Greening Mobility? Subjects in Socio-Technical Imaginaries of Future Mobilities

Transformation in the mobility sector is expected to satisfy a broad range of different needs and to contribute to the solution of energy related (fuel consumption and related emissions like fine dust). While advocates draw a positive picture of shared and sustainable future mobility of individuals in urban areas, critics question ecological effects and problematize security issues. Not surprisingly, it remains rather unclear how the individual and its needs, grounded in necessities that have to be satisfied, and wants, i.e. self-centered aims, desires, or pleasures (Rosales 2011; Douglas et al. 2013), are conceived in future visions of mobility. In fact, the subject related dimension is often absorbed by the normative, future-eyed assumptions constituting sociotechnical imaginaries. Sociotechnical imaginaries, i.e. “collective interpretations of social reality”, as Jasanoff and Kim (2009: 122) put it, “build […] on the growing recognition that the capacity to imagine futures is a crucial constitutive element in social and political life”. Residing on the nexus of interpretation and action, imaginaries emerge from a process of co-production (Jasanoff 2004) constituting technical, social, and political orders. They may influence development priorities, allocation of funds, investment in infrastructures, or the acceptance or suppression of (socio-)political dissent. Our paper aims at tracing imaginaries of future mobilities with a special focus on subject positions and underlying needs and wants. The analysis is based on qualitative inquiry of different visions in form of text-based policy guidelines, scenarios and think-tank reports. We investigate which discourses, identities, and institutions are attributed and (re)constructed. By analyzing the affirmative effects in the (re)construction of needs and wants, we systematically elaborate what kind of stimuli for mobility practices dominate and how mobility patterns in future scenarios are thought to be.