Luca Nitschke

Sharing mobilities beyond capitalism? – An exploration into non-commercial sharing practices in mobilities

My research looks at non-commercial forms of sharing mobilities, especially carsharing. My understanding of non-commercial sharing is the purchase and/or usage of an asset of mobility (e.g. car, bike, cargo-bikes, trucks) through an institutionalized process within a defined (local) group, e.g. a group of friends or neighbours, an association or a NGO. By institutionalized process I refer to any form of arrangement between the participants that results in a ‘regulatory’ frame leading to regularization and habitualization of their practice. The focus of my research are the motivations of and influences on people to participate in such a form of sharing. Further I investigate the influences this participation has on them. Through this I explore the possibilities of non-commercial mobilities sharing as an anchor for communal life and its contribution to a ‘transport transition’. While calling the participation in non-commercial sharing ‘resistance’ against privatized (commercial) mobilities exaggerates what is happening, these practices certainly are – consciously or unconsciously – not following a capitalist growth and valuation logic, providing a potential starting point for emancipatory change.

Theoretically I follow a critical tradition and describe “the means of transportation and communication”, understood as mobilities (Urry 2007), as part of the main forces and lubricants for the perpetual motion of the capitalist mode of production. From this viewpoint (uneven) mobility is an important factor in the (re)production of inequality in and between (groups of) individuals, countries, societies and cultures (Sheller 2015).

With my dissertation I want to draw attention on how the so-called second contradiction of capitalism (O’Connor 1988) can provide a theoretical lens for the analysis of contemporary mobilities and their development. As drastically visible in congested streets, the growth and development of mobility impairs its own production conditions and inherently creates its own limits. At the same time this contradiction creates a theoretical and practical need to rethink societies’ relationship with mobility outside of capitalism’s growth and concurrence logic (Schwedes 2017). With transport and economic growth being generally seen as conditioning each other, thinking about alternative, non-growth and non-market based, non-commercial and therefore non-capitalist forms of transport and mobility is a prerequisite and a step towards substantial emancipatory change in society.