Sharing Mobilities: Questioning Our Right to the City in the Collaborative Economy

This book examines contemporary urban sharing mobilities, such as shared and public forms of everyday urban mobility. Tracing the social and economic history of sharing mobilities and examining contemporary case studies of mobility sharing services, such as Car2go, BlaBlaCar, and Uber, the authors raise questions about what these changes mean for access to and engagement with the public spaces of transport in the city. Drawing on the thought of Lefebvre, the book considers how contemporary sharing mobilities are affecting people’s ‘right to the city’, with particular attention paid to the privatised, frictionless practices of movement through the city. In addition, the authors ask what has happened to earlier forms of shared mobility and illustrate how some of these practices continue successfully today. Considering the potential that modern incarnations of shared mobilities offer to urban citizens for engaging in meaningful shared mobilities that are not simply determined by the interfaces of technology and market forces, this book will appeal to sociologists and geographers with interests in mobility and urban studies.

Davide Arcidiacono is a researcher in Economic Sociology at the University of Catania, Italy. His research focuses on the issues of digital transformation and the sharing and platform economy.

Mike Duggan is a teaching fellow in the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London, UK. His research focuses on the intersections between digital technologies and everyday cultures of practice.