Mobility, Infrastructure, and the Humanities

Mobility, suggested John Urry, is fundamental as one of “the infrastructures of social life” (13). Yet mobilities are as equally undergirded by infrastructures of systems that can both enable and disable mobilities. This special issue emerged from the 2022 Global Mobility Humanities Conference, and in this introductory article we open out several problematics which framed some of the conference and introduce further the themes explored by the special issue papers. First, we tease out the academic networks, practices and relations of a broader “infrastructuring” of the (mobility) humanities. Secondly, while theorising a mobility humanities of infrastructure, we introduce the papers by way of exploring several cross-cutting concerns. That is, we discuss how the methodological possibilities stimulated by a humanistic lens may produce nuanced accounts of infrastructures (“Methods as Infrastructures”); how mobility humanities can present the polyvocality of infrastructures, enlarging the conceptualisation of both infrastructure and infrastructuring (“Pluralising Infrastructures”); and how infrastructures can be interrogated ethically and politically in terms of a wide variety of critical issues that pertain to mobility equality, sustainability, and inclusiveness, that is, the notion of mobility justice (“[Ex]change: The [Broken] Promises of Infrastructures.” Thus, we hope this special issue functions as a powerful and productive trigger to stimulate more encounters and develop generative conversations.