unique to them, and portray them as such, and to assume that no overlaps exist with the native Norwegians who might be suffering from similar exclusionary mechanisms. However, the issue of ‘transport and social exclusion’ and its linkage with mobility have still not been taken up in the Norwegian transport planning research context. Consequently owing to lack of similar research, this study was restricted from drawing a comparative assessment with other excluded groups in Norway. The analysis presented here comprises a mix of quantitative and qualitative assessment of factors affecting the mobility regime of the immigrant groups. The findings delve into if and how mobility deprivation is leading to a limited capability set for the immigrant group, and how this capability set can be strengthened through effective policy intervention for special groups such as refugees and asylum seekers. Some of the statistical indicators identified can be classified into the following categories: transport resources, employment, internal mobility (travelling within Norway), economic situation and housing. These indicators (which can also be interpreted as commodities under the capability approach) have been used to substantiate the qualitative analysis under the categories of transport resources, geographic mobility and discrimination in the mobility regime. These categories, however vaguely, can be treated as a function contributing to the set of being well-mobilized. The identified indicators, summarized in Table 1, constitute a heterogeneous mix composed of both subjective (self-assessed) and objective measurements. Some are very indirect indexes of the relevant functioning; others are direct measures of mobility. However, these indicators cover many aspects of a person’s mobility, and should allow us to conduct meaningful exercises in the functioning space of mobility.

Immigration in Norway The Norwegian authorities halted immigration to Norway in 1976, owing to the large number of working immigrants entering the country’s labour market; since that time Norway has only granted residence to refugees and asylum seekers8 with permission to stay on humanitarian grounds and for family reunions for these groups. According to Statistics Norway (2005), there were 301,000 first-generation immigrants in Norway and 64,000 persons born in Norway to two foreign-born parents at the beginning of 2005. The immigrants counted for 8 per cent of the Norwegian population, and come from approximately 200 different countries. The immigrant population increased by 4.9 per cent or by 17,000 persons in 2004. Interestingly, three in

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Table 1. Components of deprivation in the arena of mobility. Component of being mobile

Type of indicator

Condition of deprivation

Binary (yes/no)

Absence

Transport resources Car driving licence Motor cycle licence

Binary (yes/no)

Absence

Public transport carda

Binary (yes/no)

Absence

Possession of car

Binary (yes/no)

Absence

Preference for any other way of travelling to work

Categorical (1 to 3)

1 (yes)

Inadequate transport provision in daily life


1(yes), 2 (yes, to some degree)

Satisfaction level from public transport system


1 (very low), 2 (low)

Binary (yes/no)

Presence

Existence of friends/relatives from home country in Norway

Binary (yes/no)

Absence

Any trip taken in the last one year

Binary (yes/no)

Absence

Wish to undertake more long-distance travel within Norway

Binary (yes/no)

Presence

Any trip taken in the last one year

Binary (yes/no)

Absence

Wish to undertake more trips to home country

Binary (yes/no)

Presence

Personal income (annual income before tax reduction)b


1 (under NOK 100,000)

Household income (annual income before tax reduction)c


1 (under NOK 100,000), 2 (NOK 100–200,000)


1 (very important reason), 2 (important reason)

Employment Better job access with more transport accessibility Internal mobility (travelling within Norway)

International mobility

Economic situation

Housing (for people who have moved) If ‘being close to the public transport system’ was a reason to change house

(a) It should be noted here that the absence of a public transport card can create a condition of deprivation for people without a car or access to car. (b) Average personal income in 2003 (after tax deduction): NOK 176,400 (source: Statistics Norway 2005). (c) Average household income in 2003 (after tax deduction): NOK 345,100 (source: Statistics Norway 2005).

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four immigrants are of non-Western origin; 265,000 or 72 per cent of the immigrant population had non-Western origins, accounting for 5.7 per cent of the Norwegian population. This growth is significant, since 25 years ago only 31 per cent of the immigrant population were of non-Western origin. At the beginning of 2005, 32 per cent of the first-generation immigrants have lived less than five years in Norway, while 16 per cent have lived in Norway 25 years or longer. With an influx of refugees and asylum seekers, the percentage of the population that has lived in Norway for less than five years is on rise. A high proportion of Iraqis, Somalis and Afghans have lived less than five years in Norway: 57, 55 and 84 per cent respectively. Statistics Norway (2005) further notes that 30 municipalities had a higher proportion of immigrants than the country’s average of 7.9 per cent. Most of these municipalities are located in the area around Oslo, with Oslo housing the highest proportion of immigrants (22 per cent), followed by the neighbouring municipalities of Drammen (17 per cent), Lørenskog (14 per cent), Askim, Skedsmo and Båtsfjord (all 12 per cent). A further breakdown of this figure reveals that Oslo and the surrounding municipalities accommodate 53 per cent of the non-Western immigrants in Norway (Oslo has 18 per cent, followed by Drammen at 14 per cent, Lørenskog at 11 per cent and Askim and Skedsmo, both at 10 per cent). With respect to the principles governing Norwegian immigration policies, the establishment and implementation of a relatively strict immigration regime in Norway has taken place within a vocabulary of equality, humanity, social justice and decency (Hagelund 2003). Integration, which normally means that immigrants and refugees become functional members of the majority society without losing their cultural or ethnic identity, is another vital operating principle of the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI), which is the governing body in matters concerning immigrants, including refugees and asylum seekers. Considerations of the welfare state’s capacity to deal with immigrants, and concerns about the emergence of new differences in Norway, have been pivotal in the arguments surrounding the halting of immigration and the subsequent regulatory policies enforcing a ‘restricted and controlled’ immigration to Norway (ibid.). In the political arena, it has been widely recognized that cultural pluralization in liberal democratic states – reinforced by immigration – has had major consequences for the political agenda in recent years. New types of tensions have arisen: new forms of social and cultural differentiation along with new patterns of inequality. The diversity also reshapes the frame of reference for traditional policy instruments employed by modern welfare states: new issues arise that are linked to rights, legitimacy and policy measures of both a general and targeted nature (Brochmann 2003). Since non-Western immigrants are a small minority in Norway, it is no wonder that, as is the case in any other democracy, Norway is facing the dilemma of how to treat minorities. From this point of view, the following sections analyse the characteristics of mobility systems, which may or may not have built-in mechanisms that support minorities in Norway. The interplay of theoretical formulations on mobility and the validity for it to be categorized as ‘capability’ are also explored in these sections.

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Mobility’s repercussions for non-Western immigrants The issue of auto-mobility Sen’s core argument is that goods/commodities are important not in themselves, but in what their characteristics enable people to do (and to be), and the capabilities that a person can generate from these goods and services. Interpreting transport resources in Sen’s terms will allow an examination of the ways in which goods/commodities such as cars and public transport generate capabilities for non-Western immigrants. Research on the interconnectedness of the automobile/car and society highlights that the Western world has evolved primarily as an automobile-dependent society where an automobile/car acts as a synonym for being mobile and possessing freedom. The domestication of the motor car, its cultural, economic and political appropriation has affected so many parts of modern life that mobility has become an integral dimension of modernity (Sørensen & Sørgaard 1994). Extending this theme to both car and public transport, Randi Hjorthol (2002: 148) notes that the car and public transport have a use value and, at the same time, are carriers of social meanings, cultural impacts and symbolic values. Consequently, the car and public transport function as more than just means of transport, chosen as a result of rational consideration. Hjorthol voices a common opinion in stating that the car is a personal, concrete and suitable symbol of modernity (ibid.: 146). In my analysis of the daily mobility of immigrant groups, this automobile/car dependency theory was once again reinforced. Compared to the 85 per cent of the Norwegian population who live in a household that owns or has access to a car (Denstadli et al. 2003: I), only 40 per cent of the respondent population live in a household that owns or has access to a car. The immigrants that do not possess a car identified themselves as being in the marginalized section of society, and often face social exclusion due to their inability to participate in all forms and aspects of societal activities. Possession of a car is unequivocally treated as a basic necessity in the Norwegian context. However, the preference (possessing a car) is not homogenous, varying with the personal conversion factors (the primary ones being economic situation and the number of years of residence in Norway). New immigrants and refugees emerge as the marginalized section due to their lack of access to a car. Interactions with some refuges in Finnsnes revealed that the relatively few immigrants and refugees (non-car users) in Finnsnes were unable to attend their children’s’ parent–teacher meetings at school because the school is located at a distance of 8 kilometres from their homes and no public transport was available to reach it. Taxis, which are an extremely expensive option in Norway, can be ruled out as a viable alternative for this group of economically struggling new immigrants and refugees. This case highlights how the ability to be socially active was restricted owing to an inability to travel, by virtue of not possessing a car and being situated in Finnsnes. The car does not merely act as a symbolic figure for participation in society; a driving licence is seen as the key to entering the Norwegian labour market. Figure 1 shows that a large share of the immigrants (55 per cent) agreed that they stand a

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better chance of procuring a job if they have a driving licence. Some of the immigrants were denied jobs solely on the basis of not possessing a driving licence. This has serious implications, considering that only 28 per cent of the respondents possessed a driving licence (Fig. 2). In this case, it is clear that the ability to be economically active in Norway was being hampered owing to the immigrants’ restricted auto-mobility options. The ownership of a car gave immigrants not only more security in the job market but also the independence to combine more than one job to secure a better economic position. In tune with these findings, Marit Rismark and Astrid Margrethe Sølvberg (quoted in Olstad 2005) note that although a driving licence translates to freedom and mobility for Norwegians, it signifies much more than these precepts for immigrants and is actually a ‘ticket’ for integrating into Norwegian society. Although the possession of a car was stated as the most preferred mobility option by immigrants, irrespective of their city of residence, the urgency of the need differed between the scales of urban development. Immigrants in Oslo were the best provided for in terms of public transport options (bus, tram and metro connection) and consequently exhibited a relatively low demand for car ownership. This demand was seen as almost a basic necessity in the northern town of Finnsnes, where a combination of lack of public transport options (with public transport limited in terms of frequency, routes and timing), and very limited likelihood of procuring a job without a car, created a vicious circle of deprivation in both an economic and social context. As shown in Figures 3 and 4, almost 73 per cent of the respondents without a driving licence preferred an alternative transport option that was unanimously stated as ‘car ownership’. Coming from research findings in two different disciplines, Grieco (2003) (from the theme of ‘transport and social exclusion’) and S. V. Subramanian and Craig Duncan (2000) (from the theme of ‘contextualization in capability approach’) have a similar concern regarding the importance of contextualization and note that constraints and opportunities are also ‘place-based’. These researchers underscore the fact that if similar types of people experience different capability levels in different places, it suggests that not only do places differ, but they also make a difference. Our analysis in the three urban settings is in agreement with this contextual theory and highlights the fact that refugees and new immigrants achieve different levels of capability depending on their place of residence. This fact can be seen in the context of

In disagreement 45%

Yes 28%

No 72%

Agrees with the proposition 55%

Figure 1. Increased job access with more transport accessibility. (Source: Primary survey, Nov.–Dec. 2004)

Figure 2. Possession of driving licence for car. (Source: Primary survey, Nov.–Dec. 2004)

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No 57%

No 27%

Yes 29%

Yes 61%

Sometimes 12%

Sometimes 14%

Figure 3. Preference for any other mode of travelling (immigrants with driving licence). (Source: Primary survey, Nov.–Dec. 2004)

Figure 4. Preference for any other mode of travelling (immigrants without driving licence). (Source: Primary survey, Nov.–Dec. 2004)

transport, depending on the relative ease of offsetting the unavailability of a car with the availability of public transport. Figuratively, the car also carries strong symbolic codes of social status for this group. Even though Oslo is fairly well served by public transit systems, a large percentage of Oslo respondents expressed the desire for a car because they wanted to improve their status. The following case highlights that a car is also a strong symbolic interpretation of how Norwegian society views its immigrants. An immigrant of African origin residing in Finnsnes bought a BMW convertible; the second day after procuring the car he was stopped by a group of Norwegian youths at the petrol station and ordered to hand over the keys to them, because they argued he could not have acquired the car honestly since he was an immigrant. The police interfered and he drove away safely with his car. This case demonstrates the symbolic display of a car and high-end mobility options. It illustrates a concern that was similarly expressed by one of my Swedish colleagues, who hesitatingly acknowledged that non-Western immigrants with high-end, state-of-the-art cars are a matter of grave concern in Sweden. On a similar note, non-Western immigrants and a good car are not seen as belonging together in the northern region, where such a situation is often viewed with doubt by the natives. These doubts might be attributable to the fact that the immigrant population is small and is a relatively new phenomenon in the northern areas of Norway, and that a rising level of criminality and gang formation in Norway in some non-Western immigrant groups contributes to such doubts. Once again the symbolic significance of a car is highlighted by such cases, where the natives link material affluence, as symbolized by a BMW, with money earned through illegal and criminal activities. Overt generalizations such as these about immigrants can seriously impede integration. The situation is relatively better in Oslo and Trondheim, where the immigrant percentage is higher and immigrants are better integrated in Norwegian society. In order to improve their ability to integrate, the refugee group stated the need to upgrade the introductory programme for refugees and asylum seekers in Norway. It should incorporate a programme for procuring a driving licence and some basic aid in buying a car. An immigrant’s potential in terms of integrating into Norwegian society was seen as a direct function of procuring a job, and since procuring a job was so heavily dependent on possessing a driving licence and a car, these two factors should be treated as an urgent issue by the Norwegian government. In this situation,

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the (new) immigrants lack the basic ability to integrate into Norwegian society and to participate in a way they value due to lack of driving licence and an automobile.

The alternative options In the present scenario, the daily mobility needs of the immigrant group are primarily being met by means of public transport. While only 9 per cent of the Norwegian population used public transport for their daily trips (Denstadli et al. 2003: I), 73 per cent of the respondents who used public transport depended on it for their daily mobility. Figure 5 further reveals that 58 percent of the respondents attribute closeness to public transport as one of the most important factors influencing their housing location decisions. Research on social exclusion in the transport sector (Carter & Grieco 2000; Simma & Axhausen 2000; Lucas et al. 2001; Grieco 2003; Kenyon et al. 2003; Lyons 2003a,b; Miller 2003; Preston et al. 2003; Social Exclusion Unit 2003; and so on) note that the degree of connectivity of public transport to vital nodes such as the work place, hospitals, schools, health centres and so on, assures that people without a car are not socially excluded due to the lack of connectivity to their prime needs and functions in a society. Although the case at hand presents a supportive picture where public transport is available to the immigrant group and seems to connect them to different functions, the respondents stressed the vital need for improvements to the public transport system in order for it to continue to be a preferred option. Highly expensive public transport, poor frequency in off-peak hours, evening and weekends coupled with lack of punctuality were the reasons most cited for dissatisfaction. As highlighted in the previous section, an immigrant’s choice of combining jobs or working part-time can be severely restricted since the available transit primarily caters to those working regular full-time hours. This is primarily due to an over-concentration of resources during peak-hour traffic. The same holds true for availability of public transport at weekends and (surprisingly) on all the major Norwegian holidays such as Christmas, Easter and summer holidays. The timing and frequency of public transport during these periods is often severely restricted, further exacerbating mobility options for

Not so important 27%

Moderately important 9%

Irrelevant 6% Important 15%

Very important 43%

Figure 5. Level of importance of public transport availability for housing location decisions. (Source: Primary survey, Nov.–Dec. 2004)

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those without a car. Where does this leave those involved in public transport planning in terms of providing better mobility options to these immigrants? Apart from the above-cited reasons, the large differences in time required by public transport as compared to car-based journeys was recognized as a substantial barrier for public transport to provide access to key services in the Norwegian context. The traditional urban morphology of Norwegian towns and cities has been dictated by singlepurpose neighbourhoods and low-density communities. As a consequence of this, a sizeable portion of all trips have both suburban origins and destinations, with fewer concentrated origins and destinations and fewer corridors of high density demand. The situation is worse in small towns like Finnsnes, where activities are dispersed and public transport operates only along the main artery of the urban centre. Although it is wrong to assume that immigrant groups belong to the same hierarchy of income and privileges, a glimpse at the income distribution in Figure 6 (both personal and household) reveals that a fair share of the respondent group is struggling to make ends meet. An in-depth discussion of the public transport system in Norway brought forth the basic problem faced by most of the respondents: quoted to be the price of tickets. The refugees are in an extremely disadvantageous position owing to this expense, which results in them spending almost 6–15 per cent of their monthly budget on transport (with immigrants in Oslo spending comparatively less than immigrants in Finnsnes). The lack of a support system for refugees to procure cheap access to the public transport system adds to the problem (for example, the price of a bus ticket for a single (local) journey is roughly 20–22 NOK irrespective of the distance to be travelled). Public transport operates in a non-competitive market (on roads) in Norway, so immigrants often have no alternative to the purchase of expensive tickets. They lack mobility because of severe economic constraints, a situation that the government seems to be oblivious of. Findings in the United Kingdom feature a similar concern: Transport trends argue that the availability of bus services is fairly good overall on the grounds that nearly 90 percent of households in Britain live within 13 minutes walk of a bus stop with a service at least once an hour. However, such a measure is at best a crude proxy for the ability of individuals to use such bus services in order to adequately participate in society. The measure takes no account of physical and financial barriers to people using the bus nor does it reflect whether service routes map onto destinations in peoples daily routines or whether, for the part time worker, the hourly service is running in the morning or late at night when they need to use it. (Lyons 2003b) A number of immigrants were quick to point out that a general lack of competition in the public transport sector in Norway is an unhealthy feature, because it fails to level out the price of tickets. Compared to their home countries, where cheap options exist owing to a competitive market, the Norwegian public transport system was seemingly monopolistic and inflexible. Grieco (2003) notices a similar feature in the context of addressing social exclusion in the United Kingdom’s public transport provision:

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Figure 6. Annual income distribution. (Source: Primary survey, Nov.–Dec. 2004)

There is, however, a present policy paradox and one which is very evident in the transport sector of the United Kingdom: at the same point in time as an information overview across economy, polity and society is both possible and practical at very low transaction costs, direct public sector provision of services has been rolled back. Government and governance, still public sector activities albeit increasingly within the language of ‘partnership’, hold responsibility for social efficiency i.e. attacking poverty and reducing social exclusion, but must deliver this through a market of private institutions over which they increasingly have no direct control. Accurately measuring social exclusion and its relationship to transport organisation in the information age is an increasingly easier business; directly addressing the social, economic and political deficits so measured is problematic. (Grieco 2003) The respondents stressed the need for a coordinated approach by transportation authorities and municipalities to frame policies and programmes for this underprivileged group to ease their access to public transport. From a similar research line on transport and social exclusion, it has been advocated that public transport accessibility measurement be compared against car-based accessibility measurement. This should be done for the full range of time slots, and where dramatic differences are present with a measurable unmet need for services. There is also a need to ensure that widely available alternative community, volunteer or special services are organized as a responsibility of government (Grieco 2003). As noted in the previous section, there is a marked difference in the provision of public transport in Oslo, Trondheim and Finnsnes. The respondents in Trondheim and Finnsnes stressed that a differential augmentation at the distinct urban levels is needed. The findings from the Travel Behaviour Research project conducted by the Institute of Transport Economics in 1999 and 2003 substantiate this assertion. The

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research findings show that there is a clear difference between the level of public transport for those residing in towns and those in the rest of the country, and also between small and large towns. Accordingly, the best supply is clearly to be found in Oslo and the surrounding areas, where 38 per cent have excellent public transport and a further 25 per cent have a good service. The situation is markedly different in smallto medium-size towns and rural areas. Here, only 1 per cent has excellent service and 5 per cent good service, while 66 per cent have poor or very poor service (Stangeby et al. 1999). In urbanized areas such as Oslo (and the surrounding areas), Bergen 9 or Trondheim, more than 80 per cent of the population have good or very good access. In scattered populated areas the corresponding figure is only eight percent (Denstadli et al. 2003), as validated by the immigrants’ reactions in Finnsnes. The following example frames the case in point: a single mother of a three-year-old girl has to cover a distance of two kilometres each way every day, since no bus connection is available between the day-care centre and her Norwegian course, located in the municipality centre. This situation needs to be appreciated in light of the inclement weather conditions present in the northern parts of Norway, where the ground is covered with snow for almost seven months of the year. Small towns like Finnsnes and thinly populated areas in Norway have traditionally grown and continue to develop in a scattered fashion. In terms of mobility, this can be interpreted as a development fashioned around the availability of a car in the household, leading to wider use of car and restricted use of public transport. This makes further investment in public transport an uneconomic option. The point to be highlighted here is that this situation has serious repercussions for capability formation of low-income immigrants, who are primarily dependent on public transport for daily trips. This again presents a situation where immigrants in comparable situations experience different capability levels in different places, thus reinforcing the need for contextual treatment of the theme of human capabilities and social exclusion. Such assessments should be made an integral part of policy-making (Macintyre et al. 1993; Ravallion & Wodon 1997).

Geographic mobility When a refugee, a person granted residency on humanitarian grounds, or a person with collective protection10 moves out of a state reception centre and becomes an ordinary Norwegian resident, he or she is settled in a municipality chosen by the government. This settlement also takes place for resettlement refugees and others who do not spend time in a state reception centre. Those who need public assistance must settle in the municipality decided by the government, through the UDI in conjunction with the local authorities (the settlement municipality). Municipalities might be interested in receiving refugees since they receive compensation of NOK 290,000 per person over a period of five years, although they bear the direct cost of refugees for only two years. Municipalities that accept refugees who are unaccompanied minors receive an extra NOK 90,000 per child per year.

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The ‘Introductory Law’ initiated in September 2004 makes it mandatory for each receiving municipality to initiate a programme with the aim of ‘integration by education and work’, but the specifics of the programme at present concentrate on Norwegian language courses in particular and ‘access to employment’ in a more abstract way. The refugees receive a gross salary of NOK 10,116 per month for a maximum of two years, after which they are expected to become a part of the Norwegian labour force. If the refugees decide to move to a different municipality during this period to explore employment opportunities, they are denied their monthly endowment and will have to support themselves without receiving any aid from the state. Clearly, the existing policy of the Norwegian government puts severe restrictions on the mobility of refugees, as they are confined to the municipalities of the government’s choice, even if the labour market opportunities of that particular municipality remains bleak and obfuscated for the immigrants. My interactions with the immigrants revealed that social exclusion is both caused and produced by the restricted spatial mobility of this group. One of the prime factors leading to the erosion of their capability set was the lack of participation in the labour market. Most of the refugees (70 per cent of the respondents) expressed a need to change the policy governing their internal (within Norway) mobility patterns. Improving the ability to travel and explore more job opportunities should form a vital part of the programme. The respondents recognized that their travel horizons to search for jobs or training are severely restricted because of the lack of good travel information and lack of life experience beyond the immediate environment. In the current situation, refugees with personal contacts can explore the possibilities in other municipalities, but the groups without personal contacts have to apply to other municipalities to seek permission for residence. In most cases these applications are turned down. It was proposed that in situations where the refugees want to move to other municipalities in order to optimize their chances of employment, the other municipality should act as contact agency for the immigrants. The difficult and restricted access to labour market across different municipalities thus gives rise to a persistent desire in the immigrant group to shift to Oslo or nearby communes like Drammen to optimize their chance of employment. On a conceptual level, this case reinforces that geographic mobility should be considered as extending the space of potentials. Policy-makers also need to realize that state protection and aid should not come at a restrictive (mobility) cost. Sager voices a similar concern in his analysis of ‘freedom as mobility’, when he specifies that ‘having to ask public authorities for permission to drive a car (women in Saudi Arabia), to fly abroad, or to travel to another province in one’s own country exemplify a systemic process constraints on freedom as mobility’ (2005: 5).

Mobility regime and discrimination An essential part of capabilities formation is that people are given equal opportunities and conducive circumstances (positive freedom) to nurture their potential by converting their functionings into capabilities. The same set of entitlements, for

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example, freedom to apply for job vacancies, does not automatically ensure a fair distribution of chances among all the subsets of society. In the following points, Todd Litman (2003) highlights some of the categories that concern transport-related social exclusion; although the extent of social exclusion is not uniformly distributed among the various categories, it can be assumed that the more these factors apply to an individual or group, the greater degree of social exclusion they are likely to experience: • households that do not own an automobile (sometimes called zero-vehicle households); • people who do not have a driving licence; • low-income households; • people who are unemployed or underemployed; • people on social assistance and other programmes to help disadvantaged groups; • recent immigrants from developing countries, who tend to face language barriers, social isolation, poverty, unemployment and low rates of vehicle ownership and driving licensing. These points also hold true for the current situation being faced by a fair share of the immigrants in Norway, where 62 per cent of the respondents suffered from inadequate transport for their daily mobility needs (Fig. 7). Additionally, some of the following cases specified by the immigrants, where they categorized themselves as either being discriminated against or subjects of intentional/unintentional discriminatory situations, can further benefit the discussion of social exclusion with respect to mobility. The lifestyle of non-Western immigrants is markedly different from the Norwegian lifestyle, with significantly less involvement in outdoor activities, sports and other recreational activities. Their mobility basically emerged as a function of their occupation and social networks. But both occupation and social networks are highly skewed for this group and are markedly unsatisfactory for recent immigrants and refugees in Norway. In the occupational arena, most immigrants to Norway face severe restrictions on their ability to procure a job that reflects their academic qualifications and capability. The Norwegian job market is reluctant to accept academic certification from universities of some under-developed or developing countries. Thus, many of the immigrants are forced to either take up university studies again or settle for a job No 38%

Yes 44%

Yes, to some degree 18%

Figure 7. Inadequate transport provision in daily mobility. (Source: Primary survey, Nov.–Dec. 2004)

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that is a severe setback for their capability expansion (in terms of income, knowledge and social network formation); one example of this is cleaning jobs. Expressed as a function of mobility, this can be seen as a restriction due to an inability to form bonds with the kind of society one has reason to value, thus making mobility opportunities severely restricted due to a lack of a combination of possibility, competence and capital in the socioeconomic arena. A number of immigrants said that their daily mobility needs resulted from interpersonal relations in society, which were in abundance in their home country, and shared with friends and family. This situation was, however, to a great extent reversed in Norway, because the limited access to a social network deprived them of the very purpose for mobility. ‘Lack of personal contacts’ and ‘lack of knowledge of the place’ were stated as the two main reasons for the lack of a purpose to be mobile. A few nonprofit organizations, such as the Christian Intercultural Association (KIA), are trying to bring together immigrants and refugees in a social network, but a number of these organizations are trying to further a specific agenda and faith rather than having as their sole focus the improvement of the social capital of immigrants.11 In this regard, the ‘Refugee Guide Program’, conducted by the Red Cross in conjunction with the affected municipalities, is commendable and has been appreciated by refugees and new immigrants. Under this programme, each refugee can ask for a personal guide appointed by the Red Cross who will assist him or her in becoming familiar with Norwegian culture and lifestyle. However, this programme is restricted to the larger towns and cities of Norway and has not become part of the agenda in all municipalities where refugees are settled. This point highlights the fact that although the immigrants are interested in being mobile and expanding their social networks, they are unable to function in the face of a lack of a (neutral) support structure, which calls for a focused policy intervention by the government to bolster the social capital of immigrant groups. Many immigrants reacted negatively to the way transportation authorities dealt with their application for driving licences. The immigrants said they suffered from what they termed ‘hidden discrimination’ by the authorities. A particular respondent had tried six times to procure a driving licence in Oslo without success, but was able to procure it on the first try in a different municipality. Although many factors are at play here, since the driving culture of Norway is markedly different from many of the origin countries of non-Western immigrants, a vital point is that this group is sensitive to the issue of discrimination. A more thoughtful and careful approach can help to smooth the integration process.

Summary and discussion Previous studies under the theme of ‘transport and social exclusion’ have identified a number of factors that are seen to contribute to social exclusion, including differentials in education and training opportunity and attainment, socioeconomic

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circumstances, local environment and peer group, as well as access to information and physical accessibility to a wide range of opportunities including employment, shopping and recreation (Hine & Mitchell 2003: 1). This study found similar tones and mannerisms of exclusion affecting the low-income non-Western immigrant groups in Norway. A recapitulation of the key findings from the questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews show that: • Mobility is restricted owing to definite barriers. Apart from being an object of fantasy and desire, (restricted) mobilities produce exclusion and different milieu for different groups of people. Mobilities result from specific geographies, networks and socioeconomic–political–infrastructural contexts. • Public transport is the primary mode of transport for immigrant groups. The inadequacies of the system, as demonstrated by expensive tickets, limited frequency, availability/frequency on evenings/late-nights/weekends and punctuality were some of the concerns voiced. These restrictions divide the population into those with privileged mobility (car users) and the under-privileged restricted mobility of others (public-transport users). • Immigrants have better access to the labour market if they have a car/driving licence. Automobile dependency was seen more as a matter of need rather than choice in Trondheim and Finnsnes. Oslo offers variety and flexibility in the choice of public transport. The option of automobility in Oslo was more of a choice for convenience and comfort than a pressing need. • The geographic mobility of recently arrived refugees is restricted by the Norwegian government’s current policy guidelines. Free and unrestricted mobility can help in allowing immigrants the ability to explore employment opportunities throughout Norway. It should be emphasized that for this group, gainful employment is the primary source of integration into Norwegian society. • Mobility opportunities are discriminatory, creating a vicious circle of deprivation in the Norwegian context. This problem is expressed through automobile dependency, unemployment/under-employment, and continued dependence on social assistance for recent immigrants. The postulate that mobility is a socially contextualized and produced phenomenon is also validated by the findings of this study. Mobility emerges as a dependent variable, depending on the contextualization process of interplay in the people–place–processes trio. It also surfaces as an expression of power: the power to be productive and conducive in shaping life. The trio deficit (people–place–processes) can be expressed as a mobility–power deficit. Parameters shaping the mobility patterns of the immigrant groups, such as potential action and freedom of action, are severely restricted owing to the constraints of socioeconomic, technological and policy contexts. Given a multitude of problems that can affect this community, such as poor housing, crime, education and health, mobility as a problem area may not be expected to feature prima facie. However, the respondents’ attitude validates the idea that restricted mobility opportunities cut across many other problem areas, exacerbating their effect and creating

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feelings of isolation. The present situation leaves much to be desired in enforcing the notion of positive freedom in being mobile. Both a conceptual and factual shift in policies guiding and dictating mobilities is needed. Collective decision-making, public reasoning and the inclusion of diverse stakeholders in the design of social arrangements and policies affecting mobilities should form an integral part of such a decision-making process. This holds particularly true for refugees and new immigrants. The case further serves to highlight that mobility options are limited by a mix of both culture (competence and appropriation) and infrastructure (access) in the Norwegian setting. A strategy to address social exclusion and its effects should ideally entail an integrative approach, to fund new solutions to meet the mobility needs of this group. Its starting-point must be a commitment to genuine engagement with the immigrant community to understand their needs and aspirations. Researchers can embark on this venture by evaluating lessons from similar cases around the globe. There are myriad examples where community links have been established to work with the (low-income) community on transport issues that affect their lives. Innovative ideas such as new ticketing initiatives, development of localized transport services to complement the main-line network and so on are being developed to ensure that access to job opportunities away from the immediate area can be met regardless of starting or ending work times and at a cost below that of taxi services. The Norwegian transport authorities need to acknowledge that the urban pattern of Norwegian cities and towns requires decentralized transportation facilities, programmes and services, in order to move away from a singular focus on automobile dependency. The environmental agenda focuses on reducing the need to travel for reasons of protecting the environment, which might lead us to believe that the deflated mobility pattern of the immigrant groups is a positive stance. This would however construe a wrong supposition since a decision to develop sustainable growth patterns encompassing a lower mobility trend should be a deliberated agenda and a conscious decision rather than an outcome of unfavourable socioeconomic, political, policy and technological context. We need to focus on enhancing the capabilities of the immigrant group and setting them free to become productive participants in the civil society. Potential mobility options will not only give them a chance to be active agents of development in a democratic society but also transform them into assets for their host country.

Notes 1. The French riots started on 27 October 2005 in Clichy-sous-Bois, a small town in the Paris suburbs, when two teenagers returning from playing football were electrocuted after running away from a police security check and hiding in a power substation, and a third boy, a 17-year-old Turk whose parents had no legal papers, was seriously burned. The death of these two teenagers, after allegedly being chased by police, crystallized the conflict between police and youths, which is said to have been going on for nearly 25 years. Analysts note that this particular incident sparked the current riots, but it could have happened at any moment. Days of rioting followed the incident, highlighting the discontent among many French youths mainly of North African origin. The reasons for this discontent were

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attributed primarily to their poor living conditions and restricted opportunities in the French labour market, which is said to have remained static ever since their parents immigrated to France roughly 50 years ago. Another concern voiced in a number of articles regarding this matter was that although the immigrants in France are legally French citizens, they are not treated as such in various employment and education opportunities. This ultimately led to grave dissatisfaction and frustration ending in the violent rebellion of the October riots. See BBC news (2005a,b) and Fontanella 2005. 2. A simplistic definition of ‘social exclusion’ framed by Julian Hine and Fiona Mitchell is: ‘Social exclusion is a process which causes individuals or groups, who are geographically resident in a society, not to participate in the normal activities of citizens in that society’ (2001: 12). Emphasis on the term ‘process’ identified in this definition is placed not only on income-based indicators of poverty but also on access to health care, education, transport, labour markets, welfare provision, financial markets, housing and social and political networks. 3. Aristotle’s highly critical works on ethics were intended to have practical and not just theoretical value. They were supposed to have a bearing on social and political choice; and were openly critical of approaches to social planning that isolated economic values from a deeper and fuller description of the values of a society. He holds that any good account of development must be rooted in this sort of deep description, and in a dialectical evaluation of the traditions described. Aristotle’s search is for an account of value that will be genuinely rooted in the experience of the people and genuinely practical, and yet also be evaluative in such a way as to help leaders structure things for the best, enabling people to live as good and flourishing a life as possible (Nussbaum & Sen 1987). 4. In an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report (1995), a three-stage strategy was established to reach the goal of sustainable mobility: (i) Adoption of best practices. This means to apply already known measures from different parts of the world, especially in cities in Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Germany. Measures include limiting urban sprawl, the location of activities near public transport facilities, limiting car-parking at work, limiting road investments, providing better facilities for cyclists and pedestrians, increasing fuel taxes and tightening regulations on emissions from vehicles, and introducing urban tolls, but with the clear aim of reducing the amount of traffic in the city. (ii) These measures are not expected to have a great impact on the total amount of traffic, but will limit other environmental problems, such as noise, and emissions of carbon monoxide (CO) and nitrogen oxide (NOX). Problems related to energy use and land consumption will not be solved by such measures. (iii) OECD stresses the need for innovations. In ‘Strand 2’ it lists possible areas of new measures that opt for cities to be reconstructed back to the urban village, to work for better and faster public transport and to implement higher taxes on energy consumption. 5. The capital of Norway, Oslo is also the largest city in Norway. It houses a population of approximately 550,000. 6. Trondheim, the third largest city in Norway, has a population base of approximately 160,000 inhabitants. While it is not a large metropolis, Trondheim’s location and opportunities make it a good example of a medium-size urban centre. 7. Finnsnes, with a population base of approximately 5000, was chosen to represent a small Norwegian municipality. It is the municipal centre of Lenvik Municipality in the northern part of Norway. 8. In the legal sense, the term ‘refugee’ applies to resettlement refugees and asylum seekers who have been granted asylum. This is also a common term used for a person who is fleeing, for example because of war, unrest, human rights violation or environmental catastrophes. In connection with refugee assistance in Norway, the term ‘refugee’ is used for resettlement refugees and asylum seekers who have been granted asylum or residence on humanitarian grounds. An asylum seeker is a person who on his or her own initiative, and without prior warning, asks for protection and recognition as a refugee. This person is called an asylum seeker until a decision has been made on his or her application. 9. Bergen, with a population of 240,000, is Norway’s second largest city. It is also the capital of Western Norway, which is the leading region for all significant Norwegian export industries. 10. Temporary residence or work permits may be granted on collective grounds in a mass outflow situation, in other words in accordance with a group evaluation. Any applications for asylum are suspended for three years. These permits do not constitute the grounds for a settlement permit during the first four years.

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11. For example, KIA, which claims to be Norway’s biggest organization for immigrants, says that in order of priority, its primary aim is to make the Gospel known to people from other cultures that live in Norway and who do not have knowledge about the Christian faith, and to lead them into Christian congregations and fellowships. This is followed by the aim of providing care in the sense of taking care of mind, body and soul, providing cross-cultural contact and friendships and helping each other to integrate into society (www.kia-inter.no; accessed Jan. 2008).

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Hjorthol, R. J. 2002. ‘Cultural Aspects of the Car and Public Transport: Men’s and Women’s Perception’. Raumplanung 102: 144–9. Houseman, G. 1979. The Right of Mobility. New York: Kerikat Press. Jones, P. M. 1987. ‘Mobility and the Individual in Western Industrial Society’. In Transportation Planning in a Changing World, eds P. Nijkamp & S. Reichman, 29–47. Aldershot: Gower. Kaufmann, V. 2002. Re-thinking Mobility. Aldershot: Ashgate. Kenyon, S., J. Rafferty & G. Lyons. 2003. ‘Social Exclusion and Transport: A Role for Virtual Accessibility in the Alleviation of Mobility-related Social Exclusion?’. Journal of Social Policy 32(3): 317–18. Knie, A. 1997. ‘Eigenzeit und Eigenraum: Zur Dialektik von Mobilitat und Verkehr’. Soziale Welt 47(1): 39–54. Langan C. 2001. ‘Mobility Disability’. Public Culture 13(3): 459–84. Lash, S. & J. Urry. 1994. Economies of Signs and Space. London: Sage. Latour, B. 1999. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Levine, J. & Y. Garb. 2002. ‘Congestion Pricing’s Conditional Promise: Promotion of Accessibility or Mobility?’. Transport Policy 9(3): 179–88. Litman T. 2003. Social Inclusion as a Transport Planning Issue in Canada. Victoria: Victoria Transport Policy Institute. Lucas, K., T. Grosvenor & R. Simpson. 2001. Transport, the Environment and Social Exclusion, www.jrf.org. uk/bookshop/eBooks/1859352936.pdf (accessed Jan. 2008). York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Lyons, G. 2003a. ‘The Introduction of Social Exclusion into the Field of Travel Behaviour’. Transport Policy 10(4): 339–42. Lyons, G. 2003b. ‘Transport and Society, Inaugural Lecture’, www.transport.uwe.ac.uk/LYONS-Inaugural. pdf (accessed Jan. 2008). Bristol: Unit for Transport and Society, University of the West of England. Macintyre, S., S. MacIver & A. Sooman. 1993. ‘Area, Class and Health: Should we be Focusing on People or Places?’. Journal of Social Policy 22(2): 213–34. Massey, D. 1993. ‘Power-geometry and a Progressive Sense of Place’. In Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global Change, eds J. Bird, B. Curtis, T. Putnam & L. Tickner, 59–69. London: Routledge. Mayer, P. 2005. ‘The “Normal” Mobility of Tourism – A Research Outline’, www.cosmobilities.net/download/Miscellaneous/Mayer_Tourism_and_Mobility.pdf (accessed Jan. 2008). Miller, H. 2003. ‘Travel Chances and Social Exclusion’. Paper presented at the 10th International Conference on ‘Travel Behaviour Research’, 10–15 August 2003, Lucerne. Mueller, F. 1994. ‘Societal Effect, Organizational Effect and Globalization’. Organization Studies 15(3): 407–28. Nijkamp, P., S. Reichman & M. Wegener, eds. 1990. Euromobile: Transport, Communications and Mobility in Europe. A Cross-national Overview. Aldershot: Averbury. Nussbaum, M. & A. Sen. 1987 ‘Internal Criticism and Indian Rationalist Traditions’. Policy Research Working Paper no. 30. Helsinki: World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 1995. Urban Travel and Sustainable Development. Paris: OECD. Olstad, L. 2005. ‘Førerkortet – veien til den norske kulturen’ (Driving license – the road to the Norwegian culture). Gemini 4: 8–9. Preston, J., F. Raje, J. Hine & M. Grieco. 2003. ‘The Social Exclusion Impacts of Traffic Restraint Policies’. Paper presented at the 35th Universities Transport Studies Group Annual Conference. Loughborough: University of Loughborough. Raje, F., M. Grieco, J. Hine & J. Preston. 2004. Transport Demand Management and Social Inclusion: The Need for Ethnic Perspective. Aldershot: Ashgate. Ravallion, M. & Q. Wodon. 1997. ‘Poor Areas, or Only Poor People?’. Policy Research Working Paper no. 1798, Development Research Group. Washington DC: World Bank. Robeyns, I. 2002a. ‘In Defence of Amartya Sen’. Post-autistic Economics Review 17, www.paecon.net/ PAEReview/issue17/Robeyns17.htm (accessed Jan. 2008). Robeyns, I. 2002b. ‘Gender Inequality: A Capability Perspective’, PhD thesis, Von Hugel Institute, University of Cambridge.

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Sen, A. 1980. ‘Equality of What?’. In The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, ed. S. McMurrin, 197–220. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press. Sen, A. 1992. Inequality Re-examined. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sen, A. 1993. ‘Capability and Well-being. In The Quality of Life, eds M. Nussbaum & A. Sen, 30–53. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Sen, A. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Knopf. Simma, A. & K. W. Axhausen. 2000. ‘Mobility as a Function of Social and Spatial Factors: The Case of the upper Austria Region’. Paper presented at the conference on ‘Land Use and Travel Behaviour’, 20 June 2000, Amsterdam. Social Exclusion Unit. 2003 ‘Making the Connections: Final Report on Transport and Social Exclusion’. www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/upload/assets/www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/social_exclusion_task_force/publications_1997_to_2006/making_transport_2003.pdf (accessed Jan. 2008). Sørensen, K. H. 1999. ‘Rush-hour Blues or the Whistle of Freedom? Understanding Modern Mobility’. STSworking paper 3(99), Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, Centre for Technology and Society, Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Sørensen, K. H. & J. Sørgaard. 1994. ‘Mobility and Modernity: Towards a Sociology of Cars. In The Car and its Environments: The Past, Present and Future of the Motorcar in Europe, ed. K. H. Sørensen, 1–32. COST Social Sciences 2. Brussels: Directorate General Science, Research and Development. Stangeby, I., J. V. Haukeland & A. Skogli. 1999. Reisevaner i Norge 1998 (Travel behaviour in Norway 1998). Oslo: Institute of Transport Economics. Statistics Norway. 2005. Statistisk Årbok 2002 (Statistical yearbook, 2005), www.ssb.no/english/yearbook/ (accessed Jan. 2008). Oslo: Statistisk Sentralbyrå. Subramanian, S. V. & C. Duncan. 2000. ‘Capability and Contextuality’. Working paper series 10(10), Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, Boston. Urry, J. 2000. Sociology beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-first Century. London: Routledge. Wolff, J. 1993, ‘On the Road Again: Metaphors of Travel in Cultural Criticism’. Cultural Studies 7(2): 224–39. Yeung, H. W. 1998. ‘Capital, State and Space: Contesting the Borderless World’. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers NS 23: 291–309.

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9 Inclusive mobility: participation, physical barriers and the concept of universal design Liv Rakel Øvstedal

Perspectives on mobility, accessibility and participation Norwegian politicians have stated their support for an inclusive society with citizens who are fully able to participate and afforded equal opportunities. Although mobility is a political priority, mobility on its own is perceived as a means rather than a goal, since mobility restrictions limit accessibility in almost all major areas of life: physical activity, social life, education, work, cultural life and participatory democracy. Barriers people experience indicate that there is a misfit between the individual and the city spaces and pulsating arterial transport links that bring life to the city. We have all had the experience of being children and finding that steps were too high to climb or that public transport was too difficult to understand. At any given moment, three out of ten people report having substantial difficulties using public transport. Furthermore, throughout their lifetimes, seven out of ten will experience mobility difficulties due to illness or injury. One of the aspects of exploring the technical space of mobility is exploring how and why mobility provides different opportunities to different people. An inclusive society is about providing citizens with equal opportunities to participate in activities that are important to them. Everyone does not need to travel the same amount, or in the same manner, but the restrictions they encounter in attempting to travel should be similar, and independent of age, gender, ethnicity, experience, skills and abilities. As described by Uteng (this volume, Ch. 8), Sen argues that the social evaluation of and policies concerning the ‘quality of life’ should ideally consider the freedom of people to live the life they want and value. Wellbeing and development may be evaluated in view of people’s abilities to function, and the opportunities they have to do and be what they want. Under the capability approach, the functions that are achieved depend on social, personal and environmental factors.

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Why do we create and maintain an inhuman transport system? Some point out that planning the physical environment is conducted by a few (technical) professionals, while the consequences affect everyone. In this section, equal mobility opportunities are briefly discussed in the light of activities and accessibility, ethics and sustainability. The concept of universal design is briefly introduced in the following section in view of ideological and instrumental targets and traditional policy measures in the transport sector. Later sections address applications of the concept of usability1 in planning for children and the elderly. The focus here is on whether the concept of universal design can be employed to improve the pedestrian environment using knowledge about road users. Walking requires relatively few resources, and as such it is more inclusive than other transport modes; being able to move in the walking environment is also a necessary gateway to all other modes of transport. To improve usability, it is natural to think that (detailed) knowledge about the user is needed. The section ‘Universal Design from a Pedestrian Child’s Perspective’ is based on previous studies of children, including child questionnaires and focus group interviews, as well as written essays and an observational study (Øvstedal & Ryeng 1999, 2004a,b; Øvstedal 2002; Øvstedal et al. 2002). The studies also include data on children from the adult point of view, including literature reviews, parent questionnaires and interviews with key persons both in children’s arenas and in the transport sector. Some methods for involving the child’s perspective in the planning process are briefly introduced. The observational study includes behavioural data from video recordings of 1,876 child pedestrians and cyclists aged 6–12 years, from 14 sites in Trondheim, Norway (Øvstedal & Ryeng 1999). A quantitative analysis and descriptive statistics were the main tools used to describe the street behaviour accounting for age, gender, company while walking and specific characteristics of the site. School questionnaires provide both quantitative and qualitative information, and questions and designs have been tested to adjust to the age group. Pupils aged 10 and older filled out questionnaires at school, while the 6–7-year-olds answered the questionnaires together with their parents at home. School essays provide qualitative information, and focus group inspection of a street section along with children and youths aged 6–17 is another source of information. Challenges and knowledge concerning elderly road users are presented in the section ‘Elderly Road Users’, based on literature reviews in which a study of the daily activities of elderly people and the restrictions on those activities forms a major part (Leknes 2004). To illustrate the need for in-depth understanding, experience with tactile guiding materials for visually impaired pedestrians is discussed in the section ‘Keep on Walking, Step by Step: Towards an Inclusive Mobility Policy?’ Again, findings are based mainly on literature reviews, but photos, inspections and personal contact are also employed (Øvstedal & Lindland 2002, 2005). Lastly, additional challenges of creating a more user-friendly technical space of mobility are explored: how to include everyone; and what is the right level for targets?

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Mobility, accessibility and participation Mobility can be defined as the capacity to overcome distance in space.2 In rehabilitation exercises for the visually impaired, two tasks are stressed. One is the ability to orient one’s self, to know where you are and how to get where you want. And the other is locomotion, the ability to move your body from one location to another. Pedestrian planning is generally characterized by four basic requirements: orientation, locomotion, safety and facilities for rest and support. Mobility is partly a question of ‘conquering the distance’ of geometric space, but most of all it is concerned with enabling people to participate in activities and to be in places meaningful to the individual (see Melin, this volume, Ch. 4). In transport economic terms, mobility can be defined as the ease of movement, and accessibility as the ease of reaching destinations. Another dimension of accessibility is not only the ability to reach a destination, but to be able to use the space and the features at the destination the way they are intended (usability). The United Nations underscored the importance of accessibility in the Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities: States should recognize the overall importance of accessibility in the process of the equalization of opportunities in all spheres of society. For persons with disabilities of any kind, States should: (a) introduce programmes of action to make the physical environment accessible; and (b) undertake measures to provide access to information and communication. (1993: Rule 5, Accessibility) Accessibility is about enabling the participation of the individual in activities he or she finds meaningful. There are different theories concerning the factors that are decisive in determining which activities we find meaningful and choose to participate in, but these are generally linked to each individual’s will, habits and capacity, and the social and physical environment (Kielhofner 2002, as referred to in Leknes 2004; Townsend 2002). The environment may provide support, possibilities, demands and restrictions. The synergy of all this results in thoughts, feelings and actions, and activities are generally perceived as being fundamental in creating and maintaining a feeling of identity (Christiansen 1999, referred to in Leknes 2004).3 Research has shown that participation in meaningful activities is important for health and a feeling of wellbeing (World Health Organization 2001; Law 2002). Interests, values and one’s own perception of one’s own abilities change throughout life, as do habits and roles. In Western culture, the freedom to choose activities is important, as it gives a feeling of control over one’s life (Townsend 2002, in Leknes 2004). According to the model of Social Role Valorization developed by Wolfensberger (Askheim 2005), the activities we take part in and the ways in which we participate not only form conceptions of our own identity, but also shape how we are valued in the eyes of others. Activities can be social or solitary, and going for a walk can

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represent both. Mobility, quite often in the form of transport, is the ticket to different arenas for participation in activities.

Ethics of mobility planning Transport ethics are often discussed in terms of either sustainable development (Zeitler 1998) or traffic safety (Hansson 2003; Elvebakk 2005). Mobility gives rise to moral problems concerning equal opportunities between individuals and groups, between current and future generations and the relationship between humans and other life forms, as described by Melin (this volume, Ch. 4). The opportunity to go when and where you want, as well as the negative aspects of pollution and traffic accidents, are not distributed equally, giving rise to concerns that can best be described as social exclusion (Uteng, this volume, Ch. 8; Lidén 1999; Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions 2000; Anund et al. 2003). Mobility is perceived as a basic human characteristic and a basic right (Kronlid, this volume, Ch. 6; Sager, this volume, Ch. 10). Mobility can be seen as potential transport. In terms of the freedom of choice, the key issue is not necessarily to measure how much each person actually travels, but the ability they have to travel in accordance with their own preferences.4 This approach raises questions about the allocation of resources that can influence participation in desired activities between individuals and groups of individuals,5 including children and the elderly. Accessibility influences the ability to overcome distances. Furthermore, the ability to access different places shapes different opportunities to stay, enjoy and make use of the space, and to take part in activities. One concern that has been recently voiced is that improved accessibility to transport facilities provides higher accident risks for vulnerable groups (Anund et al. 2003; Albertsson & Falkmer 2005). Mobility as a basic right is used as an argument in support of private car traffic. About a quarter of the Norwegian population are too young6 to be allowed to drive a car. Medical diagnoses may exclude some individuals from holding a driving licence, while private economy may restrict the access to a car. If mobility is a basic right, individual access to a car cannot be the only avenue for transport. Another aspect is that sustainable travel alternatives ought to be available to the large part of the population. Public transport is sometimes promoted as sustainable, but today’s services exclude a number of groups, with electric wheelchair users being an obvious example. These individuals may also be excluded from the opportunity to make a sustainable travel choice. Utilitarianism has a significant influence on transport planning as a result of economic calculations (Hansson 2003), making it worthwhile to explore the basis of utilitarianism. A main issue is that utilitarian theory is human-centred and does not sufficiently account for environmental concerns (Hansson 2003; Tennøy 2004a,b), although there are several approaches to factor in the effects on the environment in conducting cost-benefit analyses and impact assessments (Pearce et al. 1990; Vegdirektoratet 1996; Eriksen 1998; Navrud 1998). Another important concern is

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that maximizing utility for society as a whole, independent of how utility is measured, implies a form of ‘mainstream tyranny’. Utilitarianism is distribution-insensitive in the sense that it does not matter where the benefit is enjoyed or who benefits as long as the sum of benefits exceeds the sum of disadvantages. Owing to the large number of car drivers, street improvements may lead to substantial total time savings for drivers. Consequently, following a utilitarian argument, car traffic projects should be favoured for efficiency reasons, although benefits for cyclists and pedestrians will not be realized. Following a different line of reasoning, however, it may seem plausible to allocate a quarter of transportation resources to pedestrians and cyclists, reflecting the share of the population not holding a driving licence. Some analysts may even argue for a larger share, on the grounds that separate facilities for pedestrians and cyclists are needed as a direct result of the arrangements made for car traffic. Another example is that significant gains for a few members of the population, gains that might possibly make the difference between isolation and participation in society, may be balanced out by small benefits such as a few saved minutes for many drivers. Pursuing this line of thought, we can see how small and specific groups of the disabled may have difficulty getting their proposals through the political process, and that joining forces in a universal design strategy may be helpful. Langmyhr (1996: 36–50) discusses several principles for fair allocation as a supplement to utilitarian decision principles for transport issues. He assigns responsibility to planners to clarify which fairness principles are relevant in each case, and which groups are affected and how. He also points out that cost-benefit analyses empirically may play a minor role in political decision processes (ibid.: 38).

Sustainable mobility Sustainable development is defined as a dynamic social and economic growth concept: development that satisfies today’s needs without reducing future generations’ abilities to satisfy theirs, with reallocation of goods and resources within and between countries as an integrated part of the sustainability concept. Holden (this volume, Ch. 3) points out two dimensions of sustainability that are also pertinent for mobility planning: the social dimension, meaning equity and distributional considerations, and the environmental dimension, including the minimization over a life cycle of the use of natural resources and toxic materials, and emissions of waste and pollutants. Sustainability and universal design may lead to congruent mobility concerns, as transport modes requiring a minimum of natural resources and producing little pollution usually demand fewer personal resources for attainment and use. Equal worth and rights of each individual are the basis for both concepts, with participation and democracy as important strategies for the implementation of policies (Langmyhr 1996; Miljøverndepartementet 1989, 1992; Sosial- og helsedepartementet 2001). Holden also describes three strategies for achieving sustainable consumption, which in this case is in transport: efficiency, substitution and reduction. Less energy consumption and pollution can be achieved by producing more efficient transport

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modes, by choosing more environmentally friendly alternatives of travel, or by reducing the number of trips A better public transport system resulting from substitution and/or efficient technology may improve travel opportunities for visually impaired people, young adults who do not yet have a driving licence and elderly people who no longer have access to a private car. Efficiency entails new and efficient technology and will only be consistent with universal design if the requirements of vulnerable users are met by the product. There is a tendency, however, for developers to promote their ability to satisfy different needs in the design of ticket machines, queue number systems, timetable information, mobile phone applications and GPS information, as examples. The adaptive features, however, are seldom actually put in production, or only at a later stage. There are also dilemmas and contradictions, especially with the reduction strategy. Trails may have a larger impact on the landscape if they are to be suitable for wheelchair users as well as walkers and joggers, while with their modern equipment wheelchair users may travel great distances as they may not tire as quickly as hikers do. And organized snow scooter trips for the elderly are sometimes denied for environmental protection reasons. But perhaps almost all motorized traffic should be banned in vulnerable mountain areas except for people who cannot otherwise experience the scenery.

Disabilities and disabling environments Individuals with reduced abilities caused by congenital or acquired disease or injury encounter numerous obstacles in their everyday life. Kerbstones that have not been lowered at a pedestrian crossing might be the barrier denying a child wheelchair user independent travel to school, in the same way as the lack of adequate pedestrian crossings can be decisive for whether a child with visual impairment may walk to school without being accompanied by an adult. Hindrances such as these represent barriers in daily life. Medical versus social model There are several ways to examine and study the interaction between a person and barriers. Beginning in the 1960s, an awareness of problems facing minority group has strengthened in the United States in the wake of the civil rights movement (Grue 2006). These American efforts focused on independent living, self-determination and discrimination, while activists and academics in the United Kingdom stressed the role of society in disabling citizens. The medical model is based on a natural science tradition. It directs attention to physical impairments and the provision of medical treatment, rehabilitation, equipment and normalization at an individual level. It is also the basis for the classification of degree and type of impairment, which in turn serves as a gateway to treatment, remedies, provisions and compensation. The medical model assumes a causal connection

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between the impairment of the body, disability as the reduced ability to perform a task and the handicap as the barrier to participation. The social model distinguishes between the different facets of living with an impairment in need of medical treatment, and focuses on the aspect in need of political action: ‘Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society’ (UPIAS 1976: 14, in Shakespeare & Watson 2001: 28). According to Tom Shakespeare and Nicholas Watson (2001) the social model contains several key elements; it distinguishes between impairment and disability, and defines disability as a ‘social oppression’ and disabled persons as an oppressed social group. The social model has a strong foothold in the United Kingdom, but both approaches have their critics and diverging views have been voiced. Lars Grue (2006) describes four paradigms concerning disability theories: (i) the medical model, which takes an individual physical approach with the bodily impairment as the analysis unity; (ii) an individual idealistic approach, which analyses identities and perceptions; (iii) the social model, which sees disability as a result of the political and economic situation in a historical context, analysing power structures and physical and organisational barriers; and (iv) a sociocultural model, which analyses cultural values and their representations. The Scandinavian relational model A relational definition was introduced to the Nordic countries in the 1960s and 1970s as an alternative to the traditional, more individual essentialist notions of disability (Gustavsson & Tøssebro 2005). When the term ‘disabled’ is used, it identifies people who have limits on their everyday life because of the gap or misfit between the demands society has made and their capacities in different areas. With a definition like this, disability is relative and dependent on how we decide to design the environment.7 Fewer people will, for example, be handicapped if we to a great extent choose building designs without steps and stairs. An overview of terms and concepts on disability issues and how they have changed over time in Norwegian political statements is presented in a report from the Department of Health and Social Affairs (Sosial- og helsedepartementet 2001). Accessible design Traditionally, user needs were met with an attempt to adapt existing products, or to add specific devices to suit different groups, which provided accessible design. Examples of this approach are rebuilding a school to include a lift when a wheelchair user becomes a pupil, along with including a ramp in addition to the stairs and the construction of a handicap toilet in addition to existing toilets. To include the needs of the disabled in planning, three dimensioning groups are identified – based not on a diagnosis or the individual, but on the kinds of factors essential for design (Bringa 1995; Statens Byggetekniske etat & Husbanken 2005): • Mobility-impaired: Crucial elements are distance, area, range, steps and the demand for physical strength.

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• Impairment concerning orientation: Essential elements are clear and plain information, messages amplified by the use of many means (and senses) of information, and logically organized spaces with a clear layout. • Hypersensitivity to substances in the environment: Critical factors are chemical substances (pollution, allergens) in the air, in surfaces to touch and in food (food declaration to identify the ingredients, the opportunity to select alternatives).

Introducing universal design The aim of universal design is to develop theories, principles and solutions to enable everybody to use the same physical solutions to the greatest extent possible; this includes means of communication, outdoor areas, buildings and products. Universal design opposes, ideologically and politically, all unnecessary and stigmatizing specialized solutions, whether they are intended for people with disabilities or other groups of the population. Equal status, equal treatment and equal merit are key concepts. The Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University defines universal design and the purpose of the concept as follows:: Universal design is the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design … The intent of universal design is to simplify life for everyone by making products, communications, and the built environment more usable by as many people as possible at little or no extra cost. Universal design benefits people of all ages and abilities. (Ron Mace 1988, quoted in Duncan 2007: 4, 19; Aslaksen et al. 1997: 5) To facilitate universal design, the Center for Universal Design (1997) organized a multidisciplinary group that developed design principles to guide the design process. These principles are: (1) equitable use; (2) flexibility in use; (3) simple and intuitive use; (4) perceptible information; (5) tolerance for error; (6) low physical effort; and (7) adequate size and space for approach and use. The principles of universal design are presented in full text in the appendix to this essay.

Moving on to new paradigms? Universal design is based on two shifts in traditional thinking. There has been a shift from a focus on impairments and diagnoses to the realization that society generates products and processes that are themselves disabling. The other shift is from promoting accessibility for specific groups to a demand for environments usable for a wider group of the population. This can be illustrated by Wijk’s four circles (Fig. 1).

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Figure 1. Wijk’s four circles (Wijk, in Christophersen 2002).

Universal design requires that the range of different needs in the population are provided for in the first place, including differences in age, gender, abilities, and so on. The traditional approach of accessible design supplies accessibility too, while the universal design strategy is a more inclusive strategy ensuring that as many people as possible can use the same (main) solution and reducing the need for specific equipment or segregating arrangements. Both of these shifts in basic thinking for universal design seem to have been implemented in Norway, at the ideological level in political documents as well as at the theoretical level in research reports. On the operational level, however, it is still easier to collect data on disabled persons (although definitions diverge) than on disabling elements and processes (Tøssebro & Kittelsaa 2004). And guidelines for universal design still seem to be based on the three dimensioning groups; mobilityimpaired, impairments that affect orientation and hypersensitivity to substances in the environment (Nørve et al. 2005). What has been achieved in actual planning is an acceptance that accessibility of the main building, vehicle or object is the criterion of success; and a separate facility or a side entrance is no longer an acceptable solution.

Defining political targets Universal design and non-discrimination are part of an international trend, with the concept introduced in a number of countries. The new rights-based model of disability policy is partly a response to criticism of redistribution measures as being expensive, inadequate, ineffectual, uncoordinated and discouraging to joining the work force (Hvinden & Halvorsen 2003). Many countries intend to abolish separate and segregating systems, and to make mainstream provisions on the basis of what has been called the ‘principle of sector responsibility’ in the Nordic countries. This means that all sectors or branches of public administration have the responsibility to provide likewise for all citizens independent of needs and requirements. The redistribution side of Nordic disability policy appears to have been better developed than the regulation side. Neither regulations nor the sector principle have been compelling, because

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they comprise vague recommendations rather than obligatory requirements, with limited means to coordinate the many actors needing to work together. Dispensations have been common and sanctions have been few. While an anti-discrimination act is still under consideration in Norway (Justis- og politidepartementet 2005), an action plan for universal design involves 15 of the 17 governmental departments.8 Thomas Kuhn (1996) states that a new ideal or paradigm needs to maintain much of the problem-solving capability of the old one, in addition to addressing new and as yet unsolved problems. When introduced to Norway, universal design was launched as a new paradigm, which may be correct in the way that it tries to include the needs of children, young people, women, foreigners, the disabled and the elderly in a common planning strategy instead of treating them as separate entities fighting for a focus in the planning process. Quite often there have been political trade-offs and compromises so that the goal is presented as a target that is possible to achieve. In some fields, however, the target is presented as an absolute value, as, for example, freedom. Sven Ove Hansson (2001) argues that both ways of presenting a goal can be rational, as long as it is possible to measure whether or not an action brings you closer to the goal. The decisive element is the ability to measure the degree to which the goal has been achieved by stating deadlines for reaching specific targets on the way. Using this logic, Hansson argues that Vision Zero can be a rational traffic safety goal. Following this argument, universal design seems to be a potentially rational target for society as well, with the challenge being to present secondary targets that can be reached within reasonable time limits while still moving the process forwards. Nicolai Skjerdal (2005) has made this observation when he discusses whether universal design can be a rule of law as well as an ideal. Ideological or policy-ethical goals From an ideological standpoint, the introduction of universal design may be argued as contributing to basic values such as freedom, equality, freedom of choice and equal opportunities. The Nordic welfare9 state model is based on an underlying belief that everyone is entitled to decent living conditions, based on citizenship status rather than labour market value. This includes a belief that most people in a society can agree, to a reasonable degree, on what constitutes poor and unacceptable conditions, and a general agreement on a public duty and responsibility with regard to access to, and distribution of, the good life. Integrated in the professional debate and development of universal design principles is a clarification of democracy and the principle of equality, with clear parallels to equality issues concerning gender and ethnicity. Manneråkutvalget (the committee chaired by Sigurd Manneråk) rejects as a target formal equity and equity measured in achievements (Sosial- og helsedepartementet 2001). Instead everyone, to the greatest extent possible, should have the same ability to participate in different life arenas such as education, work and leisure, without special design or treatment. The phrase ‘to the greatest extent possible’, however, opens for discussion several aspects of the ideal of equal status. Equal status may mean treatments with equivalent benefits,

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and sometimes service and products need to be diversified to provide a comparable result. The ideal of equal status includes both the process and the products. It requires holistic thinking, organizational integration and looking at physical, economic and social planning as connected parts, which Sandhu calls inclusive planning (Sandhu 1995, in Aslaksen et al. 1997). Empirical or instrumental goals Universal design also has strong instrumental implications. A principle idea behind the universal design concept is to make the mainstream product usable for all, instead of producing a range of products adapted to different user needs. The ideal behind this may be equality, but the logic is that although it may require some extra effort at first, it is economically sounder in the long run. Taking into account a wide range of user needs also provides for user-friendliness, and the criteria for user-friendly design10 are quite similar to those of universal design. At least two trends have led to a demand for instrumental goals. The ideal of normalization of a person’s environmental factors (daily schedule, occupation, resident location and standard, and so on, through all life phases), as presented by Bengt Nirje and Niels Erik Bank-Mikkelsen in the 1960s and 1970s (Askheim 2005; Grue 2006), led to a gradual integration process in the Nordic countries. Similar processes led to the dismantling of big institutions in other countries (see e.g. Jones 1993: 141–80). The deinstitutionalization trend means that people with mental and physical impairments live their daily lives in communities offered decentralized treatment, and the more elderly as well as the more fragile elderly live in their own homes. The second trend is the growth of the share of the elderly in the population. Both these trends make particular products and special transport for institutions less relevant, and increase the demand for accessible products and services everywhere. There are ambitions as well as reservations inherent in the goal of developing solutions that can be used by all, to the greatest extent possible, at little or no extra cost. Some will require compensatory measures such as wheelchairs or hearing aids, both in the short term and long term, to be able to function on as equal terms as possible with other people in society. Others will have to accept that society cannot yet implement the necessary measures, while the aim is to constantly lower the threshold through new knowledge in medicine, training, physical layout and technical equipment. The role of research and investigation Research on accessibility and the concept of universal design may have different targets. In the initial phase, one line of investigation may be to illuminate arguments for and against adopting the concept, at the ideological as well as the practical level. The next step is to identify questions and challenges regarding practical strategies and their consequences (Kristiansen et al. 1999: §3.4). Furthermore, according to Hansson (2001) and Skjerdal (2005), developing indicators or secondary targets to direct and evaluate the process is an essential instrumental task. Evaluating the actual implementation of strategies is one line of research, and evaluating the consequences for groups of people is another (Gustavson & Tøssebro 2005).

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Grue (2006) examines the responsibility that professionals and researchers have when collecting, analysing and presenting data. Readily available data often limit the range of needs and priorities, keeping some groups invisible as they fail to include or highlight data on children, the elderly and minority groups (Monheim & Frankenreiter 2000). On the other hand, without an awareness of the kinds of data collected and the way they are presented, stereotypical conceptions may easily be confirmed. Another rather difficult challenge is to ask research questions, not only at the level of the current political rhetoric, but to take a step back and contemplate whether these really are the most relevant questions. In the universal design strategy, user involvement is stressed at all stages of the planning process. According to Gibbons et al. (1994), complex problems require the generation of interdisciplinary knowledge, which can be recognized by communication between researchers of different disciplines as well as the interchange with society as a whole. This kind of research is acknowledged to have the ability to solve problems based on practical, social and political conditions and spanning several disciplines. The multidisciplinary approach and the need for communication with the public at large, point universal design in the direction of a new tradition for knowledge production (labelled ‘modus 2’ by Gibbons to distinguish it from traditional positivistic science knowledge production). The sector responsibility principle When introduced to Norway, two elements of the universal design concept were in theory already established. One is the belief in the worth of each individual, an appraisal of diversity, and the normalization of the environment rather than the person as a strategy in the welfare state, introduced in public documents as early as 1967 (St.m.88 1966–67). The other is the sector responsibility principle (or administrative normalization), meaning that each branch of the administration has the responsibility for providing services to all citizens, with no groups left out as the responsibility of other sectors (Samferdselsdepartementet 1979). Mobility, participation and integration have been official targets in transport for the disabled since the 1970s. An important policy measure has been a compensatory support scheme covering expenses for transport, car ownership and driving licence, administered by the National Insurance Administration. This scheme is in line with the medical model and not in compliance with the sector responsibility principle. In 1988, the responsibility for special transport services, also in line with the medical model, was transferred from municipalities and private organizations to the counties in charge of public bus (and boat) transport. However, this did not lead to better coordination or more accessible public transport, which might have been expected. As already pointed out, individual rights and redistribution measures have been a priority in the Norwegian welfare state, but regulatory measures have been comparatively weak (Brattström 1997). Accessible public transport has, as a slogan, gained attention from time to time, but policy measures have been scattered and often shortterm. Means and responsibilities have to correspond and the transport sector has been reluctant to take the responsibility, which the following example may illustrate.

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On his business trip between the Norwegian cities Oppdal and Trondheim, a wheelchair user was directed to a train with sleeping cars because the train compartment was not wheelchair accessible. He was then required to pay the extra fee for the two beds in the compartment, which he felt was unfair. The story gives the impression of a transport company that appears to be powerless from an organizational and financial perspective in sorting out the situation. This real case also shows how the transport supplier seems to put the responsibility on the individual customer, who actually pays more for less quality. Universal design is now one of five goals in the National Transport Plan 2006– 2015. The Norwegian government adopted the following main goals for transport policy: a safe transport system based on Vision Zero strategies, more environmentally sound urban transport and a transport system for a cleaner environment, improved traffic flow in and between regions, a more efficient transport system, and increased accessibility for all based on universal design strategies. It is possible to design physical details of the transport system that enable people with substantial orientation limitations or mobility difficulties to travel. For universal design it is essential, with a coherent planning process that starts with comprehensive long-term planning and follows all the way through to the actual detailed solutions that will provide an improved transport system for all users. In transport planning, universal design will compete with other societal goals such as effectiveness, traffic safety and sustainable development. The resources actually allocated to universal design targets depends on the level at which the balance between different goals is struck, whether national transport is viewed as a whole, or whether universal design is defined solely as an issue of pedestrian facilities and the public transport structure. Another issue due for ethical exploration is why we, consciously or not, exclude so many customers by continuing to plan and build as we do, even when information on economically reasonable and inclusive solutions is available.11 A reasonable hypothesis is that the provision of a more user-friendly transport system also provides safer travel. There is a parallel development in the professional and societal views of accidents and disability; from the accident-prone person to a system-failure model and from the tragedy because of characteristics of the individual to a relative or social model. There also seem to be possible gains in coordinating the two target areas and the interchange of methods, such as in safety audits and accessibility audits, and the education of accessibility consultants. One example of the many trade-offs needed concerns accessibility for wheelchair users on the many ferries along the Norwegian coast. The latest generation ferries are quite accessible in themselves, the problem is that the cars park tightly together in the queue when waiting and on the car deck, which does not provide the extra space needed for the wheelchair user to get out of the car. For efficiency reasons, the ferry needs to leave with the appropriate number of cars on board. So from an accessibility point of view, ferries need a system to direct cars carrying wheelchairs to suitable sites close to entrances. Some studies indicate that the municipalities have taken the challenges of crafting an inclusive strategy seriously, and are providing services in their areas of responsibility

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such as housing, care and practical help (Sandvin & Söder 1998). The effects for the individual may be discussed, but when it comes to means that are outside municipal responsibilities, as is the case for transport service, the inclusive strategy seems to be less well developed. Is the sector principle a naive strategy? Is it naive to believe that the transport sector will have sufficient information about needs and preferences, and the incentives to provide the best supply to everyone, through the human life cycle from very young children to the elderly, and for the disabled, ethnic minorities, people not acquainted with the Norwegian language and culture, and so on? The answer may be yes. But on the other hand, there may be reasonable agreement that assigning the responsibility to one single sector, for example, health and social affairs, to influence every other sector in providing a sufficient supply within its area of activities, is even more unrealistic.

Universal design from a pedestrian child’s perspective The universal design concept is to provide for everyone from a life cycle perspective: to simplify life by designing usable products and environments no matter the life stage. So why not start at the beginning and investigate the pedestrian environment from the point of view of the youngest? There are several reasons for including the concerns of children in transport planning. There is the democratic aspect of respecting children as full citizens. And from the perspectives of health and sustainability, there are reasons to provide good walking and cycling environments as well as public transport for children. It also seems reasonable to invest in the new generation in order to change future habits. For safety and orientation young children may be ‘yardsticks’; facilitating a street network that children will use and providing safe travel may add beneficial qualities for all pedestrians. Walking is one of the (most intuitive) manners of independent travel for children and therefore is essential in conquering space and in taking part in desired activities, with the consequences these experiences have for self-concept.12 When walking, children also have to relate to vehicles and technical aspects of the pedestrian environment.

Young citizens There is a democratic argument for a focus on children’s traffic environment that emphasizes their rights as citizens (Kjørholt 2004), and methods have been developed for including children in planning processes that concern land use and transport. This is in line with Sen’s agent arguments that people can and should be given the power and the necessary conditions to take their lives in their own hands (see Uteng, this volume, Ch. 8). ‘Children’s Tracks’ is a method developed to gather and present geographical data on how children report their use of outdoor space, in a way understood by actors in land-use planning (Almhjell 2002). In planning for children it is important not only

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to know where they like to stay and play, but how children like their environment to be. A European study confirms that pedestrians form a heterogeneous group, where children as well as the elderly and people with mobility problems have particular preferences and experience situations differently (Øvstedal & Ryeng 2004a). The study also points out the value of consulting children, as they are the experts on their own situation. Whether consulted by means of questionnaires, interviews or in focus groups, children express quite precise observations of the environment and present clear ideas of problems and preferences (Øvstedal and Ryeng 2004a, b). The freedom of independent travel is another aspect in planning for children’s needs. Norwegian children are allowed to stay outdoors and travel alone to a greater extent than English and German children, both in daytime and during dark hours. Still, Norwegian parents report that they put far more restrictions on their children today than the generation before them did, although they claim that their children have as good, or even better, opportunities for walking outdoors on their own (Ryeng 2002). Norwegian parents restrict their boys more than girls in every way except in being allowed to go out after dark. Land use factors and available transport modes are important for the ability of children to travel on their own, while both traffic safety and personal security, and even hurried family schedules, may be reasons for restricting children’s independent travel.

Health concerns Child obesity is a growing concern in Norway, as well as in most European countries and on other continents. The focus is on everyday physical activity as well as diet. A British study using motion sensors on children combined with travel data and activity diaries, indicates that the school trip may be far more important than previously assumed for the level of physical activity and for burning calories (Mackett et al. 2004). Walking was second only to physical education (PE) in intensity, and children walking to activities were also more active there than those who arrived by car. Over a week, walking to and from school or similar everyday walks may provide considerable exercise. There are also growing concerns in Norway about children being occupied by sedentary activities and about the increasing share of car-based travel. One study indicates a link between early childhood travel habits and motor skills (Ryeng 2002). Scores on motor skill tests were better for a group of 9–10-year-olds who used to walk to school during their first two school years as compared to those usually brought by car, the difference being significant between walkers and riders for the children who were not active in sports. This may imply that walking to school is especially important for inactive children, although it may also indicate that some children are brought by car because they are clumsy. Encouraging children to walk requires an appeal to the child, as well as convincing parents of the safety and the benefits of independent travel. Independent travel can be effectively promoted by combining physical measures with other means, such as campaigns and improvement of public transport

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services. Since the lack of safe routes to school is a key argument for bringing children by car, the study concludes that a continuous effort to provide safety is needed to give children the option of walking. Marketing travel awareness by promoting walking, cycling and public transport as alternatives to driving a car is usually more effective than highlighting one specific mode, and gives adults and children a broader set of options. Young children are generally quite enthusiastic about cycling, preferring cycling whenever possible. Having fun, being with friends, having a healthy lifestyle and gaining independence may be better arguments than environmental issues, and enthusiastic children may influence other children and adults. It is easier to alter travel behaviour when other circumstances change, such as moving to a different neighbourhood, to a new school or attending a new activity (Øvstedal 2002).

The child pedestrian Young children have been interviewed about traffic and their travels to school in several studies (Boyesen 1999; Bjelland and Klepp 2000; Lupton and Bayley 2001; Fyhri 2002). An observational survey13 carried out in the city of Trondheim, Norway was designed to learn more about children’s behaviour in traffic (Øvstedal & Ryeng 1999). Observational data describe, but do not explain, behaviour. Children seem to behave more in accordance with expectations (cross at a zebra crossing, wait for the green light, etc.) when they walk together rather than on their own. This was only partly explained by older children who walked alone, and it seemed that if one child in the group took the initiative to correct behaviour, the others would follow. Furthermore, girls seem to behave in accordance with expectations to a greater extent than boys. The difference between girls and boys might not be substantial, but these differences were detected in all aspects of behaviour and at all study sites. The analysis showed that many behavioural factors changed according to age, confirming the image of the street behaviour of the 6–7-year-olds as rule-based. However, this includes the observation that the youngest children seemed paralysed in some traffic situations when they did not know what rule to follow. Six–seven-yearolds frequently change between different areas except the driving lanes, exploring the terrain outside the walkway and making detours. They often stop before crossing, probably reflecting their stage of development in being indecisive and having difficulty in doing more than one task at a time. Children aged 8–9 seem to be the most active, changing tempo and direction often. They seem to be in an intermediate position, mainly following the rules, but sporadically showing distinctly deviating behaviour. Children 10–12 years old adjusted their behaviour to the traffic situation in the same way as adults. British studies conclude that there is a developmental shift in strategic thinking and understanding at about the age of 8–10. The ability to scan for visual information and to switch between tasks improves, but not the ability to concentrate. At the age of 11–12, pedestrian performance is similar to adults (OECD 2004; Lupton & Bayley 2001).

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Interaction between children and car drivers Car traffic as well as the street layout are important factors in the child pedestrian’s environment. Children adjust their behaviour to the traffic flow, behaving more carefully in areas with a high level of traffic and in situations where there are a number of cars present, than in areas and situations with less traffic (Øvstedal & Ryeng 1999). The observations also showed that children behave according to their own time constraints and to the present traffic situation, as do adults. Children themselves recognize that being in a hurry contributes to risky behaviour, whether it is to join friends across the road or being late for school (Lupton & Bayley 2001). Children behaved more according to norms and adult expectations when walking with grown-ups or in groups of their own age. At the same time, we found that the car drivers stop most often for children waiting in the company with adults, somewhat less often for groups of children and not so often when the child travels alone. C. Ian Howarth (1988) concludes that the responsibility for avoiding an accident is in reality put on the children. For their part, children often believed that drivers could not be relied on to stop at designated crossings, either because the child was unimportant or the driver could not see them (Lupton & Bayley 2001). Children reported listening for cars as much as looking for them. They preferred crossing the road in a group, as the drivers then were more likely to stop or wait if the light changed while crossing, as they anticipated being more visible for the driver. Generally, children’s critical view of drivers increased with age and experience. They recommended measures exerting physical control over car drivers, such as lower speed limits, road humps and separate lanes for cyclists.

Street layouts that allow children to travel on their own terms The observations show that children to a great extent use the facilities designed to help them. From a universal design perspective, these observations present a challenge for road transport system designers to develop solutions that are self-explanatory, with simple rules that the youngest children can easily understand and use, and that are at the same time beneficial for older children. Some of the findings about the difference in behaviour between a lone child and groups and between girls and boys are relevant for information measures and educational purposes, but may also have implications for street design, such as the question of making the lone pedestrian child as visible as possible to other road users. Although not explicitly indicating environmental measures, the children’s comments on group behaviour and on driver interaction definitely show that their everyday travel to school affects thoughts, feelings and actions influencing their sense of identity, and as such influences their capability in Sen’s meaning of the word (Uteng, this volume, Ch. 8). More information, regarding the effect of the street environment and design details on children’s travel and their behaviour, is needed (OECD 2004). Some implications of the observations of child pedestrians for physical design are:

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• Walkways seem to have an intrinsic value, not only from a traffic-safety point of view, but by providing children space for physical activity and travelling on their own terms. The walkways provided space for children to be together in larger groups and to run or change direction and tempo, where abrupt or unexpected behaviour is feasible without serious consequences. • Young children use zebra crossings more frequently than older children, simplifying their task of deciding where to cross. Older children seem to use a zebra crossing primarily if it represents the shortest route, or if traffic flow or speed is so high that the zebra crossing is required to make drivers stop. A raised zebra crossing brings the speed down, allowing for eye contact, and reminds the driver to be aware of pedestrians. The greatest element of risk concerning this solution seems to be children crossing away from the zebra crossing. The youngest children find signalized zebra crossings easy and uncomplicated and use the button to get a green light as intended. They pay great respect to the red light, and since young children trust the rules as absolute, it is a serious responsibility for drivers to stop for red lights. The observations indicated that zebra crossings situated near roundabouts and in only one arm of a junction represent more problematic situations for young road users.14 To sum up, zebra crossings are useful tools for the youngest children, but the street design needs to slow down traffic speed to return the responsibility for the interaction back to the adult driver. Requirements for disabled persons have been described as essential in the universal design strategy, but not sufficient for successful planning for all (Aslaksen et al. 1997). So far, Norwegian guidelines on universal design deal with disabling barriers in the environment, focusing dimensioning factors concerning motor handicaps, orientation constraints and asthma/allergy (Nørve et al. 2005). The observational data on children show that many behavioural factors change according to age, which may be relevant to nuance the user concept in universal design. Norway altered its school system in 1997, changing the age at which children start school to 6 instead of 7 years old. This brought about a renewed focus on traffic safety, and guidelines for the way to school based on the 6-year-old child were presented (Midtland 1995). These guidelines may be consulted when local authorities decide whether a child should be provided free transport because walking to school is not safe enough. It has been observed, however, that ‘not safe’ seems to be judged relative to the local traffic situation with no clear guiding principles for the 7–12-year-old age group. Public schools can be seen as the largest workplace in the country. Still, user influence on the decision process, which is a basis for universal design, is difficult in several ways: children are young and not always taken seriously, and parents are split between local schools and reacting to local authorities, while road authorities may be at the regional level. Moreover, unification of user strength is difficult not only because of the geographic split, but due to the constant turnover of children and parents. In order to facilitate universal design, seven principles with an associated explanation (presented in the Appendix to this essay) have been established. The third principle of universal design states that the design should eliminate unnecessary

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complexity, be consistent with the user’s expectations and intuition and should serve a wide range of abilities in reading, writing and language. Information needs to be arranged according to importance, providing time-related feedback during and after task performance. To be allowed to travel on their own terms, children (6–10 years old) seem to need safe space away from motorised traffic. Knowledge about this age group may be used to view the principles concerning (4) understandable information, (5) margins for mistakes and (7) space and place for access and use (see Appendix). Together with information about a wide variety of road users, findings on child behaviour seem relevant as input for guidelines and checklists for detailed street design and the pedestrian environment, city planning, the planning process and user involvement. To come up with new innovative designs and improved street facilities, however, different kinds of detailed information and observations may be required, as well as a comparison of children’s functional requirements with those of elderly and other road users.

Elderly road users The Norwegian population is expected to grow between 2002 and 2050, and predictions show a doubling in the elderly above 67 years of age, with three to six times more above 90 years of age (Statistics Norway 2002a). This means that society will have to reconsider and think anew about how most areas of life are organized. Norway has had as a political goal that the elderly should live in their homes as long as possible (Sosial- og helsedepartementet 1997; Bugge 2000). Some do move to various senior citizen housing arrangements. However, an increasing number of fragile elderly people now live in their own homes, as do most disabled people, with quite a few facing the problems of poorly adapted houses and peripheral locations (Sosial- og helsedepartementet 2000). This means that the share of the elderly in traffic will be increasing rapidly in the years to come. For the elderly, as for children, road traffic behaviour and abilities differ as compared to youths and adults, with the elderly being a much more varied group than other age groups. This is due to large individual differences concerning health, exercise, locomotion, travel habits, interests and social behaviour. On-street interviews in 16 European cities reveal that the elderly, more than other age groups, assess most aspects of the pedestrian environment as being more important for them (Øvstedal & Ryeng 2004a).15 The exceptions were air quality, noise and traffic conditions. The elderly assess some aspects of walking quite positively. They are more satisfied than others with the ease of finding the way, information about destinations and services, and the appeal of the surroundings. Finding the way is considered more important the older you are. The elderly are less satisfied with aspects of safety and security, and the feeling of security and the presence of people are more important the older you are. The elderly regard surface conditions, openness/narrowness of surroundings, places to sit and the meeting of basic requirements as more important than other

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age groups, and they are less satisfied than others with the meeting of basic requirements.16 The older you are the lower is the feeling of comfort, while comfort is regarded as more important the older you get. There is a tendency for an increasing share of the elderly to have a driving licence. The effect of aging on traffic safety has been less than might be expected, because the elderly gain from long experience and often compensate for problems. They compensate at the strategic level by avoiding rush hours and dark hours or by limiting their trips in unfamiliar or complex environments (Stene 1993). Elderly drivers also compensate at the tactical level by adjusting speed and increasing the distance to the vehicle in front, and at the operational level by the way they accelerate when changing lanes and by adjusting their position at crossroads. Increased accident risk seems to appear earlier for women than men, which Fridulv Sagberg and Alf Glad (1999) assume to be correlated with less driver experience among women. This means that many of the elderly limit their driving to compensate for reduced abilities, and some have to give up driving for medical reasons. At the same time most of the elderly experience being increasingly dependent on flexible transport. While two in three in the age group 67–79 years old have a car at their disposal, the share is only one in four for elderly above 80 years. Although slightly improving, public transport is poorly adapted for the disabled, and the elderly experience more injuries than other public transport travellers (Albertsson & Falkmer 2005). Many elderly residents depend on taxis, adapted vehicles or transport services for disabled (Solvoll et al. 2001).

Aging and problems of orientation While young people undertake several tasks at a time, the elderly tend to have a more serial task pattern (Hakamies-Blomkvist et al. 1999), concentrating on one task at a time. Normal aging causes alterations in different physical and higher mental functions, such as vision impairment, restricted mobility in the neck and a slowing of mental processes (Hakamies-Blomkvist et al. 2001). Bernhoft et al. (2003) sum up some physical and psychological age-related changes. Physical changes are: (i) vision deteriorates as, for example, long-sightedness develops and night vision diminishes; (ii) hearing becomes poorer, which is important for pedestrians and cyclists who base their orientation to a great extent on sound; (iii) reaction time increases; (iv) the elderly tire more easily; and (v) their movements are less flexible. Changes in the psychological area are: (i) one becomes less flexible and it is increasingly difficult to adapt to and understand new situations; (ii) orientation takes longer as more time is needed to apprehend and interpret the information available and to decide what to do; (iii) it becomes more difficult to handle complex situations, because it is increasingly difficult to do several tasks at a time; and (iv) learning something new takes more time. It is essential to be aware that some diseases reinforce these problems. Also, the elderly find it difficult to carry out tasks under time pressure.

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One of the effects of aging is the need for more light to see well. The 40-year-old needs four times more light and the 60-year-old needs nine times as much light as a 20-year-old. Another effect is an increased spreading of light in the eye, which results in reduced vision caused by glare (NorEnergi 1989). Moreover, the maximum size of the pupil is 12 times larger when you are 20 as to when you are 85 years old (Olson 1993), which accordingly reduces the ability to adjust to the dark. Signs and information need adapted lighting, large letters and good contrast. The elderly need more light to see contrast and pick out a figure from a background, and more time to adjust between dark and light. All of this may mean that the elderly avoid driving or limit their driving when dark. But it might also mean that they limit other trips in the dark, on foot and by public transport.

Aging, health, physical activity and the environment Many of the elderly have diseases that lead to reduced physical abilities. At least every second elderly individual states that diseases influence everyday life (Leknes 2004), and combinations of several chronic diseases are common. Problems concerning walking, balance and endurance are frequent. Some surveys show that 39 per cent of women and 28 per cent of men have great difficulties walking on stairs or walking a short trip of about 200 metres (Birkeland et al. 1999, Daatland & Solem 2000). Also, normal aging may lead to a dependency on remedies such as walking frames and wheelchairs, outdoors as well as indoors. The European pedestrian interviews (Øvstedal & Ryeng 2004a) revealed that people who say they have a mobility problem rank all aspects of security lower than people without problems. They especially feel less confident alone when it is dark and less confident in getting help, and people with major problems rank these aspects lower than people with minor problems. At the same time a feeling of security is most important for persons with major problems. People with mobility problems also feel less protected against the weather. While the importance of the availability of toilet facilities, drinking water and other facilities for bodily needs seems to be similar for all groups, satisfaction decreases with increasing mobility problems. People with major mobility problems rank most aspects lower but regard most aspects except air quality as more important than other groups; additionally the feeling of comfort is ranked lower but important. There is a clear correlation between physical activity and health. Physical inactivity is now looked on as a risk factor comparable to smoking (Norwegian Safety Forum 2003). Through physical activity it is possible to reduce the incidence of both serious and less serious diseases. A positive trend, then, is that although the population in general exercises less, the elderly are more active than before. Many of the elderly think it is important to keep fit and nearly three in five 67–79-year-olds exercise in some way at least once every week (Statistics Norway 2002b). All functional qualities can be improved through exercise, which is also true for the elderly. The Norwegian Safety Forum (2003) reports that training resulted in the elderly increasing their

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spontaneous physical activity, and that they achieved an increase in walking speed, an improved ability to climb stairs and a reduction in the need for a cane. Some of the elderly keep up a high activity level in spite of reduced physical capabilities. Those with major handicaps will, however, participate in fewer of the activities desirable for maintaining good health (Lilja 2000, in Leknes 2004). The fear of falling and concerns about being assaulted may lead to other limitations (Birkeland et al. 1999). The fear may be genuine, as falling accidents among the elderly are a serious health concern both for the individual and for society as a whole (Norwegian Safety Forum 2003). Every year, one in three elderly people of 65 years or older and living at home has a falling accident. Twenty per cent of fall victims need medical treatment, and half of these cases involve broken bones.17 Moreover, a fall that causes an upper femur fraction is a disabling injury affecting physical condition, mental health, social situation and level of activity. Quite often, factors in the built environment such as thresholds, steps and gradients, as well as the use of colours and lighting, affect the risk of falling. In this context the physical environment has a great importance in shaping training and physical activity, potentially preventing and reducing disabilities. The opportunities for outdoor exercise depend on the local environment and the season. For some it is difficult to walk outdoors in cold weather or in strong wind, and for some diseases the climate influences the condition. Since many elderly people have limitations in accessibility to private cars, public transport and particular transport services, physical accessibility to destinations in the local environment is of utmost importance. When this accessibility is perceived to be a problem, it contributes to the elderly feeling dependent, as well as feeling at risk when carrying out some activities. The elderly then find their freedom limited and experience a shift of roles.

Limitations and possible countermeasures While there has been research on elderly drivers, there is less information about elderly pedestrians and cyclists (Bernhoft et al. 2003). Several mobility limitations have been detected among elderly people (Leknes 2004). Quite a few of the elderly, and especially those with a motor handicap, are afraid of falling and minimize their outdoor activities when the pavement is slippery. Many elderly people also limit their trips when it is dark and, as an example, they prefer to transfer from one bus to another at a railway station or a similar place where they expect several people to be present. Some carry a mobile phone and/or a personal alarm in order to feel safer if they should feel indisposed or in case of an assault. Shopping is often quite difficult, requiring the ability to carry things and quite often accessibility to a means of transport. Inaccessible shops are another constraint, as well as shopping being a demanding task when it comes to vision. Physical capacities may vary quite a lot from day to day so that trips and other activities cannot be planned, but must be carried out when the possibility is there. Some can walk only short distances without rest, being dependent on the presence

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of benches, car parks close to the entrance and so on. Others need to have bathroom facilities in close proximity. While stairs are a hindrance for some, others deliberately use stairs to maintain their physical abilities, strength and skills. Some are reluctant to be seen using an outdoor wheelchair. An electric wheelchair can climb no more than 2.5 cm, making kerbstones difficult to surmount. Also, it may be too slippery for outdoor electric wheelchairs when there is rain, snow or ice. The functional level for the elderly who depend on walking frames varies with respect to how far they can walk, their balance, the strength of their arms and the ability to lift the walking frame, for example to get back up on the pavement after having crossed a street. Some elderly people who use walking frames and crutches can climb higher thresholds than 2.5 cm. If the pavement inclines towards the carriageway, it is difficult to walk with a walking frame. Heated pavements are favourable. To reduce the risk of falling, some walking frame users avoid going out when the wind is strong or the pavement is slippery. It is usually not possible to bring the walking frame on the bus. Some users can, however, go by bus by using crutches. But crutches make it impossible to bring bags or hand baggage. Principally there are two kinds of measures to make the street environment better for the elderly (Sagberg & Glad 1999). The first is to improve visibility by improving signing, colour and luminance of street lighting adapted to the elderly, as well as the marking of streets, the precise and visible marking of street crossings, with good visibility on both sides, as well as signalized crossings and longer green times. These concern the universal design principles of (4) perceptible information, (5) tolerance for errors and (6) low physical effort. Simplifying the information gathering process is another set of measures. The implementation of smooth surfaces and expanded sidewalks and safety islands to shorten crossings correspond to the universal design principles (3) simple and intuitive, and (5) tolerance for errors. Findings indicate that elderly cyclists choose routes where there are bicycle paths. A well-planned bicycle network therefore affects safety, mobility and the use of bicycles for transport. More information is needed about the correlation between physical solutions and behaviour. Although the elderly are a diverse group, it is interesting to note that some of the familiar effects of aging lead to similar behavioural problems in traffic as are experienced by young children, suggesting that related sets of measures can be used. As is true with young children, the elderly may have difficulty doing more tasks at one time and need simple and clear information about their surroundings.

Keep on walking, step by step: towards an inclusive mobility policy? Norwegian official documents state that universal design should be the basis for new infrastructure and transport alternatives (Samferdselsdepartementet 2002: §4.2; 2004). This is in line with European and international trends, and failing to face the challenge of universal design will leave Norway behind with regard to mobility and

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tourism. Universal design might provide society with new understandings and new concepts, although detours are likely. The concept was officially introduced in Norway in 1997. It has become an integrated part of political rhetoric, and the time has come when more is expected to be done. It seems useful, then, to examine how this can be implemented, rather than to conduct research to illuminate the pros and cons. Tactile paving for the visually impaired may serve as a practical example. Facing practical situations, two of the most commonly asked questions are: who is everyone; and when is it good enough? Reflecting on these two questions may also serve to sum up some urgent challenges of inclusive mobility.

A tactile paving surface to guide visually impaired pedestrians To provide a good pedestrian environment, the requirements of visually impaired persons need to be met, representing a dimensional group. The effort to provide better street guidelines and tactile paving surfaces to direct their travel may illustrate the challenge of selecting user criteria. Tactile paving surface indicators are defined as profiled paving finishes used to convey information to visually impaired pedestrians about hazards and amenities (European Committee for Standardization 2004). They are needed when other cues for orientation are missing from the street environment. Such cues can be variations in the surface owing to grass, tiles, cobblestones and so on along a walkway, as well as kerbstones, hedges, fences and rows of buildings along the pedestrian path. There are some basic requirements that need to be met for paving to function as a tactile indicator for blind and visually impaired individuals. The indicator is detectable when the contrast between the indicator and the surrounding area is sufficient to distinguish where the tactile paving indicator is located, and where it starts and stops. If different surfaces are used to indicate different meanings – for example, one for directional guidance and another for hazard warnings – it is necessary to be able to both detect them and to discriminate between them. Furthermore, it is necessary for the user to know the meaning of each surface. This is why tactile paving indicators need to be designed with a consistent symbolic language so that they carry the same meaning wherever they are found. To ensure that the indicator can be detected and identified, it is necessary to establish visual (Jansson 2003), tactile and audible contrasts, as people use a wide variety of senses and techniques for orientation and finding their way. Tactile paving indicators may facilitate information about the environment in correspondence with the universal design principles (3) simple and intuitive, (4) perceptible information and (5) tolerance for errors. With a consistent symbolic language they will be essential cues for blind and visually impaired persons, as well as assisting the orientation of all pedestrians. Tactile paving surfaces have been applied in Japan for generations, with some experience in European nations and other continents as well. Still, there appears to be limited precise information and agreement on best practices (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions 1998; National Institute of Technology and Evaluation 1998, 2000; Bentzen et al. 2000; Japanese Industrial Standard 2001;

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Øvstedal & Lindland 2002, 2005; US Department of Transportation 2002; Almén & Wemme 2002; Ståhl et al. 2004). Visually impaired people have different requirements and preferences, as for any other ‘group’ of pedestrians. Some divergence may be due to different equipment and mobility training18 between countries, resulting in different techniques. As a blind person, your ability to orient yourself may depend on whether you were born blind or have acquired blindness, whether you have other impairments, whether you walk with a dog or a white cane, the mobility training you have, and who you are as a person. For tactile contrast, it is generally agreed to be important that the indicator be optimally detectable both under foot and by using a white cane, but tests are not always conducted in a way that investigates both features. The composition of causes for visual impairment may also vary between nations, generating a variety of vision problems with consequences for orientation and views on what makes a good environment for the visually impaired. Belsnes (2002, 2003) presents the consequences for perception for the ten most common eye diseases in Norway. She concludes that visual impairments present a set of common planning requirements, with the exception of lighting where requirements differ significantly. While almost any light causes problems for some individuals, others benefit the more light that is provided. Different practices concerning street design and maintenance, combined with a limited group of pedestrians with visual impairments with a range of different problems and requirements, seem to make it difficult to agree on test group selection and methods as well as standardized solutions.

Who is everyone? Assume that a new neighbourhood is being planned. Who should be able to walk there and where should they be able to walk to? We have pointed out that children may have their own needs and preferences. Where should these requirements count? On their way to school, wherever children are expected to walk on their own,19 or everywhere? Who is to represent their performance specifications? Planners and actors in the planning process have all experienced being a child, and many have the experience of being a parent. In Norwegian municipalities, one employee is appointed as a representative for children in the planning committee. Children may also have advocates in their parents, although parents may have problems in uniting because they are geographically dispersed and as a group are subject to constant turnover. However, parents and other grown-ups often provide their point of view, influenced by their preferences and responsibilities. It is also possible to bring the child’s perspective into the planning process by employing data collection methods where children are involved, or having children take part in the planning process. It is important to keep in mind that the elderly have quite different interests and needs both among themselves as a group and from other groups, such as children. The elderly do not have such active advocates, since planners and other actors have less personal experience with the elderly. Sufficient attention and competence regarding pedestrian facilities may be a challenge in itself in a planning process. And, as we have

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seen, an understanding of the needs of children and the elderly may nuance planners’ image of the ‘average’ person. And while diagnoses are instruments to provide treatment and technical equipment for those who benefit from it, from a physical environment perspective impairments and disabilities may present a continuum with no sharp lines between limited versus significant problems. In a universal design strategy the diverse conditions of the population are reflected in the planning process and in the public space as organizational outcomes and physical products. All requirements need to be considered on an equal basis, which demands methods that can accommodate a great number of requests. Additionally, any omissions should be deliberate and the reasons should be explained. This facilitates different approaches: • the development of requirement specifications based on existing function analyses, norms and standards for specific groups of disabled and others (dimensioning groups); • the development of new function analyses based on a wide and representative sample of what the population can manage, including a margin of safety; • the development of strategies to establish the best environmental conditions to cover the extremes of each function; for example vision, hearing, feeling, tactile sense, sense of smelling, recognition, understanding and locomotion – one approach under this scenario is to consider the weakest user for each element.20

What is good enough and when can a solution be considered universal design? The building and construction sector, including contractors and architects, expect clear requirements and fixed values (Øvstedal & Høyland 2005). Norway as a nation has not yet reached that stage of development, at least when it comes to taking into account the needs of all road users. We can nevertheless make a great deal of progress with the use of existing expertise and current guidelines concerning disabilities. One aspect that is often pointed out by organizations for disabled persons, however, is that existing guidelines generally present minimum requirements, while they are interpreted by the practitioners as being maximum requirements. Another key element is pointed out in the definition of universal design: ‘more usable by as many people as possible, to the greatest extent possible … at little or no extra cost’. I interpret this as a challenge to all professionals to constantly reach for the best product or composition of products at any given moment, given the existing understanding of human diversity and of products and methods. Nørve et al. (2005) point out the importance of a sufficiently inclusive initial analysis, considering all groups who are not covered by today’s norms. To enable planners and designers to conduct this kind of analysis, the universal strategy provides advice on the process, challenging planners to involve users in all planning, selection criteria and evaluation, an approach that will facilitate a constant input of experience. To allow continual progress, requirements have

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to be set as functional requirements and not as fixed values, which is in line with the general trend of standards and specifications, or a standardized process as opposed to a product. The Standardisation Organisation in Norway has universal design as one of their near-term goals, and transport has been identified as one of their priorities (Standard Norge 2004). Internal revision of corresponding tools at the Public Roads Administration and the Railway Administration will be needed as well. A universal design approach may also have implications for the education of street designers and transport engineers. The aim is to develop the quality of the transport system in interaction with the public and a range of scientific experts. One of the challenges for universal design as an instrumental target is to identify secondary targets that can be reached within reasonable time limits. A first step in this process has been taken by the Ministry of Transport and Communications in 2006, which initiated the identification of accessibility indicators for public transport. Targets may be at different levels. The basic level is to make a trip from one place to another accessible, another to make it possible for people to take part in and to use the area and equipment at the destination in the intended manner. Even more ambitious is the aim to create an environment where people feel welcomed and invited to take part in activities, perhaps even as a spontaneous wish rather than as a daily routine or a dreary task. It is hoped that we are beyond the stage where each implemented measure is followed by the question of how many more travellers it accommodates. The process needs to focus on identifying barriers (and reducing them) rather than on counting and classifying groups of travellers. Reducing one or some barriers may not make the entire door-to-door trip accessible. Moreover, the public tends to gradually adjust to transport improvements over time; for example, the full effect of cheaper air travel tickets is not felt in the first months after the price decrease but the effect builds gradually over the years. While the physical environment is an important part of the street environment and the transport system, people also encounter financial barriers, time constraints and barriers at the psychological and sociological level as well as organizational and other practical difficulties.

Concluding remarks If the ambition is an inclusive society in which citizens can participate fully and enjoy equal opportunities, it is necessary to set precise and realistic targets in all sectors of society. Realizing this goal will also require the development and application of a broad set of tools, such as education, laws and guidelines, standardization of products and processes, economic incentives, user participation and evaluation. The considerations of requirements that accommodate disabled people are essential in a universal design strategy, but not sufficient for successful planning for all. There is a challenge in broadening the perspective of planners and designers to take into account people different from themselves. These are relevant challenges for the transportation sector and for the pedestrian environment, in that both are quite decisive in the ability of

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people to participate in activities of their own choice. Even a consideration of the stages of life from childhood to old age can nuance the user concept in universal design, and the expected increase in the number of elderly people in the population as a whole makes this essential. Citizen rights and quality of life issues, including health perspectives, argue for facilitating user participation and evaluation in planning for all. There are also economic arguments supporting the use of universal design to reduce the need for special products and services. Identifying and reducing physical barriers provides two important functions, however: making travel easier and more convenient, and making travellers feel welcome and a part of society. When an organization for the blind investigated a new path with guidance paving in Kristiansand, they were especially satisfied with the choice of a continuous path from the public transport exchange points to the main shopping area. Apart from being a practical remedy, it also illustrates to everyone the needs of visually impaired people in city street design. Universal design has been presented in Norway as a shift of paradigms. Even though the reservation ‘as far as possible, for as many as possible’ is already incorporated in universal design by definition, critics say it is impossible to make society accessible and usable. Current concepts for universal design are not likely to be the ultimate answer, and we may have to ‘risk’ learning from both successes and failures. In the end, our efforts might result in a new paradigm, but not unless we try.

Notes 1. In design and architecture ‘usability’ denotes a user-focused design concept. 2. A broader definition is presented by Sager (this volume, Ch. 2). 3. According to Josephsson (2005), Iwama (2003) indicates that the relations between ‘doing, being and becoming’, as pointed out by Wilcock (1998) belong to a Western perspective and are not so apparent in Japanese culture. 4. Freedom, mobility and the right to mobility are further explored in Sager (this volume, Ch. 10). 5. Some aspects of mobility differences between native Norwegians and immigrants are presented in Uteng (this volume, Ch. 8). 6. Twenty-three per cent of the Norwegian population was younger than 18 years on 1 January 2005 (Statistics Norway/ Statistisk Sentralbyrå). 7. A relative (and relational) model is also apparent in the WHO International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, ICF, although the medical basis is evident (WHO 2001). 8. www.universell-utforming.miljo.no (accessed Jan. 2008). 9. Kristiansen et al. (1999) point out that the term ‘welfare’ has positive connotations in the Nordic countries, and can be interpreted as ‘travelling well and safely through the journey of life’. 10. User-friendly design: (i) is easy to learn; (ii) is easy to use; (iii) is easy to remember; (iv) is efficient, in that the user’s problem is solved in a timesaving or otherwise practical way; (v) is failsafe; (vi) is safe, without risk; (vii) gives subjective satisfaction, in that the user likes the solution; and (viii) requires little physical and mental effort (Langmyhr et al. 1999). The principles of universal design are presented above (p. XXX) and in the Appendix to this essay. 11. A quite common assumption is that universal design is expensive; another frequent argument is that the extra costs can be limited if the design is included from the start of the planning process. A study in 2004 by the Institut für Hochbautechnik in Zürich (Institut für Bauforschung 2004) concludes that ‘barrier-free’ construction increases the total building costs by 1.8 per cent. The average increase was

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3.5 per cent for projects of less than 2 million Swiss francs (≈ Euro 1.28 million, NOK 10 million) and 0.5 per cent for projects costing 5 million Swiss francs (≈ Euro 3 million, NOK 25 million) or more, the share declining with the size of the project. For retrofitting and construction adjustments the share is larger, at about 3.5 per cent. 12. Øvergård et al. (this volume, Ch. 5) explore the relation between movement and perception as a basis for exploring the environment. Sigmundsson explores the significance of children’s physical activity and development of motor skills for self-esteem and other psychological and social aspects; see, for example, Haga and Sigmundsson (2005). 13. To establish the set of behavioural parameters that we observed in this study, we investigated the literature regarding the kinds of behavioural parameters that could reasonably be expected to influence pedestrian safety and how child behaviour may differ from that of adults. Descriptive statistics were the main tool used to analyse the observational data and present findings. Fourteen sites near schools represented different physical measures and traffic situations in the inner and outer city areas and suburban areas on the outskirts of the city. A total of 2,830 pedestrians and cyclists were recorded on video, including 1,876 children aged 6–12. Sixty per cent of the children were observed when crossing the street, and 40 per cent when walking along the road, most of them being pedestrians (92 per cent), while 150 children were cyclists. For more details and a comprehensive presentation of results, readers are directed to the report and papers (Øvstedal and Ryeng 1999, 2000). One should be aware of the limitations of interpretation when only data that are observable are collected. The behaviour is related to actual situations, and it might be that different sites, weather conditions and traffic situations would give other results. The observers estimated the age of each child and in some cases also the gender, and to some extent both behaviour and traffic situation data will be influenced by the observers’ interpretations. The results do not explain the behaviour, but some findings from other studies are presented to broaden the picture. 14. At roundabouts it is difficult for the youngest pedestrians to interpret the traffic situation and to judge whether it will be safe to cross. In intersections with a zebra crossing on only one arm of the junction, the share of pedestrians actually crossing at the zebra crossing varies from one location to another. The 6- and 7-year-old children, however, generally use the zebra crossing in situations where few others do. In these situations the young children may feel safe, while drivers may not expect them to be there. 15. The respondents were asked to assess as pedestrians the different aspects of the environment at the time and the place of the interview, and to indicate how important each of these aspects was for them. To evaluate the differences in responses due to age, respondents were divided into three groups; young people aged 12–29 (42 per cent), adults aged 30–59 (35 per cent) and the elderly aged 60–90 (24 per cent). Many of the elderly interviewed were going for a walk; they walked alone and were frequently in the neighbourhood of the interview site. 16. Basic requirements for pedestrians, here, refer to access to drinking water, food and toilet facilities, and so on. 17. The bodily power of resistance depends on the condition of the skeleton; that is the structure of the bone. Many factors affect the development of osteoporosis, among them physical activity, consumption of calcium, genetics and gender. 18. A certain understanding of the three-dimensional room was expected to be required in order to profit from mobility training. Experience reveals that it is possible to acquire mobility and orientation skills also by doing; by repeatedly moving through a designated path for mobility training, and arriving at an understanding of the three-dimensional room on this basis (Elmerskog et al. 1993). Øvergård et al. (this volume, Ch. 5) discuss the relation between action and perception in exploring the environment. 19. The places where children are allowed to walk on their own, and at what age, are determined by culture as well as by distances and the traffic situation. 20. Vanderheiden (2000, in Vavik 2004) gives the following examples of design requirements. The design must enable people to handle or operate the product in the following categories: (i) without vision: the demands of blind persons, for vision occupied by something else, and vision that is limited by the dark; (ii) with reduced vision: the demands of visually impaired persons and for the visual challenges of reading information written in small type, or reading in the dark; (iii) without hearing: the demands

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of deaf persons, and where hearing is challenged by noisy or by silent environments; (iv) with reduced hearing: the demands of people with reduced hearing and in noisy environments; (v) with reduced handiness: the demands of people with reduced freedom of movement in hands and fingers, or of people with gloves or similar hand coverings, or in bumpy vehicles; (vi) with reduced cognition: the demands of people with reduced comprehension, drunk people or people who are distracted or panicking; (vii) without reading abilities: for people with reduced text comprehension, people who cannot read or do not know the language, and when glasses are left at home.

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Appendix: Universal design principles Design principles that facilitate the design of products and environments to be usable by all individuals to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design. Principles and definitions can apply as functional requirements, while the guidelines may be used as a checklist and a basis for specifications. These Principles of Universal Design address only universally usable design, while the practice of design involves more than the consideration of usability. Designers must also incorporate other considerations such as economic, engineering, cultural, gender, and environmental concerns in their design processes. The Principles of Universal Design offer designers guidance for better integrating features that meet the needs of as many users as possible. All guidelines may not be relevant to all designs. 1. EQUITABLE USE The design is useful and marketable to people with diverse abilities. Guidelines: • Provide the same means of use for all users: identical whenever possible; equivalent when not. • Avoid segregating or stigmatizing any users. • Provisions for privacy, security, and safety should be equally available to all users. • Make the design appealing to all users. 2. FLEXIBILITY IN USE The design accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and abilities. Guidelines: • Provide choice in methods of use. • Accommodate right- or left-handed access and use. • Facilitate the user’s accuracy and precision. • Provide adaptability to the user’s pace. 3. SIMPLE AND INTUITIVE Use of the design is easy to understand, regardless of the user’s experience, knowledge, language skills, or current concentration level. Guidelines: • Eliminate unnecessary complexity. • Be consistent with user expectations and intuition. • Accommodate a wide range of literacy and language skills. • Arrange information consistent with its importance. • Provide effective prompting and feedback during and after task completion. 4. PERCEPTIBLE INFORMATION The design communicates necessary information effectively to the user, regardless of ambient conditions or the user’s sensory abilities.

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Guidelines: • Use different modes (pictorial, verbal, tactile) for redundant presentation of essential information. • Provide adequate contrast between essential information and its surroundings. • Maximize ‘legibility’ of essential information. • Differentiate elements in ways that can be described (i.e., make it easy to give instructions or directions). • Provide compatibility with a variety of techniques or devices used by people with sensory limitations. 5. TOLERANCE FOR ERROR The design minimizes hazards and the adverse consequences of accidental or unintended actions. Guidelines: • Arrange elements to minimize hazards and errors: most used elements, most accessible; hazardous elements eliminated, isolated, or shielded. • Provide warnings of hazards and errors. • Provide fail safe features. • Discourage unconscious action in tasks that require vigilance. 6. LOW PHYSICAL EFFORT The design can be used efficiently and comfortably and with a minimum of fatigue. Guidelines: • Allow user to maintain a neutral body position. • Use reasonable operating forces. • Minimize repetitive actions. • Minimize sustained physical effort 7. SIZE AND SPACE FOR APPROACH AND USE Appropriate size and space is provided for approach, reach, manipulation, and use regardless of user’s body size, posture, or mobility. Guidelines: • Provide a clear line of sight to important elements for any seated or standing user. • Make reach to all components comfortable for any seated or standing user. • Accommodate variations in hand and grip size. • Provide adequate space for the use of assistive devices or personal assistance.

© Copyright 1997 NC State University, The Center for Universal Design. Version 2.0 4/1/97. Compiled by advocates of universal design, listed in alphabetical order: Bettye Rose Connell, Mike Jones, Ron Mace, Jim Mueller, Abir Mullick, Elaine Ostroff, Jon Sanford, Ed Steinfeld, Molly Story, & Gregg Vanderheiden. www.design.ncsu.edu/cud

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10 Freedom as mobility: implications of the distinction between actual and potential travelling Tore Sager

Modern conceptions of the self … have profoundly been about the mattering of mobility – of freedoms conceived in terms of a complicated conjunction of social and physical bodies in space and in motion. (Hay & Packer 2004: 212–13)

Introduction This essay defines mobility as the potential transport of humans and explores the mobility aspect of freedom. Freedom as mobility is composed both of opportunities to travel when and where one pleases and of the feasibility of the choice not to travel. The essay further analyses the implications of distinguishing between actual and potential travel for the idea of freedom as mobility. It is also shown how mobility as a right is challenged by a central feature of democracy, namely, respect for unanimity, and how tracks left by travellers can be exploited for surveillance and control. Moreover, mobility leads to a potential absence and thus uncertainty. The paper evaluates how alternative responses to this problem have widely different consequences for the experience of freedom as mobility. The links between mobility, freedom and rights have long been recognized and are well established. The first paragraph of Article 13 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 declares that ‘everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state’. The idea of mobility as a right is consistently found in important policy documents, such as the policy guidelines of the EU’s White Paper on European transport policy, which state: ‘Personal mobility, which increased from 17 km a day in 1970 to 35 km in 1998, is now more

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or less seen as an acquired right’ (European Commission 2001: 11). The connection between freedom and mobility is easily seen, as high mobility implies many opportunities to travel, which in turn is a prerequisite for self-decision regarding what activities to participate in (Houseman 1979). The purpose of this essay is to analyse and problematize the relationship between mobility and freedom. The association between the libertarian idea of freedom as selfdetermination and mobility as potential transport is examined. Self-determination is here the right or opportunity of individuals to make choices so as to be in charge of their own fates. The notions of freedom and mobility are both complex, and only a few tensions and dilemmas, mostly related to the distinction between actual and potential travelling, are discussed here. Are there implications of excessive movement that make it problematic to see freedom as mobility? Enormous sums of money are spent on the improvement of mobility. The budgets are backed by a political rhetoric giving prominence to efficiency gains and the value of free movement. Yet travellers may curtail each others’ freedom by causing mutual delays, by letting the hegemony of auto-mobility erode the feasibility of low-mobility lifestyles, and by control and intrusive protection devices. It is important to impart nuances to the mainstream political rhetoric by discussing and problematizing the idea of promoting freedom by heightening the level of personal mobility (Sheller 2006). The aim is to increase awareness of the fact that attempts to achieve freedom by more mobility should take into account some consequences of excessive travel that tend to have the opposite effect of what is intended. This essay pursues this aim by arguing that: (i) the advantages meant to follow from higher mobility are not necessarily realized with rapidly increasing transport; (ii) mobility rights, like other rights, have to be balanced against democratic aims and are problematic in principle; (iii) tracks left by people on the move are open for surveillance, which counters the freedom gained from being mobile, and (iv) uncertainties created by absence are often countered by strategies seriously impeding the freedom associated with the mobility causing the absence. The following sections on ‘mobility’ and ‘freedom’ give some definitions and important categorizations.

Mobility Leaving out the sociological meanings of social mobility and residential mobility, the notion of mobility is still wide-ranging. Mobility is defined as the ease of movement, and can refer to the movement of individuals, goods, capital and information in the form of text, other signs or images. However, this essay deals with mobility of people in geographical space. The main definitional question is then whether mobility should be seen as potential or revealed action; that is, opportunities for travel or the trips actually taken. Mobility is here conceptualized as potential transport and seen as the capacity of an individual to overcome physical distance (Sager, this volume, Ch. 2). Potential travel is denoted ‘motility’ by Vincent Kaufmann (2002: 1, 43), who also prefers ‘observable travel’ to the term ‘revealed travel’ (ibid.: 43). People might

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have preferences for potential transport considerably beyond the trips they actually demand. Kaufmann points out that a high level of potential transport might be regarded as a sort of insurance. It gives the security of not being caught unaware and sedentary when something unanticipated happens (ibid.: 72). It is unlikely that high mobility in a population can be upheld unless revealed transport is also at a high level. Transport supply is costly and will be cut back if it is not demonstrably appreciated. However, too high a demand can also cause problems. The demand for trips might exceed infrastructure capacity, so that travellers delay each other or exclude others from travelling. Demand that is higher than the capacity thus reduces mobility. The crux of the matter is that a sufficient share of the population in the catchment area of each supplied mode of travel actually has to use the mode in order to maintain high mobility for everybody, but the market still has to be cleared within capacity constraints. Mobility is thus closely related to potential and actual movement, where the movement must occur in or refer to some kind of space.1 No matter what type of space is imagined, mobility is created by overcoming friction measured as physical distance, costs or other variables indicating inertia or resistance. The defeat of friction might be associated with more freedom in the sense of an expanded set of available opportunities, as friction is seen as a constraint that is relaxed. A higher level of mobility might correspond to a higher level of the aspect of freedom peculiar to the type of space in question.

Freedom In line with the stated purpose of the essay, the following paragraphs deal with the libertarian concept of freedom, meaning that republican and idealist ideas are ignored (Miller 2006: 2–4). While the scholarly literature on freedom is immense, the aim of this section is simply to introduce two related distinctions, namely, negative and positive freedom and the opportunity aspect and process aspect of freedom. These dichotomies help to understand and characterize the aspects of freedom analysed in ensuing sections, namely: • • • •

autonomy (resistance, the forced-to-be-free problem); freedom as having opportunities and choice (the freedom not to travel); rights (social exclusion); surveillance (control, disciplining).

Selecting a few freedom-related notions to shed light on the phenomenon of mobility is warranted, as ‘freedom has many distinct aspects, and there is little prospect of obtaining one real-valued index of freedom that will capture all the aspects adequately’ (Sen 2002a: 506). A main analytic distinction is made between negative freedom and positive freedom (Berlin 1969; Silier 2005). There is negative freedom when people are obeying

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non-interference constraints, suggesting that the individual enjoys protection from encroachment. The negative view of freedom focuses on the absence of restraints that one person may exercise over another, or the state may exercise over individuals. This facet of freedom is linked to freedom of choice and also to rights, in that people should not be prevented by others from doing what they have a right to do. Elizabeth Pritchard (2000: 49–50) cites Thomas Hobbes to show that the reflexivity of freedom and mobility has long been associated with the idea of negative freedom: ‘Liberty, that we may define it, is nothing else but an absence of the lets and hindrances of motion … (E)very man hath more or less liberty, as he hath more or less space in which he employs himself … (T)he more ways a man may move himself, the more liberty he hath’ (Hobbes 1949: 109–10). Positive freedom, on the other hand, is not freedom from, but rather freedom to. It refers to the power a person has to realize a desired state of affairs, concentrating on what she can choose to do or achieve. In economics, positive freedom is often measured as the set of alternative commodity bundles over which a person can establish command. However, it is doubtful that command over commodities gives the best indication of freedom, as commodities (and primary goods) are means to ends. If the positive conception of freedom is to reflect a person’s ability to achieve intrinsically valuable capabilities and wellbeing, then there is a case for viewing this freedom in terms of alternative bundles of ‘functionings’ that a person may be able to achieve (for example, being well nourished, being able to appear in public without shame, being able to move about in geographical space). Accordingly, Amartya Sen (1999) has developed a ‘capability approach’ to positive freedom, where the possibility to choose between alternative sets of capabilities to do this or be that reflects a person’s advantage, his or her capability to function. Sen (2002a) distinguishes the opportunity aspect from the process aspect of freedom. The first aspect concerns our more or less unconstrained pursuit of substantive opportunities, our actual capability to achieve our objectives, to accomplish things that we have reason to value. Constraints weakening negative freedom can eliminate substantive opportunities. The opportunity aspect is nevertheless related to the positive view of freedom and to the libertarian theory of freedom as having choice alternatives. The valuing of opportunities corresponds with the desire for mobility in the sense of potential transport. The process aspect of freedom is about having the levers of control in one’s own hands. It concerns the procedures, rules, conventions and so forth guiding and controlling our lives. The crucial issue is ‘whether the choices are being made by the person herself – not (on her behalf) by other individuals or institutions’ (ibid.: 508). Hence, the process aspect of freedom is associated with the autonomy of decision (self-determination) and with immunity from interference by others, with the first feature depending on the second. The libertarian conception of rights, as outlined by Robert Nozick (1974), relates closely to what was called negative freedom above and incorporates the autonomy and immunity facets of Sen’s process aspect of freedom. Rights might concern both opportunities and process, though. Rights pertaining to mobility can therefore be about the choice of staying

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or moving, but also about procedures unduly preventing control or surveillance of travellers. Freedom is valued both as an instrument and because it has intrinsic value, and the next section makes use of this distinction in a mobility context.2 An important instrumentalist argument is that uncertainty about our own preferences makes it useful to have more options. Intrinsic value might be attributed to freedom because people disposed to live meaningful lives must shape their lives by making choices for themselves (Nozick 1974: 50). Independent of perspective, there is a close connection between the assessment of the process and the understanding and perceived value of the corresponding outcome. The following section overview shows how I propose to go about examining the relationship between mobility and freedom. The next (second) section shows how ambiguities in the assessment of auto-mobility and mobility-based lifestyles are evident even from the perspective of freedom. The distinction between transport and mobility is important throughout the essay and is at the core of the mobility–transport dilemma of the third section. The potentiality of transport is essential to freedom, but sufficiently many have to actually travel in order to sustain the supply safeguarding the potentiality. The fourth section offers an application of Sen’s liberal paradox to the problem of guaranteeing the right to mobility. The contention is that mobility rights are not viable in a society respecting unanimity, because of a logical conflict between the categories involved. The ensuing section discusses the opportunities for surveillance in the wake of transport. The electronic tracks people leave when travelling can be exploited to threaten freedom as mobility. The sixth section introduces power, trust, rules, and simultaneous presence and absence as alternative responses to the uncertainty generated by other peoples’ mobility. The choice of reaction to others’ absence has profound implications for freedom as mobility. Additional conclusions are highlighted in the final section.

Freedom as auto-mobility: against sedentary metaphysics3 This section shows that ambiguities in the assessment of the social consequences of modern transport also surface when looking at auto-mobility from the perspective of freedom. The introductory positive views of freedom as mobility are followed by a brief account of some negative external effects of auto-mobility, also couched in terms of freedom. The ambiguities are particularly clearly reflected in the mutually opposing lifestyles based on auto-mobility. As could be expected, the automotive industry has strongly encouraged the coupling of mobility and freedom. Three decades ago, the president of the Ford Motor Company worried that ‘today … mobility, our fifth freedom, is being threatened, not by any foreign power or sinister conspiracy but by a tangle of well-intentioned efforts that seek to drastically curtail the use of motor vehicles’ (Iacocca 1974: 2). Mobility and freedom are still intertwined in the minds of people today (Hamilton & Hoyle

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1999: 76–80). Malene Freudendal-Pedersen (2005: 39), Olle Hagman (2003: 3), and Mette Jensen (1999) report that most of their interviewees say that the car provides freedom: the freedom to go wherever one wants, whenever one wants.4 Freedom as mobility may be valued for two main reasons. First, the possibility of travelling might be valued in itself. In order to experience freedom as potential travel, there must be possibilities allowing for more transport than the number of trips actually taken. The individual must also be in a position to autonomously decide whether to act on the possibilities. That is, the potentiality aspect of mobility means that the individual has a choice between travelling and not travelling. This is an essential aspect of freedom as mobility; freedom of movement implies the right not to move. Secondly, the possibility to travel might have instrumental value in that the choice set (the set of commodity bundles and activities) available to the individual might be enlarged. This can enable the individual to make choices that raise preference fulfilment to a higher level, and thus increase the individual’s available utility. To take advantage of the increased opportunity to achieve, the individual has to travel and thus transform mobility into revealed transport. Widespread mobility, and auto-mobility in particular, has obvious indirect consequences that detract from the common welfare in terms of freedom as well as economic efficiency. Autonomy regarding transport may be translated into the individual right to travel where, when, and how one wishes (Hiscock et al. 2002). However, in the case of the automobile, having all the levers of control in one’s own hands is likely to lead to encroachment on others’ private spheres. Noise and pollution from my driving might interfere with others’ sleep, health and enjoyment of attractive environments. Furthermore, congestion and barriers point to a conflict between personal autonomy in mobility matters and others’ opportunity to achieve. Extensive driving causes delays and waiting time, which have a bearing on freedom. Waiting time (Gasparini 1995) is also an intrinsic feature of most public transport systems. In the extreme case in which one would have to wait forever in order to take advantage of an option in the choice set, that particular option is not really available. Generally, extended waiting time makes the choice set less valuable and might detract from the freedom of choice. There is an analogy between waiting time and transport time when it is assumed that transport is without inherent utility. Time spent on transport is then part of the time the individual has to wait to take part in a desired activity. An option requiring extremely long transport time is not really available. Thus, transport involving too long distances in time and space, compared to what is found reasonable, affects freedom of choice negatively. Great distance brings net gains towards zero, and in the extreme case the option of participating in the particular activity will be more of an illusion than a real possibility. In recent years, big differences in mobility have been linked to the problems of social exclusion (Lyons 2003; Cass et al. 2005). Studies have drawn attention to immigrants (Uteng, this volume, Ch. 8) and groups having difficulties with mastering the transport system (Øvstedal, this volume, Ch. 9). This has strengthened the interest in the borderland between mobility and freedom, even though social exclusion refers more broadly to disadvantage, injustice, alienation and lack of freedom. Referring

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back to Sen’s concepts of freedom described earlier, social exclusion affects the positive freedom to choose between different ways of living, and it thus constrains the pursuit of substantive opportunities. The literature on social exclusion often deals with the right to participate in major social arenas such as employment, health care and education, or, more generally, people’s ability to participate in activities, obtain resources and benefit from opportunities. For some – Pritchard (2000), for example – mobility is a wholly inadequate index of freedom. She finds it ‘scandalous to continue valorizing the rhetoric of mobility when so many persons cannot move about as the elite do and when so many are desperately seeking safe shelter’ (ibid.: 59). As shown above, the assessment of auto-mobility might be ambiguous, because the positive and negative consequences are both great. The effects of auto-mobility are also ambiguous when it comes to ways of life. Over the years, the private car has inspired contrasting lifestyles based on mobility: both the ‘freedom’ of the road movie and the ‘conservatism’ of the low-density suburb (Carrabine & Longhurst 2002: 181).5 Sarah Jain points to the mobile home as a phenomenon linking these contrasts: ‘The “mobile home” makes manifest the class ambivalences of mobility as that scrap of Americana stuck between the flux of freeway and suburb – idealizing wanderlust as it frustrates others’ attempts to overtake the slow unwieldy vehicles’ (2002: 388). A number of theorists regard recourse to mobility as one type of resistance to the routine of everyday life (de Certeau 1984; Cohen & Taylor 1992; Bridge 2004; Joyce 2003: 210–33) or as a central trope for anti-systemic movements of one kind or another (Cresswell 2001: 15). ‘Nothing is further from bourgeois civilization … than an existence based on a refusal to put down roots’ (Prato & Treviro 1985: 39– 40). Mobility and travelling are considered a strategy of resistance against rootedness and traditional values. For instance, Jack Kerouac’s (1957) On the Road represents a form of resistance to the ‘establishment’.6 The mobile lifestyle of the main characters raises questions about the value of ideas such as roots, community, home and neighbourhood (Cresswell 1993: 258). Their criss-crossing of the North-American continent by automobile relates to the experience of having autonomy over the processes shaping their own lives. Kerouac boosts non-stop ‘going’ for its own sake as the main joy; freedom as mobility is celebrated as intrinsically valuable. This is underlined by the aimlessness of the journeys. The unruly directionless movement of the central figures reinforces their freedom as mobility, as it means they do not have to go any particular place. Mobility in physical space is about the ability to link places. The desirability of mobility does not primarily spring from disillusionment with some places and the need to access other places. Mobility may be more about creating a pattern, a tapestry of familiar places, in order to gain knowledge of, master and feel at home in a larger geographical space. In contrast to the rootlessness alluded to above, therefore, the aim might be to take root in a vastly expanded area. The improved mastering relates to the opportunity aspect of freedom. What is achieved is a feeling of having a much enlarged choice set at one’s disposal. Tim Cresswell (1993) captures this point well when summing up the motives of the restless and footloose characters in Kerouac’s novel. All their frantic movement is to answer a question ‘connected to what it is like

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to be an American in America rather than just a resident in “anytown” USA’ (ibid.: 260).

The mobility/transport dilemma This section exploits the difference between the potential character of mobility and the revealed nature of transport to examine an analogy to Jean-Jaques Rousseau’s (1968) ‘forced-to-be-free’ dilemma.7 The case of groups that are repeatedly denied residence permits and the case of excessive travelling due to a society tailored to the automobile are both considered. The section also examines whether planning for transport can in some way distort freedom as mobility. Zygmunt Bauman (2000) emphasizes that mobility and power are intertwined. Partly for this reason, mobility is not a good that tends to be equally distributed among people; rather, it tends to reflect power differences. According to Bauman, ‘people who move and act faster … are now the people who rule’ (ibid.: 119). If this is so, it is not an unambiguous tendency, however. Niels Albertsen and Bülent Diken (2001) note that whereas mobility is a matter of choice for some, for others it is a fate. Some people are constantly forced to move on and are denied the right to settle down in a suitable place. ‘Do we dare assume that their mobility, their border-crossing is liberating?’, Pritchard (2000: 59) asks rhetorically. Compelled movement creates problems for an ideology that associates mobility with freedom. It would seem that these displaced people, always being passed on to another territory and another authority, are forced to be free in the sense of being mobile. However, this counterintuitive result is problematic only when mobility is defined as revealed transport. In this essay mobility is defined as potential transport, and it is stressed that freedom of movement implies the right not to move. It is thus clear that the potentiality aspect of mobility prevents an awkward problem concerning mobility’s relationship to freedom. The possibility that individuals might be forced to be free was discussed by Rousseau as part of his work on participative democracy. The aim here is to reformulate the dilemma in a mobility context. The collective decision-making body might provide mobility to the population, but in order to succeed the decision-makers might have to organize society so as to ensure a high volume of transport (or person-km). Private investment in transport infrastructure and vehicles will not be generated without anticipated demand. A break-even point for the established supply might require more travelling than most people are comfortable with. Focusing on freedom as mobility, one could say that the mobile population is in this case forced to be free. However, it seems to be a contradiction in terms that freedom can be forced on the citizens (Simhony 1991). In general, this paradoxical situation might arise in a market society where freedom is associated with a high and diversified transport supply, which gives ample opportunities for choice. The problem is that high supply will not be offered in the market in the absence of high demand. Hence, ability to enjoy the services of the producers

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is conditional on high willingness to pay among the consumers. They have to reveal their high demand. If they choose not to travel, they will lose the opportunity to travel. Actual transport is a prerequisite for mobility. Consumers do not escape the constraining have to if they want to enjoy the freedom of having the opportunity to. They have to make many trips in order to be mobile, even in the sense of being potentially able to travel. In this lies the parallel to Rousseau’s forced-to-be-free dilemma. Because of the 1/N effect, the individual is not likely to feel that the requirement for a sufficient overall volume of trips limits his or her freedom. Each individual relies on the others to do the travelling and feels no personal responsibility to pay for the supply that essentially provides mobility. The favourable view of freedom as mobility, freedom as potential transport, depends on the majority’s belief that they could actually travel far less and still maintain their existing level of mobility. However, if too many individuals were to enjoy merely the potentiality of transport, the system would break down. In many cases, planners counteract this breakdown, although not necessarily consciously. The more transport they plan for, the more society is designed in ways making people dependent on transport, and the less opportunity remains to enjoy mobility in the sense of potential transport. For instance, forecasts anticipating heavy traffic in an urban area might provide arguments for constructing new main arteries between the city centre and the hinterland. This paves the way for new suburbs in more peripheral locations than the extant ones, and in greater distance from service provision. In many cases, the new residential areas are also beyond the end stations of the city’s high frequency public transport system. The residents then rely on motorized transport to access services, and they become dependent on private cars. Erling Holden (this volume, Ch. 3) shows that it is not easy, even for families strongly committed to environmental values, to shift to sustainable transport in everyday life. A threat to the idea of freedom as mobility comes from the behavioural principle of maximizing a notion of utility made up entirely from the consumption of goods and services, as is standard procedure in economics. Freedom as mobility, as potential transport, has no explicit value in this maximization process. The difference between potential and actually implemented transport is of no significance to human action with this idea of utility. The intrinsic ‘value’ of any potential travelling would be offset by the slightest increase of utility stemming from the commodity bundle that might be acquired on an extra trip. When everything is connected to everything else in physical space in a vast and seamless web, when ‘distance is dead’ and zero friction has brought cause and effect into an intimate embrace, nothing can be controlled unless everything is controlled. Then the prediction paradigm of planners (Sager, this volume, Ch. 2) makes them enemies of freedom. Predictability comes at the expense of flexibility. To the degree that transport planners successfully control ever more variables that might possibly be obstacles to prediction, utility maximization and transport in search of better bargains, freedom as mobility is lost.8 What appears from the perspective of transport planners as the fatal flaw in their art – their inability to eliminate friction, the Herculean task of turning physical space into an integrated and fine-woven structure

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of premium circulation networks – is instead the condition of freedom. Where the circulation systems become indeterminate, in the gaps between them, the highfriction interstices and transfer points, we might exercise the independent choice of keeping further movement as a potentiality. We can stop to think, exit the system if we so wish, and in this respect we are autonomous (cf. Friedmann 1979: 38). In the quest for freedom, the main point is not necessarily to cross borders but to exploit the ambiguity of the border zone. Crossing borders is often to move from one system, one solid structure, and one firmly cemented tangle of power relations to another. Escape means to exploit the possibilities, weaknesses and uncoordinated control found in the gaps between the systems. Sometimes it is a question of rejecting the either/or, breaking with the regimentation of code/space-formatted premier circulation systems, and playfully exploring the scope for hybrid movement, using low-tech modes on part of the journey. Escape for some groups in some settings is as incredibly easy as walking through a doorway. For others, formal restrictions, deepseated habits, or internalized conventions raise almost insurmountable barriers in matters of mobility (Gerzina 2001). When transport becomes too easy, ‘excess travel’ proliferates (Handy et al. 2005), and the domain of potentiality is shrinking. Paradoxically, when distance is dead, so is freedom as mobility. The self-destructive capacity of omnipotence, Hegel’s vivid description of the lord destroying himself as master the moment he destroys the slave, is also recognized in this ambivalence (Bernstein 1971: 26–7). Just when the planners seem to have succeeded completely, when control is gained over the last variable that could possibly interfere with movement, transport planning has demolished its own rationale of freedom as mobility. There is no longer any reason not to travel. Potential transport becomes an oxymoron, and no one rests in peace. In the paradox above lies the liberating potential of the Slow City movement. ‘It is an ambitious grassroots movement that aims to reinvent every aspect of urban life, by putting pleasure before profit, human beings before head office, slowness before speed’ (Honore n.d.). Since 1999, more than 30 Italian towns have pledged to turn themselves into havens from the high-speed frenzy of the global economy. Their guidelines suggest that there might be freedom as well as hedonic pleasure to be gained from doing everything in a less frenetic, less homogenized manner (MassaMarittima n.d.). Melin (this volume, Ch. 4) touches on this theme in his discussion of pilgrimage. Albertsen and Diken reach a similar tentative conclusion trying to establish a critique of mobility: ‘If mobility transcends all critique … then criticism must be anti-mobile: slow down; localize!’ (2001: 22).

The impossibility of mobility rights in a society that respects unanimity Rights can be seen as manifestations of negative freedom. This section deals with the right to mobility, and the focus is on an exemplification of Sen’s (1970) liberal paradox.

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The section shows that the right of individuals to decide their own level of mobility cannot logically be combined with the democratic society’s respect for unanimity. The section starts with some general observations on mobility as a right. The distinction between potential and revealed transport is a parallel to the difference between having rights and exercising them. The concept of mobility as potential transport is analogous to defining a right as something that does not necessarily have to be exercised (Dowding & van Hees 2003). Obviously, if rights cannot be exercised, then they hardly seem worth the name, just as there is no mobility unless travelling is actually a feasible option. Travelling is here associated with liberation and mobility with freedom. Liberation does not have any value in itself, but only as a precondition for freedom. The outcome – freedom – is what counts and what people have preferences attached to. Rights are of greatest consequence when defined in relation to something that is positively valued. Therefore, rights should concern mobility rather than transport. Moreover, the potentiality aspect is important in the formulation of a right. If no potentiality is present, meaning that a particular trip has to be realized, then taking that trip is more of an obligation or duty than a right. Revealed transport is, however, required to exercise mobility rights. It seems likely that rights never exercised will gradually wither away, so transport is needed in order to maintain mobility rights. The freedom is in knowing for certain that transport opportunities are available. Kerouac’s (1957) view in On the Road, on the other hand, is that transport is needed because the liberating movement itself is what engenders the feeling of being free.9 As underscored by Friedrich Hayek, ‘we can unfortunately not indefinitely extend the sphere of common action and still leave the individual free in his own sphere’ (1944: 45). By regulating the private sphere, one draws the limits of social action and demarcates the set of issues that can legitimately be objects of public planning. In a liberal society, public planning deals only with issues that are not in anybody’s private sphere. Sen’s (1970) logical proof of the impossibility of combining individual rights with respect for social unanimity affirms the profundity of Hayek’s problem. The liberal paradox has withstood a generation of intense scholarly scrutiny, and the current status of the debate is summarized by Sen (2002b: 652–8). Examples of Sen’s result that are relevant to planning and are applied to privacy and loyalty are provided by Sager (2002). It is convenient here to follow Ken Binmore’s introduction to Sen’s liberal paradox: Sen’s (1970) proposed definition is the best known of the various attempts to formalise the notion of a right. His definition of a minimal right requires that each citizen be a dictator over at least one pair of social alternatives. For example, if Adam has a right to decide how he dresses, then he is a dictator over at least one pair of alternatives, a and b, which are identical except that Adam wears his figleaf in a but goes naked in b. This definition leads immediately to Sen’s Paradox of the Paretian Liberal, which says that a society cannot simultaneously allow even the most minimal of rights to each citizen without violating the Pareto principle. (Binmore 1996: 71)

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Everything that matters about Sen’s paradox can be expressed by reference to a situation in which a collective decision is to be made by only two citizens, Pi (pro immigration) and Ai (against immigration). Moreover, we need only consider the case in which the set of social states among which they must make a communal choice contains three alternatives, a, b and c. A social welfare function aggregates Pi and Ai’s preference relations over the three alternatives and expresses the result as a collective preference ranking. All preference relations are assumed to be transitive. That is, if a is ranked above b, and b is ranked above c, then a must be ranked above c. Sen also requires that the collective preference satisfy the Pareto principle: for all alternatives a and b, if Pi ranks a above b and Ai ranks a above b, then the social welfare function should rank a above b and thus respect unanimity. The collective preference ranking can be established for any logically possible configuration of individual preference relations. In the following example, both Pi and Ai realize that high mobility has the potential to change preferences. Pi hopes and Ai fears that acquaintance with immigrants (whether in their countries of origin or in the already cosmopolitan capital of Pi and Ai’s country) will lead to higher tolerance for a multicultural society. Imagine now that high mobility comes in the form of a generous travel grant offering the receiver repeated journeys. Admirable social and cultural work in the home town that they share has made both Pi and Ai worthy candidates for the grant. However, the rules of this prize allow it to be offered to only one individual in a town. Should it be turned down by the candidate, the grant that year is transferred to another town. Hence, if Pi is offered the grant, she has the right to choose between accepting it or letting the grant go on to a neighbouring town. Ai has the right to make an analogous decision, should he be offered the grant. Thus, each citizen has the right to determine his or her own level of mobility, meaning that the individual’s decision cannot be overruled by any collective decision-making body (the social welfare function). It is also assumed that society is democratic in the sense that, when all the citizens agree about something, this will be the outcome of the collective decision process. In other words, the society is liberal in that it respects rights and democratic in that it respects unanimity (the Pareto principle). Sen’s (1970) ‘liberal paradox’ shows that this combination of procedural, political qualities is impossible, however. The present mobility example illustrates this logical impossibility. The preferences of Pi and Ai are now explained. Pi is sympathetic to the variety of a culturally diversified society. Her worst alternative is c, implying that Pi and Ai both stay in their home town. Then she will not be able to enjoy the liveliness of a multicultural city, and Ai will not be confronted with new experiences, which he strongly needs to be, in Pi’s opinion. Pi thinks that Ai’s mistrust of foreigners is a very deplorable cultural influence in their home town, paving the way for outright racism, so she thinks it more important that Ai be exposed to the attractive vitality of a multicultural city than getting the opportunity to enjoy it herself. The worst alternative for Ai, looking at the prospect of immigrant activity in his beloved home town with suspicion, is that Pi returns from her journeys with even more enthusiasm for new and strange ideas and interests. It would be better if he

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received the grant himself, as he trusts himself not to be impressed by what he might experience in other cities. It would be preferable that none of them travelled, however. Then he could stay where he likes best, and Pi would stay at home too, hopefully developing a liking for local traditions and customs. The impossibility of a mobility-liberal and rights-granting democratic society can now be demonstrated: Two individuals: Pi Pro immigration Ai Against immigration Three alternatives: a Pi receives increased mobility (she accepts the travel grant) b Ai receives increased mobility (he accepts the travel grant) c Mobility is unchanged for both Pi and Ai (neither Pi nor Ai accepts the grant) Preferences: Pi c < a < b Ai a < b < c Characteristics of the society: Right allotted to Pi c < a Right allotted to Ai b < c Pareto condition a
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Foster (1978) and Ruvin Gekker (1985) have shown that impossibilities similar to Sen’s liberal paradox still hold. Defining rights in terms of decisiveness in the choice between alternatives, as in the above example, makes it difficult to distinguish between having rights and exercising them. Pi strictly prefers a to c and, by Sen’s account of rights, is decisive in the social choice between a and c. ‘The fact that a person has a strict preference and is decisive entails that the social preference relation is partly fixed, that is, that having rights is equivalent to exercising them’ (Dowding & van Hees 2003: 284). Yet the distinction between having and exercising a right is often important. For example, if Ai receives the travel grant, Pi’s power to impose a on society instead of c is still a right she has, although the choice of a is now merely hypothetical. Sen’s impossibility result remains valid but can now be understood as the impossibility of translating all relevant hypothetical choices into one coherent collective preference relation. Keith Dowding and Martin van Hees conclude that individuals cannot always exercise their rights simultaneously (ibid.: 284). It does not follow that they do not have those rights, but the distinction between having and exercising rights makes the example above less counterintuitive. Like norms and laws, rights are not automatically respected. Social institutions for enforcement are needed to sanction individuals who violate the rights of others. Enforcement institutions must have power and might thus be embryonic control bureaucracies. There is a delicate dialectic between freedom-enhancing rights and the potentially repressive institutions protecting them. Even more troubling are the surveillance mechanisms designed to make sure that exercising the freedom of mobility does not spill negatively into the utility maximizing processes of others. These mechanisms are discussed in the next section.

Tracks: surveillance in the wake of transport Mobile subjects have to be disciplined in order to ensure safe and efficient transport and circulation systems. Disciplining is a broader notion than surveillance: It requires a technology of power ‘that reappears with regularity across the social plane, reasserting itself in various sectors, creating a grid of possibilities not primarily aimed to limit actions, but to speed up and standardize specific actions’ (Packer 2003: 144). Although limiting action may not be the main purpose, disciplining affects even the potentiality aspect of mobility. For instance, women may be disciplined to stay at home even if transport alternatives are available. Packer (ibid.: 140) argues that mobile subjects must be highly disciplined, as they are not always within the immediate scope of state interaction and might, in certain conditions, do harm to the state. This section analyses surveillance as a set of disciplining technologies. Mobility and freedom characterize states or situations, while transport and liberation require action. Given an imperfect vantage point (lack of freedom), freedom depends on liberation, and mobility will not be established without transport. Once

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the mobile state is established, the potentiality aspect of mobility can be seen as ex ante in relation to transport. That is, the possibility of transport exists first, then one decides whether the transport will actually be employed. Transport also has ex post characteristics in that it leaves tracks: electronically or as physical marks. In contrast with the ex ante attribute, which is associated with freedom, the ex post tracks are associated with control. Potentiality opens doors for alternative actions, while tracks attest to the choice of one alternative and the foreclosure of the rest. Tracks betray the particular actions actually chosen and undertaken. The effects of tracks on freedom as mobility are discussed below. Surveillance systems help answer the questions of who is where, at what point in time, and what they are doing. Some systems are designed to sort people’s activities and characteristics for marketing or profiling purposes. They capture information about people’s demographic characteristics, preferences, communications, consumer transactions, and movements in order to more effectively manipulate them to buy products or behave in prescribed ways (Clarke 2000, 2003). Compare Jennie Molz’s (2006: 380) mention of ‘cookies’ that record how users surf the Internet, which websites they visit, and which links they use. With the surveillance of movement between workplace, store, home and so forth, there is potentially no hiding place: There is no room to anonymously walk down a street, drive through a neighborhood, or talk on the phone … The objects we use (cars, phones, computers, electricity) … become tools for surveillance. Actions, conversations, movements are all caught. Movement is not a means of evading surveillance but has become the subject of surveillance. (Bennett & Regan 2004: 453) Road tolling systems, cellphone locators and traffic control monitors keep track of movement, and data from these can – within legal limits – be integrated with other kinds of information such as closed circuit television (CCTV) or data recording economic transactions. Molz concludes: ‘The more we move and communicate, the more we are tracked and recorded’ (2006: 379). Tracks can be used for surveillance and violation of privacy (Sager 1998). In combination with accessibility and hypermobility (Sager, this volume, Ch. 2), tracks provide perfect conditions for surveillance. When all places are accessible and within almost instant reach, anybody can be on the spot at anytime. It is especially threatening when friction between private and public spheres is reduced. Clearly, the relationship between freedom and the defeat of friction is ambiguous. New opportunities for the individual and new possibilities of control are simultaneously provided for. This is a reminder that aspects of freedom may contradict each other; in this case freedom as a large choice set that implies transport and freedom as lack of external control. Typically, surveillance is intense at the hubs, terminals and transfer points where the potential for freedom is highest (Adey 2004; Müller & Boos 2004). Airports are symbols of mobility, but they are also filters that sort travellers at coded gates. Tracks in combination with insignificant friction lead society towards electronic panopticism (Lyon 1993).10 Again, it is the mobility of the watchers, and not their

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actual following of the tracks, that is the foundation of the efficient surveillance system. Behaviour is regulated through the travellers’ knowledge that they might be watched by anybody with an interest in doing so, as transport and accessibility to any place are so easily and momentarily obtainable. For example, some believe that ‘You’ll never walk alone’ has a double meaning in Liverpool because of the extensive use of CCTV in the central city streets (Coleman & Sim 2000). The excuse for surveillance is often security, as in the technical code/space of airports. ‘Code/space allows the surveillance of passengers and workers to become more panoptic in scope, both widening and deepening the extent to which air travel can be policed and thus made a more secure and safe undertaking’ (Dodge & Kitchin 2004: 206). Code/space in air transport includes travel websites, check-in, security checkpoints, flight decks, air-traffic control, immigration and customs checkpoints (ibid.: 195). Code/space interferes directly with freedom by enforcing a regulatory environment in which passengers are rendered ‘docile bodies’ (Foucault’s term) that pass through the circulation system in an orderly, non-complaining, compliant manner (ibid.: 199). David Wood and Stephen Graham (2006) find that advanced software is sluicing the urban, travelling population through expanding networks of ‘gates’, sorting people into manageable flows. The concepts of privacy and personal autonomy are closely affiliated. Autonomy has to do with the regulation of the private sphere, while privacy is about the ability to keep others outside it. One cannot have privacy without a private sphere, that is, without a degree of autonomy. And one cannot enjoy autonomy without privacy, because frequent transgression erodes the borders of the private sphere (McLean 1995: 48). The core of privacy is controlling access and transactions across the border of a private sphere from where the individual decides when to go public. The private sphere is not delimited only by a geographical border, as in ‘my home is my castle’; it is also determined by what are considered intimate or personal matters. The individual controls what – from this sphere – is made known to others or communicated about him or her. There is limited access for others to gather information, observe, decide or obtain physical contact. It is ironic that the quest for privacy tends to result in access control with surveillance, because privacy is also looked to as protection against surveillance. Nevertheless, ‘much surveillance occurs because in the world of modernity people prefer a “private” existence, which prompts the development of systems to authenticate their activities in the “public” world … Presenting a driver’s license to a police officer from within a private car makes the point well’ (Lyon 2002: 1). Neoliberalism emphasizes privatization and a shrinking public realm. It is puzzling that this free market ideology demands more protection of property and profit, and therefore stricter control of individuals who threaten this basis of capitalism, which ultimately results in more surveillance of all consumers. The expanding practice of urban public–private partnerships has turned it into a powerful mode of governance for economic growth and entrepreneurial politics in the city. One strategy has been to ‘reclaim’ city streets in an attempt to make the central districts safe for development (Fyfe & Bannister 1998).

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Neoliberal city building has been studied in Liverpool (Coleman 2004a,b), and some findings warrant mentioning in the context of mobility. As the CCTV cameras routinely monitor the streets of the central business district, they have become an instrument in constraining the mobility of certain groups. There is a ban on headgear of the type that makes identification difficult (hooded tops, baseball caps), so (mostly) young people can be stopped and told to remove headgear if they want to remain in the city centre. Skateboarding is considered an offence, because it allegedly scares away tourists and shoppers and gives the city a bad image. Byelaws curtail a range of spontaneous grassroots street protests. ‘Those walking the streets who are teenagers, dressed inappropriately and without branded shopping bags are likely targets of security personnel whose “nose” for suspicion has been directed at those who appear to be “walking or standing without due cause”’ (Coleman 2004a: 302). Large groups of teenagers might then face mobility restrictions.11 To sum up, neoliberal city building encourages surveillance, which in turn leads to social sorting and social removal, and hence constraints on mobility. Surveillance is a technique for exerting power, while trust is its antipode. The balancing of the two strategies is related to freedom as mobility in the next section.

Mastering the uncertainties of absence It is obvious from the previous section that mobility is part of a power game. Just as the seller’s price is the buyer’s cost, so the freedom of mobility experienced by one person might be conceived by another as a threat of intrusion. Greater mobility empowers some, while others will respond by developing control mechanisms. This section focuses on the balance between trust and power, but attention is also called to the fact that these are not the only responses to the challenges posed by absence following from mobility. Freedom is not synonymous with having power. Nevertheless, when others do not respect non-interference constraints, the individual needs power to remain autonomous and protect his or her opportunity set. It is a central theme in the discourse on modernity that freedom is tied to the ability to create and shape one’s own future (Friedland & Boden 1994: 10), and power may well be conducive to this end. An individual might be vulnerable to interference not only from others in the immediate vicinity. In highly mobile societies, the controller and the respondent in a power relation will both know that the distance between them can be easily covered. ‘Mobility is what makes action at a distance possible’ (Albertsen & Diken 2001: 14). Mobility often works both ways in power relations, meaning that it can be used to resist and avoid encroachment as well as to interfere. For this reason, it is sometimes said that power is the capacity to escape (ibid.: 17). Power is also seen as action at a distance, however (Willer 2003). This is an extension of power beyond the single relationship (dyad). Similarly, freedom is the ability to protect one’s autonomy without actually having to physically address every source

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of potential interference. Hence, freedom is the capacity to make some things happen according to preference without being there, without – as a slave – having to struggle with every little chore that steals time and empties life of all potentiality. Therefore, freedom is not transport but mobility, which keeps open the choice between going and staying, as one’s objectives can be achieved either way. Mobility is a pivotal characteristic of economically advanced Western societies, and the constant balancing acts between going and staying, between presence and absence, ‘are therefore a fundamental tension of modernity’ (Friedland & Boden 1994: 6). What makes this important in the present context is that the other side of the coin is the tension between directly controlling somebody and trusting him or her. As Anthony Giddens writes: Trust is related to absence in time and space. There would be no need to trust anyone whose activities were continually visible and whose thought processes were transparent, or to trust any system whose workings were wholly known and understood. It has been said that trust is ‘a device for coping with the freedom of others’, but the prime condition of requirements for trust is not lack of power but lack of full information. (Giddens 1990: 33) So trust is a human quality for coping with the freedom of others to be somewhere else, their intermittent absence from ‘NowHere’.12 Hence, trust is a way to cope with mobility. We trust that the other will be back, that his or her destination is as told and that the purpose of the trip was honestly stated. Trust is the property required for mastering the adults’ variations of Freud’s ‘fort-da’ game of absence and presence. Note, however, that trust is not the only way to master the lack of full information caused by another’s absence. The surveillance theme of the previous section suggests that contrasting strategies are at play. This is a reminder that freedom as mobility contains the seeds to very different developments of society. A third strategy, in addition to trust and surveillance, aims to blur the difference between presence and absence (Callon & Law 2004). Different circulation systems can coexist, and a person can be mobile in several of them simultaneously, often by applying computer-mediated communication. In this way presence and absence can be achieved at the same time. Judging by the enormous increase in the use of mobile phones and the global proliferation of internet cafes, this ability of multi-presence is highly valued. It would be futile to ask whether mobility produces presence or absence. It delivers both, which is a premise for the idea of freedom as potential travel. There is even a fourth strategy for dealing with the uncertainty resulting from the mobility of others. The potential external effects of the absentee’s actions may be so severe that trust threatens to break down. In such situations, mobility-regulating rules might be an alternative or a supplement to surveillance. These rules might target both sexes and all age groups, although children and women are constrained by more rules than men (Wolff 1993: 229; Kantor 2002). Moreover, rules are put into force at all levels, from micro-authorities in the home to the government of nation states. Rules may regulate local trips and international journeys, and they may be in effect

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under ordinary circumstances or only in times of crisis. The following list provides a few examples: • • • • • • •

commanding children to return home before dark; curfew rules, dusk-to-dawn curfew; chaperone conventions; restrictions on who is eligible to drive a car; permission required to settle in another province; visa and passport rules; zones or districts closed to particular groups by road posts or check-ins.

Table 1 shows how the previously mentioned four ways for easing the tension caused by the mobility of others relate to potential travel (mobility) and revealed travel (transport). Two cells are empty, because trust is a strategy in this context only as long as the other is still present, while surveillance is meaningful only when a journey is actually taken. There are other ways to deal with mobility-generated dissonance than those presented in Table 1. Examples are confinement, replacement of absentees and restricting the accessibility of many places in order to make trust or control work better. The four strategies in the table have been selected in order to shed light on the implications of the distinction between mobility and transport. Perhaps needless to say, rules regulating movement may well be more unjust and limit freedom more severely than the surveillance discussed earlier. Furthermore,

Table 1. Ways of overcoming the tension of another’s absence. Mobility Trust

Surveillance

Transport

Trust is about giving someone the opportunity to do something.

Not checking up on others when they actually travel. Not interrogating them on return. Takes place when the other CCTV, photo boxes, is actually travelling. cameras filming toll plaza passages, vehicle tracking systems.

Simultaneous Creates new opportunities Bringing a virtual home presence/absence for staying at the preferred while away, like a ‘cyber place, as one can still have snail’. virtual presence somewhere else. Rules

Examples

Mobile phones, bleeping systems, email, Skype, websites (Hampton & Wellman 2001).

Rules affecting the opportu- Rules regulating the behav- Rules about taking pupils for nities for travelling. iour of the traveller. family holidays during term time. Requirements for predetermined itineraries from visiting foreigners.

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these two responses to the uncertainty created by the mobility of others are not mutually exclusive alternatives. They can be – and are – used complementarily to effectively undermine freedom as mobility for some groups (Coleman 2004a,b). For example, extensive use of CCTV in city centres can be combined with law-and-order politics deterring groups that are not considered to be attractive customers, such as beggars, vagrants and ‘suspicious youths’ (Fyfe & Bannister 1998: 262).

Concluding remarks It is a widespread idea in the Western world that much of what is experienced as freedom lies in motion. It has even been suggested that this idea springs from human nature, as studies of the behaviour of great apes conclude that they prefer freedom and mobility over close social ties (Maryanski & Turner 1993). The typical situation in many countries has been to maximize the motorists’ freedom as mobility, while providing the users of public transport with an ‘acceptable’ minimum standard (Vigar 2002: 72). In line with this, ‘captive riders’ became a phrase reserved for public transit users (Ergün et al. 1999). A discussion of some of the more general difficulties of maintaining freedom as mobility in a society where mobility is ever-increasing has been the purpose of this essay. There are advantages of connecting liberal notions of freedom with a concept of mobility based on the possibilities of travelling, as distinguished from actual transport. Freedom as potential travel avoids the difficulty that journeys might be forced, and it does not lead to the unreasonable conclusion that policies should maximize transport in order to enhance freedom. Further, freedom seen as potential travel clarifies the distinction between having rights and exercising them. With the spread of on-theroad surveillance, more freedom is sometimes found by staying put (while retaining the possibility of moving), than by actually taking the trip while being controlled. Finally, the possibility of travel best captures the ambiguity and freedom potential embedded in simultaneous presence and absence allowed by new information and communication technologies. A few conclusions are listed below: • The question of defining mobility as potential or revealed transport has great bearing on the meaning of freedom as mobility. Mobility as potential transport is preferred, because freedom as mobility then includes the option of not going. • Mobility rights conflict with society’s respect for unanimity, when rights imply that each citizen be a dictator over at least one pair of social alternatives. • The many systems of surveillance installed in modern transport networks indicate that mobility generates uncertainty and easily triggers the need for control. • There are several ways of mastering the uncertainty following from imperfect information due to others’ absence. The strategies of trust, surveillance, mobility rules and simultaneous presence and absence push society in very different directions with respect to freedom.

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It is in the nature of liberal societies for some individuals to exploit the freedom of choice for self-serving purposes, even when the result takes away welfare from the collective. C. Jotin Khisty and Ulli Zeitler (2001) contend that the value of freedom has to be balanced against other aspects of mobility, and that freedom as mobility is not necessarily at the top of the hierarchy of values. The claim that motorists have a right to drive their cars wherever and whenever they wish overlooks the fact that freedom comes with social obligations. Freedom as mobility is part of a complex dialectic. The more the interaction between freedom and obligations of individuals is downplayed, the stronger will be the need of society to protect itself, and the more germinative will be the seeds of institutionalized control inherent in the dialectic of mobility.

Acknowledgements I wish to thank Ragnvald Sagen and members of the MOTEROM network for having read and offered helpful criticism of this essay.

Notes 1. Individuals might hold different opinions about what trips are possible and feasible. A distinction could thus be made between subjective and objective mobility. Subjective mobility takes us inside mental space. 2. Even if freedom is valued, it might still challenge the individual, and may even be unconsciously shunned. The view of freedom as an existential problem is evident in Fromm (1941) and Yalom (1980). 3. Malkki (1992: 31) uses the phrase ‘sedentary metaphysics’ to describe ways of thinking that are rooted and bounded. She notes that there is a tendency in the modern world to locate people and identities in particular spaces and within particular boundaries. She also states that this way of thinking results in a tendency to perceive mobile people in negative ways. 4. Kaufmann finds things to be somewhat more complex, in that ‘nothing shows that the most spatially mobile people have more freedom in the way they conduct their lives’ (2002: 58, original emphasis). Yet he concedes that mobility gives new freedom to those people whose lifestyles are very much confined by spatial restrictions (ibid.). 5. The freedom of the road is desired by a number of groups, not only bikers and truckers (Eyerman & Löfgren 1995; Cohan & Hark 1997). Packer notes that for a short period in the 1970s and the early 80s, ‘the trucker became an American icon; a noble, solitary figure personifying the open road, existential angst, and freedom. The truck driver was considered a modern day cowboy’ (2002: 49). 6. Packer (2002) chronicles how independent US truckers used their mobility and citizen band radios to resist policies that caused them economic hardship. Note, however, that the association between mobility and freedom was established long before the automobile society. The connection was made even when there was no vehicle, vessel, or animal for transport. An example is found in Preble’s (1948) elegant novel for teenagers: The hero of Donna Preble’s thoroughly researched Yamino-Kwiti: Boy Runner of Sibi, is torn between desiring the thrills of the courier’s travelling life, following in his father’s footsteps, or being groomed to become a … priest … Finally Yamino-Kwiti gets his wish, as he is hired as a foot messenger by the Spanish explorer, Gaspar De Portolá. We last see him, ‘Flying along with winged feet … At last he was to be a courier and see the world!’ (Nabokov 1981: 7)

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7. In Chapter 7 of The Social Contract on ‘the sovereign’, that is, on the collective legislative body composed of as many members as there are voters in the assembly, the following passage is included: Hence, in order that the social pact shall not be an empty formula, it is tacitly implied in that commitment – which alone can give force to all others – that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do so by the whole body, which means nothing other than that he shall be forced to be free; for this is the condition which, by giving each citizen to the nation, secures him against all personal dependence, it is the condition which shapes both the design and the working of the political machine, and which alone bestows justice on civil contracts – without it, such contracts would be absurd, tyrannical and liable to the grossest abuse. (Rousseau 1968: 64) As an example, consider a city council decision that every taxpayer has to contribute to a light rail line and a bicycle track between a string of suburbs and the city centre. Citizens are forced to pay in order to enjoy freedom as mobility. 8. The idea for this and the following paragraphs is inspired by Friedmann’s (1979) analysis of conflicts between planning and freedom. ‘Our freedom is part of the uncertainty that renders social planning indeterminate’ (ibid.: 39). The reasoning here is a reminder of ‘the dark side’ of planning repeatedly discussed in current planning literature (Yiftachel 1998; Allmendinger & Gunder 2005). 9. Obviously, the concept of right is not only associated with driving a private car. Sauter holds that: ‘Walking has the character of a human right. It is elementary evidence of being human, an expression of personal freedom. Politically, however, there is a different perception: Driving not walking is considered a human right. The political agenda is set accordingly’ (2002: 4). He points out that the motor vehicle’s invasion of the streets changed the situation for the pedestrian from free use of the street in most places to a systematic disciplining of walking and playing. According to Sauter, traffic education was much more than a safety measure; it was also a tool to teach individuals discipline and subordination. ‘It served as ideology in a time when totalitarian systems were sprouting up everywhere in Europe’ (ibid.: 5); see also Sauter (2003). 10. ‘Originating as Jeremy Bentham’s eighteenth century architectural plan for a prison, the Panopticon became the centrepiece of Michel Foucault’s theory of surveillance. Although Foucault made no allusion to computers, the Panopticon now makes frequent appearances in discussions of electronic surveillance’ (Lyon 1993: 653). Foucault draws on Bentham’s work in Discipline and Punish (Foucault 1979), where ‘Panopticism’ is the heading of the third chapter, and the physical layout of the Panopticon is described on page 200. The surveillance society, where invisible observers track our digital footprints, does indeed seem panoptic. 11. Joyce’s account of walking and the ideology of city parks in the second half of the nineteenth century makes one wonder how much of this intolerance for ‘deviating’ use of an urban area is new: ‘In British parks everything that could interfere with rational and uplifting walking was banned: gambling, dogs, drink, swearing, dirty clothes and games in the wrong parts of the park’ (Joyce 2003: 221). 12 . ‘NowHere’ is the title of Friedland and Boden’s (1994) anthology on space, time and modernity. There has recently been a rethinking of the delicate and dynamic balance between space and time, and the editors use ‘NowHere’ to depict the ambiguous reference points of modernity. ‘The experiential here and now of modernity is … in a real sense nowhere yet everywhere’ (ibid.: 6).

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267

Index

Aboriginal Australians 89 accessibility 33, 180, 205–7, 211, 216–18; and design 212–13, 215–18 accidents 52, 101–2, 206, 208, 221, 224 acting out 164 action, and perception 103–4; potential 179 Adorno, Theodor W. 14, 16 aesthetics 13, 14–17 agency 135–6, 137 air travel 92, 97, 257–8 Ajzen, Icek 62–4 Al Qaeda 43–4 Albertsen, Niels 250, 252 Alexander, Ernest 38 alienation 12 Altner, Günter 20 ambient optic array 110–11 animals 85–7; neuropsychological experiments on 107; used for transport 92, 101 anthropogenic identification 132–3, 134 anthropomorphism 135–8 Appadurai, Arjun 13 appropriation 180 architecture 10, 11, 158 Aristotle 87, 183 Arquilla, John 44 Arrow, Kenneth 41, 51 assassination 43 asylum seekers 183, 188 athletes 109, 110, 112 atmosphere 15 attitudes, and behaviour 61–4, 67–77 Auto en Course, Edude de Vitesse (Balla) 1, 1–2 auto-mobility 247–8, 249

autonomy 76, 258 Babha, Homi 142 Bacon, Francis 83 Balla, Giacomo 1, 1–2 Bank-Mikkelsen, Niels Erik 215 barriers, to mobility 210–11 ‘Battle of Seattle’ 44 Bauman, Zygmunt 17–18, 157, 170, 250 behaviour 61–4, 67–77, 180 being 105–6 Being and Time (Heidegger) 105–6 Berg, Per G. 130, 137 Bergen 195, 201 Bergmann, Sigurd 61, 76–7, 85 Berti, Anna 106 Binmore, Ken 253 bioregionalism 11 Bjørkli, Cato Alexander 138–9 Bleichmar, Hugo 169 Boden, Deirdre 50 body, boundaries of 104–5, 133; and perception 105–6 Böhme, Gernot 14 Bookchin, Murray 148 brain damage 106–7 Brundtland, Gro Harlem 76 Callicot, J. Baird 86, 97 capital, movement of 12 Capra, Fritjof 177 cars 84, 88–9, 97; access to 208; cultural significance 137; dependency on 189; industry 5–6; and labour market 189–91;

269

INDEX

ownership 189–92, 216; providing freedom 248, 249; and social exclusion 197; symbolic of modernity 2, 189–90; see also driving cargo 101 Cary, Phillip 165 Casey, Edward S. 87 caste 182 cathedrals 91 CCTV 257–9, 261, 262 chaperones 261 children 7, 17–19, 205–6, 210, 214, 216, 218–23, 260–61; freedom 219; planning for 218–19, 222–3, 229; and road safety 220–21; sense of self 129–30 chimpanzees 107 China 5 Christian Intercultural Association (KIA) 198 Christianity 11, 23; and ecotheology 81–5; and science 25–7; see also pilgrimage cities 23, 36, 42, 91, 259 civil rights movement 210 class 182, 184 climate 226; change 5, 20; politics 11; research 5 code/space 258 cognitive extension 107–8 compassion 18, 96, 98 compensatory measures 215, 216 competence 180 congestion 52, 248 consequentialism 45 Constantine, Emperor 93–4 construction projects 156 consultation 219 consumption 67; and sustainability 59–60 convenience 92–3 cookies 257 cost, of mobility 34 Coucledis, Helen 36 Cresswell, Tim 179, 181–2, 249 Cuomo, Chris 20, 140, 143, 147 curfews 261 cyberspace 32 cyborgs 140, 143–7 cycling 97, 184, 209, 226 danger 133 dark networks 42–3, 51 Darwin, Charles 86 decisions 254–6; predictability of 41–2 delays 248 Deleuze, Gilles 90 democracy 7, 20, 33, 40–41, 45, 205; light and liquid 42 deontology 46 Der Unfall (Höch) 3, 3 Descartes, René 83, 106

design, universal 212–18, 213, 227–8, 230–31; principles 240–41; user-friendly 215, 217 despatialization 13 diaries 156–7, 160–64, 168, 169, 170 dictatorship 51 dictionaries 34 Diken, Bülent 250, 252 disability 7, 109–10, 207, 209, 210–11, 229; and accessibility 217; and design 213, 217–18; and planning 230; relational definition 211 discipline 256–7 discrimination 185, 213–14 displacement 168–9 distance 17, 34, 89; death of 36–7 Douglas, Mary 133, 139–41, 145 Dowding, Keith 256 Doyal, Len 76 driving 88, 112, 114; and control 102; elderly drivers 224; hybridization of car and driver 126–7, 137, 144–7; licences 146, 189–92, 197–9, 208, 210, 216, 224, 261; and pedestrians 221; perception of speed 114–16; as a right 263; see also cars drug trafficking 43 dualism 103 Duncan, Craig 190 Dunn, James 180 Dyas, Dee 94 Earth Summit (Rio) 59 eco-feminism 23, 140 ecogenic identification 132–3, 134–5 economic growth 209 ecopsychology see environmental psychology eco-sprituality 23 ecosystems 86 ecotheology 81–5, 96, 97, 125 education 13, 205 efficiency 60 Einstein, Albert 10 Die Eisenbahn Berlin-Potsdam (Menzel) 4, 4–5 elderly 205–6, 215–16, 219, 223–7; health 225– 7; mobility 226–7; and planning 229–30 embodied mind 103–8, 129–30 empathy 17, 168 energy use 5, 61, 66, 68, 73, 92, 184, 209 Enlightenment 52 environment, attitudes to 5, 8, 62, 67–73, 75 environmental organisations, membership of 67–8, 72–3, 75 environmental psychology 18, 125, 129, 134 equality 182, 184, 214 ethics 8–9, 13–16, 19–20, 81, 86; environmental 20–22, 86–7, 126, 134 ethnicity 7, 149, 178, 182, 184, 214 European Union 12, 243–4 exercise 219

270

INDEX

existential place 155, 159, 165 existential space 10, 158, 167 Faludi, Andreas 44 fantasy 162–3, 171 Fascism 3, 16 Fazio, Russell 62 femininity 146 feminism 20, 23, 125, 139–41 Finnsnes (Norway) 186–201 Fishbein, Martin 62–4 Florence 159 Foppa, Klaus 65 forced mobility 250 Ford Motor Company 247 Foster, James 255–6 Frampton, Kenneth 11 freedom 245–7; of action 179; of choice 214; and mobility 178, 185, 197, 205, 208, 243, 247–8, 250–51, 257, 262; negative 245–6, 252–3; positive 245–6; and surveillance 257; and social obligations 263 Freudendal-Pederson, Malene 248 Frey, Bruno 65 Friedland, Roger 50 Friedmann, John 48 fuel 184 functional extensions 105–7 futurism 1–2 Gaia 23 Garb, Yaakov 33, 183 gardening 12 Gardner, Gary 25 Gebhard, Ulrich 135 Gekker, Ruvin 256 gender 7, 182, 184, 214, 260 Gerholm, Tomas 49 ghettos 178 Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem 45 Gibbons, Michael 216 Giddens, Anthony 13, 52, 177, 184, 260 Glad, Alf 224 global garden 20–22 global warming, as a social problem 149; and traffic 81 globalization 12, 13, 22, 156 God 85, 87 Gomez, Lavinia 168 goods, restricted 180 Götz, Ignatio 136, 148 Gough, Ian 76 Greek philosophy 83, 87 Grieco, Margaret 182, 190, 193 Gropius, Walter 10 Grue, Lars 211, 216 Guattari, Félix 90

habit 73, 75 Hägerstrand, Torsten 40, 52 Hagman, Olle 83, 248 Hallqvist, Britt G. 21 Handelman, Don 47–8 Hansson, Sven Ove 214, 215 Harvey, David 9, 181 Hauerwas, Stanley 82 Hayek, Friedrich 253 headgear 259 health 218, 225–6 heating 60–61, 66 Hees, Martin van 256 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 252 Heidegger, Martin 90, 105–6 Heiner, Ronald 37–8, 41 helicopters 113 Hirstein, William 105 Hjorthol, Randi 189 Hobbes, Thomas 246 Höch, Hannah 2, 3 Holden, Erling 96, 209, 251 Holocaust 16 home 12, 13, 40 Howarth, C. Ian 221 human rights 243–4, 255–6 Husserl, Edmund 104, 106 hybrid identities 143–4 hybridization 142, 148; between car and self 126–7 hypermobility 7, 36–40, 44–53 identification, impure 139–42, 144, 147–9; technogenic processes 125; with non-human organisms and machines 132–6, 141–2, 144–7 identity 207; and car driving 137, 144–6; and mobility 178 illness 205 imagination 162–3 immigration 7, 178, 183, 185, 248; Norwegian 185–200, 187 inclusivity 231 income distribution 193–4, 194 individuality 168 Ingold, Tim 35, 89, 128–9, 137 insecurity 168 Internet 257, 260 Irigaray, Luce 90 Islam 23 Jain, Sarah 249 Japan 228 Jensen, Mette 248 Jerusalem 93, 159 Jesus Christ 26, 93–5 Johannson, Gunnar 111 Jones, Peter 177

271

INDEX

Judaism 23 justice 14, 15–17 Kalof, Linda 141 Kastoryano, Riva 178 Kaufmann, Vincent 34, 40, 131, 180, 244–5 Kerouac, Jack 249, 253 Khisty, C. Jotin 263 Klee, Paul 10 Klein, Melanie 168 Knie, Andreas 180 Köhler, Wolfgang 107 Konczak, Jürgen 115 Kristiansand 232 Kuhn, Thomas 214 Kurtén, Tage 170 labour market 196, 199 landscape design 3–4 Langan, Celeste 179 Langmyhr, Tore 209 Latour, Bruno 139, 141 laziness 92–3 Levine, Jonathan 33, 183 liberal paradox 252–6 liberation theology 85 light 225 Liltman, Todd 197 Liverpool 258–9 locomotion 207 Luther, Martin 94–5 machines 2; as agents 137–8 ‘Man and Technology’ 138 Manneråkutvalget 214 Marinetti, Filippo Tommaso 1–2 Massey, Doreen 181 Matthews, M. H. 18 Mayer, Peter 179 McCloskey, Donald 38 McFague, Sallie 82, 93, 135 Mecca 93 Mechanischer Garten (Höch) 2, 3 media 12 medieval philosophy 87 Melin, Anders 35, 76, 173, 208 Menzel, Adolph von 4, 4–5, 9 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 90, 105, 107 metaphor 82, 93 Michaels, Mike 126–7 mind-body dualism 103 mobile homes 249, 260, 261 mobility, approach of different disciplines 177–8; definition 207; unlimited 32–3 mobility regimes 180–81 modernism, and self 165 modernity 141, 177, 184; liquid 43

Molz, Jennie 257 monkeys, research on 107 morality 13, 170; Darwinian account 86 motility 131–2, 180, 244 motion 3–5 motorways 23 movement 2, 179; natural and unaided 108–12; technically aided 112–19 narratives 86–7 National Transport Plan 2006–2015 (Norway) 217 nature 8, 14, 184; and Christianity 82–3 nearness 17 networks 42 neuropsychology 104, 106–7 Nidaros Cathedral 11, 95 Nijkamp, Peter 180 Nirje, Gengt 215 noise pollution 248 Northcutt, Michael S. 85, 97 Norway 101, 183, 205–6, 227, 229; design policy 213–14, 216–17, 230–32; immigration statistics 187, 188; non-Western immigrants 185–200, 187; population 223; public transport 216–17 Norway’s Environmental Home Guard (NEHG) 67–8 Nozick, Robert 246 Nynäs, Peter 96, 131–2, 133 Oakes, Tim 171 obesity 219 object relations theory 167 Ogden, Thomas 163, 168 Ölander, Folke 72 Olsson, Gunnar 48 On the Road (Kerouac) 249, 253 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 60 orientation 207; impairment 212 Oslo 61, 66, 77, 186–200 Overgård, Kjell Ivar 129,160 Packer, Jeremy 256 Palestine 93 Pallasmaa, Juhani 10, 131, 158 Papua New Guinea 89 paradigm shifts 214 Pareto principle 255 participation 214 passports 261 paving surfaces 228 pedestrians 101, 206, 209, 218, 219; elderly 227; safety 220; visually impaired 228–9 perception 105, 107; and speed 112–16 perception-action coupling 103–4 phantom limbs 105

272

INDEX

phenomenology 10, 90 physiomorphism 135–8 Picht, Georg 7 Pieters, Rik 62 Pile, Steve 172 pilgrimage 11, 76, 92–6, 155; history of 93–4; metaphor for sustainable travel 96–8; and physical discomfort 93 place, attachment to 170, 172; experience of 157–61, 165; holy or sacred 91, 92, 93, 95; and self 91, 172 planning 46–8, 74, 205, 213; for children 218– 19, 222–3; and disability 230; inclusive 215 plants 86 Plato 87 Plumwood, Val 147 poetry 21 policy 180 pollution 5, 184, 208, 209, 248 postmodernism 125–6 potential: action 179; mobility 128–9, 130; transport 243, 245, 247, 250–51, 252, 257 power 184, 250, 259 Pritchard, Elizabeth 246, 249 privacy 257–8 progress 2 Protestantism 94 psychology, environmental 18, 125, 129, 134; of mobility 156, 161–8 Public Roads Administration (Norway) 231 public transport 251; accessibility 205–6, 208, 216–18; cost 193; ; in Norway 189, 190–95, 199; service levels 192–5; sustainability 208; in the UK 193–4, 194; ; universal design 217 purity 133, 139–42, 144, 147–9 quality of life 205 queues 248 race 7, 149, 178, 182, 184, 214 Railway Administration (Norway) 231 railways 3–4, 97 Rain, Steam and Speed (Turner) 4, 4 Raje, Fiona 178 Ramachandran, Vilayanur 105 reasoned action theory 64–5 Red Cross 198 refugees 183, 188; in Norway 193, 195–6, 198 religion 10–11, 47; and space 23–5 respect 96 revealed mobility 35 rights 178, 208, 213, 218, 232, 246–7 ; minimal 253; to mobility 6, 208, 243–4, 248, 249, 252–3, 255–6 riots 178 Rismark, Marit 190–91 rituals 47–9, 155

road accidents see accidents road movies 249 Rohe, Ludwig Mies van der 10 Rolston, Holmes III 86, 97 Ronfeldt, David 44 Ronis, David 63, 73 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 179, 250–51 Ruether, Rosemary Radford 85, 97 Sack, Robert 170–71 Sagberg, Fridulv 224 Sager, Tore 42, 90, 172, 178, 196, 253 St Augustine 165 St Birgitta 95 Sandhu, Jim 215 Santiago de Compostela 11, 93 Sartre, Jean-Paul 52 Scandinavia 211 school transport 210, 219–20, 222 Schreiner, Per 50–51 Schreiter, Johannes 25–7, 26 Schweitzer, Albert 19–20 Scott, Peter 82–3 self 165; development of 165–7; and mobility 129–30; relationship to space 158–68 Sen, Amartya 35, 185, 189, 205, 218, 246–7, 249, 252–6 Sennett, Richard 11 September 11 attacks 43–4 Shakespeare, Tom 211 Sheldrake, Philip 90–91, 98 Sheller, Mimi 126–7, 145 signs 19 skateboards 259 Skjerdal, Nicolai 214, 215 skyscrapers 91 Slow City movement 76, 252 ‘Small Winding Roads’ (Hallqvist) 21 smuggling 43 snow scooters 210 social exclusion 182, 194, 198–9, 205, 248–9 social fluidification 181 social forecasting 44, 49–52 social obligations 263 social planning 42, 46–8 societies, network 42–3 socioeconomic mobility 171–2, 179, 180, 181–3, 209 sociology, and mobilities 32 Sølvberg, Astrid Margrethe 190–91 Sørensen, Knut 180–81 space 9–10, 87–8; cultural 12; embodied 131; existential 131–2, 134–6, 142; geographical 131; geometric 88–9, 97; lived 88, 97; and religion 23–7; technological 136 speed 35, 89, 93, 102, 109, 178; perception of 112–16

273

INDEX

spirit 2, 15, 85; see also spirituality spirituality 10–13, 23–5, 27, 91–6, 155; see also eco-spirituality sport 109–10 Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (UN) 207 Standardisation Organisation (Norway) 231 Stern, Daniel 130–31, 133, 165–7 Stevens, Dana 255 subjectivity 135–6 Subramanian, S. V. 190 substitution 60 Sundermeier, Theo 26–7 surveillance 256–60, 261, 262 sustainability 20, 59–60, 63–4, 77, 209 Sweden 83 Taoism 11 Tarkovsky, Andrei 158 taxis 189 Taylor, Nigel 38 technogenic idenitification 147 technology 1–3, 8, 14, 180, 210 terrorism 43–4 Thøgersen, John 62, 64, 72, 74 time 177, 248 time-space compression 181 tolls 257 Tomlin, Graham 94–5 tools 106 topophilia 25 torpedoes 138 totalitarianism 52 traffic 6–7, 74, 81, 251; accidents 101–2, 224; forecasting 33; monitoring 257; safety 214, 220, 223 transitivity 41 transport 3–5, 34, 60–61, 66, 71, 178; access to 248; and discipline 256–7; ethics 8, 76, 88, 208; of goods 101; high speed 93; planning 31, 36, 41–2, 177, 208; potential 245; pre-motor 92; resource allocation 209; and social exclusion 182–3, 192–4, 198–9; subidized 92; sustainable 74; see also traffic travel 31, 71, 74, 90; and autonomy 76; as freedom 90, 95; observable 244; as pilgrimage 96–8; rules about 261 Trondheim 10, 95, 138, 186–201, 206, 217, 220 trust 168, 260, 261 Tuan, Yi-Fu 162, 169 Turner, J. M. W. 4, 4, 9

Uexküll, Jakob von 19–20 United Nations 207, 243 United States of America 210, 249–50 universal design 212–18, 213, 227–8, 230–31; principles 240–41 urbanization 40, 252; design 193; development 15, 190; planning 5, 9, 179; sprawl 34, 55, 184, 201 Urry, John 32, 156 Uteng, Tanu Priya 131, 205 utilitarianism 14, 44–5, 51, 208–9 Vadstena 95 Vallacher, Robin 64 Varner, Gary E. 86, 97 Vetlesen, Arne Johan 18 Virilio, Paul 12–13 virtue ethics 92–3, 96 visas 261 Vision Zero 6, 217 visual impairment 207, 225, 228–9, 232 waiting time 248 Walker, Peter 93–4 walking 101, 206, 209, 218, 219, 220, 227; and perception of speed 115; visually impaired pedestrians 228–9 walkways 222 Warren, Karen J. 86–7, 97 Watson, Nicholas 211 wayfaring 35, 89 Wegner, Daniel 64 welfare state 214, 216 wellbeing, and accessibility 207 Wensveen, Louke van 96 Wijk,M. 212–13, 213 Wolff, James 182 work, and driving 189–91, 199; and mobility 155, 161–2, 205; see also labour market working abroad 156–7, 160–62, 169 World Commission on Energy and Development 59 Worldwatch Institute 21, 25, 77 Wright, Ken 159 Yi-Fu Tuan 25 Young, Iris Marion 146 Zanna, Mark 62 zebra crossings 222 Zeitler, Ulli 76, 88–9, 92, 97–8, 263 zero-friction society 36, 39, 45–6, 49–50, 251

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