There are a lot of different ways of understanding a taxi - In poor countries, for instance, it can represent a multi-dimensional node connecting a variety of soft networks relating social and labour processes to mobility. Looking at the idea of mobility, moreover, surely what is important about the taxi is less the form of mobility it constitutes itself, but the role it plays as a conduit for the survival auto-mobility of others, particularly in a poor country of the global south?

I think therefore that visualizing and reifying the taxi for any knowledge it may represent embodied in one person or group of people is less important than how the taxi is linked into socio-economic networks and what that can tell us about urban connectivity. Looking at connectivity avoids boundaries and definition, in fact in makes a virtue of eliding process and function. Concentrating on the reification of the taxi (for me) makes the mistake of assuming that there is necessarily a knowledge embodied in that monad independent of the context in which the taxi/driver is located. 

If a taxi works in the ranchos of Venezuela, it works in a constantly changing environment in which the fixity of location itself is permanently on the move as the ranchos change and expand, with no fixed addresses, street names or numbers. What kind of knowledge arises from that constant fluidity? In Nicaragua, as another example, because there are no (or very few) street names, numbers etc even in the big cities, an address is given as (for example) ‘de la iglesia magdalena una cuadra al sur, media cuadra al lago y dos al este’ (from the church of mary magdalen one block to the south, half a block towards the lake and two to the east). All spatial knowledge is therefore directed from specific, frequently temporary communal referents; what form of knowledge does this reproduce?

Poverty is intimately linked to mobility and in the poorer countries of the global south taxi travel becomes something far different from the non-essential (luxury?) item it is in the richer countries, because of the frequently dysfunctional nature of public or mass transport. It becomes an essential component of work, education and health care. The taxi is also a strongly gendered space – no matter which country, taxis are overwhelmingly masculinized work spaces and very few women drive taxis. A male taxi driver can therefore form an important component of the life of a poor southern woman whilst knowing very little about the intricacies of her socio-cultural spatiality (and the role played by the taxi in it), the reproductive and productive priorities (however defined) of her life.

Is ‘the knowledge’ or any taxi-derived, cartographic way of understanding the city a purely (or overwhelmingly) masculine form of knowledge that, far from representing some special insight, is inherently partial and exclusionary? If it is, a taxi may therefore represent a critical conjuncture of survival processes whilst also being (in terms of knowledge and ‘knowing’ the city) an interface of socio-cultural and gendered disjuncture.

 

Just some thoughts,

 

 

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From: A forum for critical and radical geographers [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Maureen Hickey [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 25 June 2011 02:47
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: taxi driving geographers

It's also worth asking: what is a taxi? Rickshaws, tuk-tuks, motorcycles, private, semi-private van services and private cars that pick up paying passengers (as mentioned) all play important roles in transporting people in many places, particularly when there is a lack of other alternatives. I limited my study to automobile taxis (a matter of time, money, and energy), but it is a tricky question.  Also, there is much blurring on the boundaries between formal and informal work in taxi businesses around the world. Often it is a mix of a lot of very specific regulations (down to the exact shade of paint the taxi can be painted) and a total free-for-all (particularly in terms of labor recruitment and regulation).

As to whether or not we are objectifying "taxi drivers" as a group, yes, taxi drivers are more than their job (or jobs for those that hold down multiple income earning positions) as we all are - we are all more than our labor power, but how (and why and when) we deploy our labor and how that labor is organized and disciplined in specific settings is a legitimate topic for study. It is also important to study people's labor in the context of the rest of their lives (and over the course of their lives) and in relation to how their work fits into bigger issues of power, access, and (dare I say it?), mobility.  Also, while the question of "who is a taxi driver" is a context and site specific one - in some cases it may be quite ambiguous, in others, it is fairly clearly defined within that particular location. In Bangkok, people who rent or own vehicles that have big signs on the top that say "TaxiMeter," who wear a uniform shirt, who have a commercial drivers' permit, who subscribe to radio dispatch services and who call themselves "taxi drivers" are...taxi drivers. Motorcycle drivers who wait at particular motorcycle-taxi stands and wear vests that identify themselves as drivers for hire are also (and consider themselves) "taxi drivers." Are mini-van drivers (who drive a fixed route) taxi drivers? That is a more open question, although they certainly compete with both taxis and buses and are resented as unfair competition for that reason by workers in both those services.

On the topic of special knowledge of the city, I think that while taxi drivers (however defined) who have been working as drivers for a while will know the streets and routes quite intimately, rarely is there anything as codified as the "knowledge" in London. In many large cities the infrastructure - including road infrastructure - is highly inadequate and that, to a certain extent, diffuses any "special street smarts" a driver might have. In Bangkok, every resident who has lived in the city for a while knows the major routes and knows (from lived experience of paralyzing traffic) there are not enough large thru-ways and most of the secondary streets are dead-ends or lead to networks of (also dead end) alleys. This makes finding shortcuts (or padding fares by going the long way around) impractical. So most drivers, at least in this particular setting, while they may "know" the streets of the city better than an occasional driver, have no real "special spatial" knowledge, and may even know less if they are recent arrivals to the city from other areas of the country.

Finally a few thoughts on "mobility" and what it means to be mobile. It has been a while since I have read some of the work on "automobility" but it is worth thinking about the ways in which "mobility" and "automobility" are related. Taxi drivers, along with other drivers of all stripes, have a very tightly defined "mobility" while driving - they are confined to the road system - that is very different from mobility through the city by other means, particularly under one's own bodily power.  And unlike private drivers, who drive from point to point and then get out of the vehicle to "be" in the new place (presumably for the purpose of the trip), the taxi driver experiences the city, while he/she is working at least, constantly from his position behind the wheel.  Also, as anyone who has been on a long road trip or who has had a long commute knows, a car (or truck) is the mobile actor, and the driver is in a position of highly limited and physically restrained mobility within the vehicle. In some ways, driving for 8-12 hours a day is a sort of a torturous form of "immobility" that comes with all sorts of health consequences for those that do it for extended periods of time.  So while there may be a fascination with taxi drivers because of their mobility around "the city" that mobility needs to be carefully qualified.

It is a lot of fun to talk about these issues on this forum and I tend to get carried away, so I apologize for clogging up in boxes. Anyone who wants to talk further about taxis, taxi drivers, or research on transportation workers can email me directly - I would love to talk with you!

All the best,
Maureen

Maureen Hickey
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Migration Cluster
Asia Research Institute
National University of Singapore