Labouring public transport in Santiago de Cuba: a report from the field | Wojciech Kębłowski (VUB, ULB), Monika Maciejewska (VUB), Merlin Gillard (LISER, VUB)
In this presentation, we share preliminary insights from our fieldwork in the city of Santiago de Cuba. We approach Santiago as highly relevant site for exploring mobility transitions. While prior to the 1990s, Cubans enjoyed uniform mobility welfare organised by the redistributive and regulatory principles of State socialism, this paradigm ended in the aftermath of the collapse of the ‘socialist camp’ in 1991 and the repeated imposition of embargos. As a result, Santiago has experienced a shift towards mobility scarcity, as extremely reduced access to fuel, vehicles and spare parts has led to decrease of (auto)mobility levels. At the same time, scarcity has been met with ever-evolving diversity and informality of transport means (vehicles), prices and professions. In this context, we aim to address the following questions: how does the public transport (PT) system operate? What is the role of price in modal choice and daily mobility? How does price affect women in particular? How is PT controlled and contested in Santiago? What makes public transport in Santiago de Cuba public?
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Wojciech Kębłowski is a critical urban geographer working on transport and alternatives to capitalism. He is based at VUB and ULB, holding the position of FWO Junior Postdoctoral Fellow. He is interested in bringing critical social theory and decolonial theory to transport geography. He studies the political economy and governance of “sustainable” transport policies, transport in/formality, and publicness of public transport. He also studies diverse alternatives to the capitalist mode of producing urban space and society. He explores how, why and for whom these “alternatives” emerge, and how they are transferred and “mobilised” between urban contexts.
Affiliation: Cosmopolis, Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Institut de Gestion et d’Aménagement du Territoire, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Monika completed her PhD degree in Geography at Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) where she was a member of Research Group on Mobility, Transportation and Territory (GEMOTT). Her dissertation dealt with the topic of gender differences in the use of transport modes in Barcelona and Warsaw. She has joined COSMOPOLIS in Geography Department at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in March 2021 as a FWO postdoctoral fellow. In LiFT project she is working on the consequences of public transport fare abolition assessing its social impact, with a special attention to gender perspective.
Affiliation: Cosmopolis, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Merlin Gillard is a PhD researcher at LISER (Luxembourg) and VUB since 2021. He completed his master’s degree in Urban Studies at ULB & VUB in 2019. He studies the governance of fare-free public transport (FFPT), as well as whether FFPT makes public transport a more public service and space. He is particularly interested in how FFPT impacts security practices, policing and surveillance on public transport.
Affiliation: Urban Development and Mobility, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research and Cosmopolis, Vrije Universiteit Brussel