Dear colleagues,

This is an invite for those interested in urban public transport in
Eastern/Central Europe, especially if you would like to attend the T2M
conference in Leipzig, Germany 23 - 25 September, 2024.

About the conference and call for papers in other sessions is here:
https://t2m.org/2024-conference-call-for-paper/

*CfP: Comparative perspectives on public transport in the post-socialist
East *

Convenors:
Lela Rekhviashvili, Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography
Wladimir Sgibnev, Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography
Tauri Tuvikene, Tallinn University School of Humanities

Mobilities and immobilities are not the same everywhere. Yet, the research
area of mobilities in the post-socialist East took a while to emerge as a
field. Despite the meaning and importance of collective modes of transport
in that part of the world, public transport has until recently played but a
marginal role in scholarly literature. In recent years, we indeed have
witnessed an increasing emergence of in depth studies inspired by the
influence of the mobilities turn in transportation research, and amply
building on sociological and ethnographic scholarship (e.g. Shajtanova and
Kuznetsov 2014; Vozyanov 2014; Kuklina and Holland 2018; Rekhviashvili and
Sgibnev 2018; Weicker and Turdalieva 2021). These contributions have
fostered insights into actor constellations, trajectories and practices in
particular case cities and regions, and therefore constitute a formidable
foundation for further research in the post-socialist East. Comparative
studies, however, have remained few, and, moreover, are largely outdated,
lack dialogue with theoretical innovations, and remain dominated by
economistic and technocratic readings (e.g. Pucher 1999; Gwilliam et al. et
al 2000; Gwilliam 2001; Finn 2008). Seminal edited volumes (Burrell and
Hörschelmann 2014; Blinkin and Koncheva 2016; Duijzings and Tuvikene 2023)
have significantly advanced our understanding of the width and depth of
mobilities research in the formerly socialist space at-large, yet more, and
decidedly comparative research is needed.

The question remains: How to account for local diversity and regional
specificities  of transport politics, meanings of local (mobility) history
and culture? Should that history be treated as an increasingly vanishing
memory, or something that still has the power to shape contemporary and
future processes, such as the urgently needed mobility transitions? Are
there elements of the past – even if they emerge from otherwise undesirable
eras in need to be moved away – that could be revived and be used for
contemporary inspiration? Attending to continuities – of policy thinking,
of public values, of infrastructures – is equally crucial in assessing
future processes of moving or not moving towards sustainable mobility
systems. Looking back to learn for the future might be of great value.

We invite accounts of the politics of urban transport and mobility that
would compare or contextualise cities of the post-Socialist East within,
across or beyond the region, and across time. Both qualitative and
quantitative, historical and experimental approaches are welcome, delving
into the region's modernist, secular, urban, industrial heritage converging
with a set of peripherality, authoritarianism, and exploitation. We would
like to highlight convergences and divergences, commonalities and
differences, and explore “links of the cities in question with the wider
world” (Trubina, 2018, p.120). How can public transport in Eastern cities
 be seen as embedded in world capitalist history, and more importantly,
what can we learn from these cities about variegated capitalist forms of
urbanisation? What are the global perspectives and values of “learning from
post-socialism”? How to assess the influence and predominant role of EU
integration policies in the late 1990s and early 2000s on the (re- / de-
)marketisation of public transport? What can we learn from specific
trajectories of rapid motorisation, privatisation, and changed socialities
of urban life, their intersections with various societal shifts and
transformations, and its implications for public transport futures? What
are the institutional and societal “shared values” (Lankina et al. 2008
178) and concepts, as well as “historical traditions” (Lankina et al. 2008,
178; Laze 2011, 302) within and across the region?

Please send your abstracts of 300 words and a short bio of 200 words to
[log in to unmask] by the *3 April 2024* for feedback and
confirmation of inclusion to this session, as well as by the *7th of April
2024* to [log in to unmask] Proposals should also include the title, name,
affiliation, and email address.

Tauri Tuvikene

--
Tauri Tuvikene
Linnauuringute professor / Professor in Urban Studies
Humanitaarteaduste instituut / School of Humanities
Tallinna Ülikool / Tallinn University
Projektijuht / Project Coordinator - EN-UTC CARIN-PT (resilient and
inclusive public transport)  <https://carinpt.eu/>
[log in to unmask] / (+372) 5647 8074
Recently published: co-edited book If Cars Could Walk: Postsocialist
Streets in Transformation <https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/DuijzingsIf>

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