52. Transport as a Platform

Transport is connected to social justice, freedom and equality in the city. Transit networks are objects of intense political contestation and are key terrains of struggle in cities around the world. As sites of disruption, they signal the interrelated crises of urban poverty, social reproduction, security, racism, democracy, and climate. As sites of collectivity, they express the powers of being, acting, and moving in common. We're talking to Theresa Enright about transit as a critical infrastructure of oppression and resistance and as a key platform for political and social change. Drawing on transit-oriented mobilizations in several North American cities, Theresa talks about how transit is tied to claims of spatial justice, and how practices of commoning are realizing new ways to design, operate, and transform mobility systems. Guest Dr. Enright’s research examines urban and regional politics with a focus on infrastructure and mobility. She has written about conflicts over urban transit in Toronto, London, and Paris. Her most recent work considers cultural dimensions of transportation through an analysis of the art, architecture, and design of urban rail networks. Dr. Enright is the author of The Making of Grand Paris: Metropolitan Urbanism in the Twenty-first Century (MIT 2016) and editor (with Ugo Rossi) of The Urban Political: Ambivalent Spaces of Late Neoliberalism (Palgrave 2017). Specialty Focus Areas: Urban-regional planning; metropolitan governance, the politics of infrastructure, urban social movements, critical urban theory.