Citizenship and the embodied practice of wheelchair use     

《Geoforum》2015

Citizenship has been associated with members of a community that engage in paid work (Painter and Philo, 1995; Desforges et al., 2005). This idea constructs remunerated work as a key determinant of citizenship (Brown and Patrick, 2012). The outcome in terms of mobility is the provision of infrastructure and technologies that potentially privilege the movement of those considered to be ‘productive bodies’ between their workplaces and homes at specific times, while disadvantaging disabled people and their everyday mobility practices (Imrie, 2000). This paper explores the ways in which the formation of citizenship and movement, as embodied and sensory practices, and wheelchair use may be constrained by infrastructures, means of transport and social practices that are often insensitive to the needs of disabled people. In particular, the paper contributes to fleshing out the notion of ‘embodied citizenship’ in relation to women wheelchair users and the role played by their devices and other mobility technologies in their citizenship struggles. The paper is divided into three sections. First, I set out a framework for exploring the relationships between citizenship, mobility and disability with a focus on wheelchair users. Second, drawing on original qualitative research data, the paper concentrates on the embodied mobility practices of women wheelchair users who live in Greater London and Leicestershire, United Kingdom. Here I highlight the prejudices, barriers, discrimination and exclusions that they face, which, potentially, impact on their claims to citizenship. Finally, the paper concludes that an approach based on the subjective experience of the wheelchair user in context is useful in revealing the complexities of citizenship.  相似文献   

The Overseas Citizen of India and Emigrant Infrastructure: Tracing the deterritorializations of diaspora strategies     

《Geoforum》2015

This article introduces the conceptual notion of Emigrant Infrastructure to further debates on diaspora strategies, extraterritorial belonging, and citizenship. Diasporic strategies are altering the possibilities for transnational citizenship and redefining belonging through the introduction of emigrant documentary schemes aimed at formalizing relationships with the diasporic subject. Using India as a case study, this article examines the historical development of the Overseas Citizen of India and Overseas Indian Card, state technologies that transformed emigrants from unwanted others into desired diasporic subjects. Outlining historical spatio-temporal junctures of the legal, policy, and bureaucratic engagements between the Government of India and emigrants reveals a deep Emigrant Infrastructure erected through three phases: active, reactive and hyperactive (linked to the colonial, post-colonial, and post-liberal Indian state). Tracing emigrant—government engagements, the article reveals how India actively constructed itself as a homeland with a diaspora. Understanding the formalization of a diasporic subject de-naturalizes the spatial assumptions linking nation, state, territory, citizenship, and people. Emigrant Infrastructure understood through diasporic subjectivity and identification cards reveals the spatiality of diaspora strategies and a changing relationship between the reterritorializing nation and the deterritorializing state.  相似文献   

“Differentiated citizenship” and the persistence of informal rural credit systems in Amazonia     

《Geoforum》2015

In the Brazilian Amazon, the long-distance river trading system known as aviamento has linked commodity producers in remote areas to markets in urban centers since the colonial period. Based on a case study from the rural municipality of Lábrea, this article explores continuities and changes in river trading from the point view of riverine residents and river traders. Geographic isolation and seasonal productive needs continued people’s dependence on river traders in 2008–2009, but they had greater choices due to increased access to information, mobility, and alternate markets. Expanded citizenship rights provided access to the vote and to education and other government services, but in a “differentiated” manner that still excluded many rural Amazonians. Given that agroindustry is currently the economic focus for Amazonian development, instead of forest product extraction, these rural producers continued to be forced to rely on informal river traders to meet their needs.  相似文献   

‘Digging-up’ Utopia? Space, practice and land use heritage     

David Crouch 《Geoforum》2003,34(3):395-408

In this paper we explore history and heritage mobilised to do service for marginalized interests. We discuss how resources, such as, place, texts, artefacts and practice are drawn upon to forward particular political interests. Touching on recent work in non-representational theory we suggest that more attention be paid to the micro-politics of doing and link more formal action to that of ‘everyday’ practice. The examples used show how particular actors draw on history and heritage to advance their positions and how their performances reinforce claims based on alternative practices. The examples used illustrate how this involves the notion of ‘reclaiming’ historical action, historical texts and historical place. In particular how this relates to land and specifically in this paper the metaphor, representation and practice of ‘digging’.  相似文献   

Driving the ‘Starship Enterprise’ through London: Constructing the im/moral driver-citizen through HGV safety technology     

《Geoforum》2015

The intersections between technology, mobility and citizenship have been relatively neglected in current geographical enquiry. Through qualitative analysis of user, operator and media accounts of retro-fitted safety technology on HGVs (Heavy Goods Vehicles), this paper illustrates the ways in which citizenship as a moral accomplishment is dependent upon the socio-technical worlds into which individual actors are folded. In response to the growing incidence of cyclist fatalities under the wheels of HGVs, various safety technologies have been positioned as reliable ‘intermediaries’ by policymakers, manufacturers and operators seeking to mitigate the risks of the HGV. However, we demonstrate that these technologies are more accurately seen as ‘mediators’, because of the ways in which they distort and translate information, producing and reshaping new tasks and roles for HGV drivers. One of the consequences of this is a shift in responsibility towards the drivers, which increases the potential to construct them as negligent if accidents still occur. Accordingly, we indicate how technologies ‘push back’ on mobile subjects, shaping not only their ability for moral conduct, but broader social identities as citizens.  相似文献