The Movement Problem, the Car and Future Mobility Regimes: Automobility as Dispositif and Mode of Regulation

Abstract

Within the mobilities literature, there is a growing body of research on the decline of automobility and the emergence of new mobility regimes. In this context, I will outline an understanding of ‘mobility as dispositif’ which facilitates tracing interweavings of discursive knowledge, material structures, social practices and subjectifications around mobilities. Specific value of the dispositif concept consists in analysing multifaceted, but decentral power relations effecting inequalities in relation to mobilities at different scales, shown by way of existing studies of automobility. Thereby, the co-constitution of social order, space and hegemonic mobilities regimes moves to the fore. Yet, what is missing in this Foucauldian genealogy of mobility dispositifs is a broader conceptualisation of stabilising material conditions. Accordingly, I use elements of regulation theory as a complementary and framing social theory to understand the dispositifs of mobility as embedded in and stabilised through (but not as a simple function of) specific modes of regulation and regimes of accumulation. Finally, I consider the current automobility dispositif and conclude by sketching some signs of its decline.

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