Socioplastics 11812 A Journey Is a Sequence of Thresholds
A transport network can appear connected while a journey remains difficult to complete. MobilitySieve follows the successive thresholds that shape a person’s movement: fare, stairs, interchange, digital ticket, lighting, waiting conditions and the time available to travel. Each condition changes what a route makes possible. Their sequence helps explain why a service can exist on a map yet remain inaccessible to some of its users. Mimi Sheller’s work on mobility justice links movement to social and political conditions. Ole B. Jensen examines how mobility is staged through bodies, technologies and urban space. Tim Cresswell studies the meanings and politics of movement, while Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s work on disability directs attention to the material conditions of access. Together, these perspectives show how journeys depend on the relation between transport systems and the people expected to use them. A field study could follow several journeys from origin to destination with participants who encounter different barriers. It would record each threshold, the time and cost it adds, and the adaptations required to continue. Route maps could be paired with travel diaries and interviews, then compared with formal accessibility standards. The resulting account would identify where a change to one connection improves the whole journey and where other adjustments remain necessary. MobilitySieve turns access into a sequence that can be observed and revised. Transport agencies can use it to prioritise interventions by their cumulative effect on a complete trip. A route becomes more usable when its conditions are assessed from the perspective of people moving through it.
REFERENCES
Cresswell, T. (2006) On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World. New York: Routledge.
Garland-Thomson, R. (1997) Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press.
Jensen, O.B. (2013) Staging Mobilities. London: Routledge.
Sheller, M. (2018) Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes. London: Verso.
CITE AS
Lloveras, A. (2026) Socioplastics, LAPIEZA-LAB, Madrid.
https://antolloveras.blogspot.com/p/socioplastics-project-index.html