The Cultures of Sustainable Mobilities

The talk focuses on the cultures of sustainable mobility, understood as a way to unite, on one hand, the primarily technical discourses concerning the shift to sustainable mobilities, and, on the other hand, the mobility cultures embedded in discourses, encounters, and broader ways of life. Namely, the cultures of sustainable mobility serve as a framework that raises, among other critical questions, which mode of mobility is valued (in which place and among which people); how people discuss mobilities and how it affects the meaning of transport modes; and how different ways of being mobile in practice relate to practising sustainability, in both conscious and unplanned manners. The talk highlights histories and how they can provide unexpected connections, particularly seeking sustainability relations in socialist mobilities. It also emphasises words, narratives, and various frameworks for thinking about mobilities, drawing on the presenter's research on walking, traffic discourses, and public transport as a public space. 

Tauri Tuvikene, PhD, is an urban geographer and a professor of urban studies at the School of Humanities, Tallinn University. His research centres on comparative urbanism, comparative methods in light of post-socialist cities, the study of urban mobility practices and regulations, and the politics of (sustainable) urban infrastructures. On these topics, he has published in Urban Studies, IJURR, Geoforum, Journal of Transport Geography, Journal of Transport History, Transfers and elsewhere. He has co-edited two books: "Post-Socialist Urban Infrastructures" (Routledge) and "If Cars Could Walk: Postsocialist Streets in Transformation" (Berghahn). He has been a Project Leader for research projects, including HERA-funded PUTSPACE "Public Transport as Public Space in European Cities: Narrating, Experiencing, Contesting" (2019 – 2022) and JPI Urban Europe-supported “Capacities for Resilient and Inclusive Urban Public Transport Infrastructure and Built Environment” (2022 – 2025).