doi 10.4067/S0718-83582010000100002

 

Exclusion and Spatial Inequality: An analysis from a daily mobility perspective1

 

Paola Jirón2, Carlos Lange3, María Bertrand4

2 Chilean, BComm, MSc, PhD Urban Planning, INVI Academic, Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Universidad de Chile.

3 Chilean, Bachelor in Anthropology, MSc, INVI Academic, Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Universidad de Chile.

4 Chilean, Urbanist, PhD. Departament of Urbanism Academic, Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Universidad de Chile.

 

Abstract: Daily urban mobility is one of the most complex and relevant phenomena of contemporary spatial configurations and organizations. However, ignoring contributions from theories of urbanism, its spatiality has been disarticulated by planners who are unawate of the anthropological dimensions of spaces of human beings. The following article tries to develop and problematise urban social exclusion from an urban daily mobility point of view. This approach is important as it sets out the theoretical-conceptual contributions developed recently on both concepts; it analyses the links and relationships between both concepts and their importance to the understanding of urban space; and it sets urban subjects as key figures in the concepts in discussion.

KEYWORDS: DAILY MOBILITY; SOCIAL EXCLUSION; EXPERIENCE; SPATIALITY; SANTIAGO DE CHILE.

 

Introduction

At the end of the last decade, and referring to the predominant role assumed by Santiago de Chile as the urban center that led the country into the globalization process, de Mattos[1] pointed out three important transformations experienced by Santiago morphology during the last thirty years: a suburbanization trend produced by the formation of a diffuse periurban area; a formation of a polarized, segregated metropolitan structure; and a sudden emergence of a group of new urban artifacts capable of reorganizing the metropolitan space. A decade after that diagnosis, the identified features seem to have progressively increased and consolidated.

Firstly, and according to Galetovic and Jordán[2], the expansion of the urban surface of Santiago changed from 49,270ha in 1992 –taking into account the 32 municipalities of the Santiago Province plus Puente Alto and San Bernardo– to 64,140ha in 2002 –taking into account the 37 municipalities regulated by the Metropolitan Master Plan of Santiago[3]–. That growth is associated with a series of important factors such as the extensive occupation of rural areas in the outskirts of Santiago, the development of urban and semiurban residential projects and the incorporation of urban centers next to Santiago such as San Benardo, Puente Alto, Maipú and Colina. This process has entailed the redistribution of both its population and activities (residential, cultural, recreational, commercial, industrial, service sector, etc.)

Secondly, the emergence of new metropolitan artifacts can be understood by the interrelationship of three factors: the massive pieces of infrastructure designed for mobility such as the underground network, the concessioned suburban motorways, and the exclusive lanes for public transport, to name some a few; better and more modern motorized means of transport as a response to connectivity demands during the last years[4]; and the efforts for designing, implementing and putting into practice a public service transport capable of improving the connectivity and accessibility within the city in order to facilitate the connection with other urban areas, as in the case of Transantiago.

Lastly, the two aforementioned factors are associated with a polarized and segregated metropolitan structure, with a clear difference among socio-economic groups. While the migration of higher class groups towards areas regarded as exclusive and privileged (Providencia, Las Condes, Vitacura and Lo Barnechea on the east; Huechuraba, Quilicura and Lampa on the north; Peñalolén, La Florida and Pirque on the south; Paine and Buin on the west) is increasing, the middle class groups are still living in their traditional districts (Ñuñoa, La Reina, La Florida, San Miguel and Maipú), and the lower class groups, due to their dependence on subsidized housing[5], have moved towards the most devaluated and marginalized areas of the city (Puente Alto, La Pintana, San Bernardo, some zones of Maipú, Cerrillos and districts in the eastern part of Santiago.)

Although the projections of the diagnosis made ten years ago were correct, the analysis and discussion of the causes and consequences of these phenomena do not mention one of the most important elements of current urban debate: urban daily mobility.

In this sense, the increasing distance that separates both private as well as social housing projects located on the outskirts of the city from the central zones which concentrate employment, recreation and services sectors, turns urban daily mobility into a significant element of analysis and discussion to understand the effects of the transformations previously mentioned on the population quality of life. For instance, the 2002 census asked for the first time about the destination of daily mobility of people in relation to their workplace or educational institutions. The results showed that people with less resources and lower education level have less mobility than people with more resources and higher level of education[6]. This is consistent with the transport possibilities of each group. While lower income groups commute by walking, cycling or by public transport means, higher income groups concentrate the use of private transport. In 2001, the existent 970,000 automobiles in Santiago were concentrated on the 35% of higher income households[7].

The situation experienced by Santiago de Chile may illustrate the changes taking place in the main Latin American metropolises during the last decade. This confirms the importance of addressing urban daily mobility as a research subject and as a theoretical-methodological approach, mainly for its relationship with an uneven accessibility and its impact on existing social exclusion in urban centers.

In this manner, urban daily mobility is increasingly becoming a massive, recurrent and complex social practice determined by existing inequality in the city. For this reason, the study of urban daily mobility strategies and experiences allow for a critical approach to analyze urban social relationships and, specifically, those that lead to social exclusion. It takes into account the transformations taking place in the lives of urban residents from an everyday life point of view, this being a key element that has not been properly studied.

Based on this, this paper aims at developing a problematization of urban social exclusion from an urban daily mobility point of view. This is particularly relevant as it sets out the theoretical-conceptual contributions developed recently on both concepts; it analyses the existing links and relationships between both concepts and their importance to the understanding of urban space; and it sets urban subjects as key figures in the concepts in discussion.

 

The importance of daily mobility from a social sciences and urban studies perspective

During the last decade, different authors have pointed out the importance of the mobility turn in social sciences in the field of urban research and for a significant for reorganization of key elements in urbanism[8]. Such perspective is related to unavoidable impacts caused by different types of mobility, including migration, tourism, residential mobility or urban daily mobility, in social and spatial organization of current daily life. Mobility might be seen as a sign of modern times, and despite the fact that our societies have been historically determined by increasing mobility in different aspects of daily life[9], its current multiple forms, speed and variety are unprecedented.

In this sense, even though the importance of sporadic international or long distance trips, daily movement is still significant for urban analysis. This requires close attention, as daily experience can be useful to understand different aspects of urban life quality. Likewise, current concerns are not only related to commuting to and from work, but also to the increasingly multiple trips needed to maintain a lifestyle and to organize daily activities. Topics about how to reach a specific destination are inevitably connected to lifestyles and planning in contemporary cities[10].

In this way, daily mobility can be understood as crucial in current urban life organization. Urban daily mobility is therefore understood as a social practice of daily movement through urban space and time, granting access to activities, people and places. This approach also involves understanding the social, economic, cultural and spatial consequences of daily mobility on urban space structure and the different experiences of inhabitants.

Co-presence, and the spatial conditions that best suit the different types of co-presence, are the first distinctive characteristics of mobility. Although daily mobility might be physical, virtual or imaginary[11]; and technological advances such as the television, the Internet or mobile networks allow individuals to be in different places at the same time, for the majority of people, social life is still determined by sporadic encounters that take place during physical trips[12]. Both encounters and the different forms of movement are essential for the development of a social life that combines increasing distances and intermittent copresence[13]. Communication and trips required for co-presence can be are rich and varied and seem to transform the nature of social life[14].

The space-time concept refers to the connection between both elements, transcending their independent definitions. The conception of space-time, as a multidimensional, uneven, and partial process, becomes important for mobile urban life, as it transforms the nature and experience of urban space and time[15].

According to Sheller and Urry[16], this mobility turn presents new theoretical and methodological implications and important practices for social sciences. Therefore, these new elements present a change in the way urban research and urban processes are addressed. Since the invention of the locomotive, urban development and specifically the urban form have been developed to increase and make easy the movement through the creation of roads, avenues and motorways[17]. Thus, the promotion of movement has played an important role in urban planning. This tendency is increasing as a result of the suburbanization processes in urban centers and the virtual and physical connectivity requirements needed for incorporation into the global circuit.

However, the analysis of urban phenomenon has been generally static, as it tries to understand how individuals live on fixed locations, disregarding or trivializing the movement of people and how they interact with the globalization process. In this way, mobility as a characteristic of urban life has not been properly studied in the fields of urban geography, sociology and anthropology and areas related to urban studies[18]. The analysis of the impact of daily mobility questions the static conception of urban space and the concepts of fixity and permanence, since mobile experiences are fluid, scaled and processual, thus needing a thorough examination[19].

In this sense, it is important not to take mobility from movement, and although movement is an important component of mobility, they do not refer to the same concept. Mobility, as previously stated, refers not only to the act of moving, in reference to transport, but also to the social practice of moving through space-time.

In the opinion of Urry[20], urban trips and movements have been mainly studied by engineers, geographers and transport economists, who only analyze daily trips to work. Nevertheless, these disciplines, explicitly or implicitly, derive hypothesis through the adoption –assuming a rational decision-making process– of deductive approaches based upon behavior models that are contrasted with empirical data to reach a generalization[21]. In this manner, and assuming rational transport decisions taken by users –which are translated into efficiency and effectiveness of movement and connectivity– transport professionals try to organize daily movement.

Richmond[22] says that this narrow perspective of transport is more related to narrow questions set out by transport professionals than to rational problems. Mobility decisions should also include information about urbanism, social sciences or psychology, amongst other disciplines[23]. Although research on travel behavior has added more complex analyses; such as patterns of roles in home interactions, time management, activity planning, lifestyles, size and structure of social networks[24] or land use[25], it still needs contributions from urban and social sciences disciplines.

Acknowledging the importance of such connections and models, urban daily mobility analysis should be addressed taking into consideration the way these concepts shape complex patterns, transforming social relationship[26]. As mobility and permanence get more complex, its organization becomes unfeasible, even using the most accurate models.

In this sense, research[27] has shown that mobility practices are hybrid, meaning that most of trips have more than one purpose and change depending on experience as well. Many of the practices include periods of variation of rest or stagnation that may or not be exploited, planned or imposed. Therefore, it is important to understand not only the purpose of mobility in different contexts, but also mobility conditions and the experiences of actors involved in it. This approach also needs to understand the mobility processes, scales and diversity of experiences; in order to comprehend how these concepts affect social relationships. While connectivity and efficiency of connection (virtual, physical or mental) are important, implications of such connections, travel experiences and their relationships with broader social processes are more complex and interesting. As a result, these implications need further research.

 

Social exclusion from a mobility perspective

In The Misery of the World[28], Bourdieu Et Al explore social suffering in this contemporary society governed by neoliberalism, dissolution of class identity and a distant state. It also analyses the freedom that higher income groups have to choose where they want to live, as well as their tendency to self-segregation. Likewise, it examines how lower income groups are forced to live in determined areas. In those places, people have little in common, but their lack of economic, social and cultural capital. Seen from a mobility point of view, this is a double exclusion: limited urban access to goods, products and services in an urban society and a concentrated vulnerability that creates segregated, dual cities where people interact but do not interrelate.

According to Scheller and Urry[29], most of theorists agree on regarding social exclusion as a spatially delimited and static phenomenon. However, taking into consideration the previously mentioned information, it is possible to state that urban daily mobility –given its key role in contemporary urban social life– may incorporate new approaches that question the way social links and relationships among city dwellers are built as well as the concept of urban social exclusion, as it has been traditionally addressed by social sciences and urban studies. In this sense, the study of urban social exclusion, from an urban daily mobility perspective, allows a critical analysis of its multidimensional, relational and dynamic nature.

The multidimensional nature of social exclusion manifests itself in the unequal, differentiated access to means and mechanisms of urban daily mobility. Consequently, the access to material goods, products and services available in an urban society are also uneven.

In this regard, it is essential to understand the close relationship between inequality and social exclusion within the context of neoliberal development. On the one hand, inequality refers to the positioning, distribution and unequal appropriation processes of social, political, economic and cultural resources among society members. On the other hand, social exclusion refers to participation and access restrictions to resources, reducing the chances of certain groups to take part in social dynamics and development processes, thus breaking social cohesion. In short, that means “being part” of something. This conceptual difference suggests that inequality may or not generate social exclusion.

A narrow, static way of tackling social exclusion does not necessarily identify how automobiles and information technology break the divisions between public and private life, or how daily life gets fragmented. Multiple forms of mobility generate inequality, especially those that have their roots on the power of “rich-no time” users that comfortably move through an exclusive and limited space. On the contrary, “poor-plenty of time” users are excluded from these spaces[30] and from the blocked mobility created by gated communities.

These divisions and fragmentations are an example of the unequal distribution of accessibility: not everyone has the same access to the workplace and entertainment places[31]; to activities and other people; to resources and opportunities. Spatial inequality relates to the space-time access and to the mobility exclusion experience. This is due to the effect of mobility on aspects of daily life such as movement, settling down and the freedom that people have to chose and move[32].

Likewise, by analyzing the distribution of wealth, inequality has been studied and measured in terms of income. In urban areas, inequality has been analyzed according to the distribution of income and employment. However, during the last years, the understanding of inequality based on structural localization of people belonging to a specific social group has changed, as it does not take into consideration aspects such as sexual identity, ethnic group, culture, religion or gender[33]. In Europe, inequality has been understood as social exclusion[34], referring to the different ways social and economic marginalization converge. In the United States, this concept is related to the term “subclass” in order to define the radical exclusion of vulnerable groups belonging to the social and economic mainstream[35].

In Latin America, by using the concept of “marginality”, the poor people were the reference to analyze inequality and social exclusion. Although being criticized[36], such approach was acknowledged as a tool to understand the inequality of life conditions, intensified by the urbanization process. Today, this idea is close to that of “subclass”, “new poverty”, “new marginality” or “advanced marginality”; notions that describe the conditions of the chronically poor people who live in the American black ghettos or the immigrants who live in social housing in Europe[37]. From this perspective, the relational nature of social exclusion must be addressed.

In the case of Chile, approaches to inequality and social exclusion have similar features to those previously mentioned. As stated by Machinea and Hopenhayn[38], inequality in wealth distribution is one of the most recurrent characteristics to analyze these two concepts, as it relates to the exercise of civil rights, social welfare, human capital training or asset gaps between higher and lower income groups. Repetto[39] points out the interrelation between inequality and social exclusion and the access to education, employment and residential space. These last three concepts are associated with access to opportunities.

Concerning the last aspect, the residential space and the process of inequality and social exclusion have been mainly analyzed from a residential segregation perspective. Although it is an important problem in the configuration of the main Latin American cities, and particularly Santiago de Chile, there should be distinctions between both notions.

Analyzing inequality and social exclusion from a residential segregation point of view gives a fixed and limited approach to the problem, where work, education and recreational activities of people and the way people move to develop those activities are not taken into account. In addition, research on residential segregation is focused on the socioeconomic factors that generate it, giving little attention to social and cultural characteristics of inequality and urban social exclusion such as ethnic group, gender, age group, life cycle or disability. These factors show the importance of subjective and intersubjective approaches to daily experiences of inequality and exclusion; they are not mentioned in the “objective” and measurable variables meant to identify scales or forms of residential segregation by using mathematical analysis combined with data from census and surveys.

Then, the multidimensional nature of inequality and social exclusion should be analyzed in more detail.

The relational nature of inequality and social exclusion is rooted in understanding its application beyond the study of people who live in delimited and isolated social housing, shanty towns or tenements. Socially excluded people do not always group together, they are also scattered as a consequence of life circumstances[40]. The fundamental relational nature of social exclusion, beyond spatial closeness or proximity, is the fact that exclusion (of elderly people, poor people, women, children, ethnic minorities, and people with disabilities) involves someone who is excluding[41]. Lyons[42] states that by only examining those socially excluded, exclusion will not be properly addressed. He states that, unless exclusion is regarded as relational, where the situation of some individuals is influenced, caused o related to other processes, an analysis focused on poor people (or women, ethnic minorities or impaired people) is unlikely to solve this problem.

In the same way, the relational nature of social exclusion can be studied from the influence of urban daily mobility on the emergence of new forms of sociability, determined by a sporadic co-presence. There is an interesting debate within social sciences on the transformations of traditional social spaces –such as the neighborhood, the workplace, social and sports clubs, parks, squares and streets– in societies with high levels of urban daily mobility. Augé[43] and Delgado[44] express the need of specifying and diversifying the differences between places/spaces and flows/mobility, concepts that are closely related and which complement each other. According to these authors, urban daily mobility generates important social relationships between inhabitants of large cities and urban spaces. Although these links do not meet the standards of social sciences to promote individualized and circumstantial forms of identity, social relationships and social integration, are essential to acknowledge and give visibility to “others”. Therefore, in segregated cities, public transport, workplaces and short or long transient places might also be spaces for sociability, encounter and social interaction[45].

The dynamic nature of inequality and social interaction refers to the space-time experience of contemporary urban societies. In this regard, a dynamic approach to these processes entails not only the challenging of its static nature through time, but also complementing systemic points of view. From this perspective, inequality and social exclusion are analyzed taking into consideration structural factors combined with other elements, resulting in a discussion of significant experiences for individual and collective subjects. This view implies considering the relationship experiences-people within a daily life context.

As stated by Vidal[46], a dynamic approach enables a critical analysis of its nature by using predetermined and standardized stereotypes, as it has been traditionally addressed by social sciences and public policies. Generic and common names such as “the poor people” or “the excluded ones” refer to predetermined and unchangeable typologies, hiding the diversity of conditions and situations, perceptions and minds; elements constituent of experiences arising from daily lives of people. Creation of stereotyped, predetermined and unchangeable categories shows a set of stories that are scarcely challenged by prevailing social perspectives. Consequently, the different statements of social sciences upon such processes should be challenged.

Also, the challenging of these processes implies the integral revision of a series of constituent variables of inequality and social exclusion, such as ethnic origin, gender, age group, life cycle, disability, etc.

Traditionally, Chilean public policies have tried to satisfy the needs of target groups, addressing independently the different variables of exclusion. In this sense, urban daily mobility experience enables considering these variables on a daily context. This allows identifying the characteristics, variety and differences among people. This centrality of the subject on his/her experiences is associated with civic primacy and major participation of social actors, as they are acknowledged as by their active and dynamic role in the formation of society.

 

Daily mobility, social exclusion and accessibility

In Europe, during the last years, links between urban mobility and social exclusion have been especially analyzed using the concept of accessibility[47]. However, although accessibility is associated to availability of transport services, it is a reductive conception. This is due to mobility is more than traveling from A to B, it involves different experiences and consequences of those who travel and those who do not. In this manner, mobility and its derivatives might be the cause or the consequence of unequal relationships; or they might be an example of greater inequality in urban life.

Literature about mobility, mainly American and European research on transport, gives a series of conceptions of accessibility; from the supply and demand point of view,
it is simply understood as connectivity[48]. Nevertheless, to Axhausen Et Al[49], these perspectives are incomplete as they do not provide an understanding of the pace, routines and customs that compose daily life. For that reason, studies on travel behavior might acquire importance if they are complemented with a qualitative, detailed research on daily movement experiences.

In a social sciences context, accessibility is a key subject of discussion in inequality and exclusion[50]. In the United Kingdom, the Social Exclusion Unit[51] has defined it as the way people have access to services at reasonable costs, time and ease. This means that accessibility involves not only the access to transport, but also localization and distribution of key activities. Following this analysis, proper access may refer to the presence of transport, as well as to the physical and financial access, confidence anthe understanding of it. This way, it is important to develop approaches aimed at addressing the way people use mobility for purposes other than transport, such as the way people have access to social networks, according to Cass Et Al[52], and places, as Jirón[53] suggests.

In order to comprehend how mobility affects social exclusion, and adapting the research of Cass Et Al[54], accessibility should be understood as the ability of managing space and time to carry out daily activities, to maintain relationships and to generate places for social participation. This concept of accessibility, although not covering all the dimensions of social exclusion, is useful to broadly understand the implications of being connected or disconnected and to analyze the kind of connections, time, places and relationships of this access, as well as its impact on daily life.

Since understanding the relationship between urban daily mobility, accessibility and social exclusion does not always imply analyzing localization of infrastructure or transport systems, but also cultural barriers –gender, age group, income, ability, religion, ethnic origin– that prevent mixing and interrelation among different groups[55]; it is important to address the sociocultural characteristics and capabilities of people and the structures and infrastructures that restrict or enable mobility.

Therefore, the access to practices, relationships and places in relation to economic, physical, organizational, temporal and ability barriers should be studied[56]. Economic barriers affecting mobility might involve the cost of using different means of transport. Physical dimensions might be related to distance and the physical aspect and conditions of roads, pavements, bus stops, buses, subway platforms, cycleways and parks, amongst other places. Organizational restrictions refer to regular multiple activities that coordinate daily life such as buying, going to the doctor, paying bills, commuting to work, etc. Temporal dimensions relate to the way night, day, seasons, opening times and travel length affect mobility decisions. Abilities refer to specific capability in terms of movement, such as driving, replacing tires, fixing a bicycle or being able to ride a motorcycle. Technological barriers involve the possibility, use and availability of technology, such as the Internet or mobile phones, to make trips easier and to replace physical trips. Each of these restrictions is altered depending on the sociocultural conditions of people or groups of people, including gender, age group, life cycle, disability or ethnic origin.

 

Conclusions

This work has discussed how urban daily mobility is today one of the most important phenomena of urban daily life. Its spatiality is key to understanding aspects such as part/whole links of growth constraint, programmatic contents of public-private continuum (material, environmental, time), or spatialities of sociabilities derived from mobility.

In this way, urban expansion and intensification processes (reconversion and suburbanization[57]) configure the conditions of space-time experiences of the metropolitan city, influencing the organization of massive daily mobility.

Physical space of mobility and dynamic spatialization of massive movements are a mediator resource of multiple goods[58]. According to classic, technical conception, space is analyzed from the functioning dynamics that reproduce prevailing relational systems such as the operating schedules of activities. In this context, people integrate and enjoy the benefits derived from mobility. However, space experience confirms that spatial mobility is being analyzed as a good.

In this manner, and being a practice and a specific material culture, spatiality of urban daily mobility is a platform and resource of agencies that mediate, create, facilitate and promote conditions of inclusion, availability and access to sociabilities, goods, products and services of the different dimensions of social life.

Spatiality of urban daily mobility enables a critical examination of space-time conditions of inequality and social exclusion in social life. It may be analyzed based on their physical organization or the space-time conditions of mobility experience, in connection with one another. In other words: What conditions are there on physical organization of cities that –irrespective of the opinion of those interested– exclude on the basis of massive mobility practices? How do these conditions affect the space-time experience of city? What emerges as materiality of the city?

When the spatiality that materializes organization as society is decoded from the activation of experiences of inequality and exclusion; the substantial (and emotional) spatial relationships turn it from abstraction into tangible knowledge[59]. This way of thinking space from experience reflects a critical, grounded, present and embodied[60] epistemic condition that recovers those characteristics excluded in the world of the conditions of disciplinary representation, referring to the abstract, homogeneous and unembodied[61] spaces where exclusion and inequality are the universes of such abstraction.

The new epistemic condition provides theoretical and analytical frameworks and methodologies and procedures to address complex dynamical conditions and quantity-quality articulation, multiscale and retroactive characteristics of spatiality. The consequences of diagnoses, proposals, forms of configuration and organization of spatiality of mobility components and conditions derived from it will add new visions, regarding previous ways of thinking about space, and will constitute a reference for future analysis. This approach is important as it sets out the theoretical-conceptual contributions developed recently on both concepts; analyses the links and relationships between both concepts and their importance to the understanding of urban space; and it sets urban subjects as key figures in the concepts in discussion.

In regard to the first theoretical-conceptual approach, it is important to determine the knowledge contents of the spatial dimension of urban daily mobility[62]. Considering the objectivity of situations and conditions created from the way relationships, links and sociabilities are set on materiality of things, intersomaticity[63] and structures of the physical world, the approach presents different mixed, heuristic and mapping procedures activated and determined by these performances.

Concerning the second approach, and consistent with the previous paragraph[64], it enables the reconsidering, exploration and questioning of the contents, immediate and intermediate consequences of concepts that reveal forms of integration in the city. The epistemic redefinition calls for rethinking the structural and relational nature of spatialization of the social phenomena of exclusion, acknowledging the frameworks and conditions of dynamism. Spatiality situated as a process structured on extension, and developed by constant reconfigurations of its components and forms of activation, enables managing, redirectional and reorganizational possibilities, identifying critical aspects.

In relation to the third approach, the proposed perspective promotes the phenomena of “space production”, revealing its depth and experience-based and symbolic density, essential condition for its manifestation on public domain, a durable good that resists all kinds of privation. This option is about comprehension, dialogue, acknowledging of plurality, heterogeneity, differences, social diversity and most important, emotional experience of space aspects that turn the anonymous “individual” into a citizen, in groups of dynamic memberships generated by their access to the world. It identifies the new space-time structures for contemporary societies: caring and inclusive communities that are also respectful with differences and individualities; durable and flexible; recognizable and innovative. It identifies the access for new life spaces.

The critical re-examination of approaches to spatiality, from the perspective of urban daily mobility and its connection with inequality and social exclusion experiences, seeks to set out the seriousness of the initial epistemic moment; and, by drawing conclusions, define its reality in the metropolitan space of Santiago de Chile. By acknowledging the theoretical, methodological and practical challenges of such exercise, this research focuses on that area of investigation. It is intended to clarify spatiality of daily mobility as the cause, effect and manifestation of the different forms of social exclusion discussed throughout this article. This spatiality will also analyze the continuum between inclusion and exclusion experiences, as well as the possibilities of sociabilization derived from it. Finally, by revealing the forms of space and spatiality, new diagnoses reconsider the forms of city intervention, which are questioned in line with the approach developed in this article.

 

Notas

1 This work is based on the FONDECYT Research Project N 1090198 Urban Daily Mobility and Urban Social Exclusion in Santiago de Chile

[1] De MATTOS, 1999.

[2] GALETOVIC, A & JORDAN, R. 2006.

[3] PRMS in Spanish.

[4] According to Origin Destination Survey (SECTRA 2002) examples of this phenomenon include: the increase of motorized trips in Santiago on workdays –from 5,996,118 in 1991 to 10,147,247 in 2001- and the growth of the automotive fleet in the capital during the last 20 years –increase of automobiles per household between 1977 (0.32), 1991 (0.36) and 2001 (0.56)

[5] DUCCI, 2000.

[6] DELAUNAY, 2007.

[7] SECTRA, 2002.

[8] CRESSWELL, 2006; HANNAM, SHELLER Et Al. 2006; SHELLER & URRY, 2006; URRY, 2007.

[9] BOURDIN, 2003.

[10] JARVIS, PRATT Et Al, 2001.

[11] SHELLER & URRY, 2006; SZERSZYNSKI & URRY, 2006.

[12] URRY, 2003ª.

[13] Ibíd.

[14] URRY, 2004.

[15] MAY & THRIFT, 2001.

[16] SHELLER & URRY, 2006.

[17] VEGA-CENTENO, 2005.

[18] HALL, 2003.

[19] KAUFMANN, 2002; SHELLER & URRY, 2003; JARVIS, 2005ª; JARVIS, 2005b; LE BRETON, 2005; SAVAGE, BAGNALL Et Al, 2005.

[20] URRY, 2003b.

[21] SCHWAMEN, 2007.

[22] RICHMOND, 2005.

[23] PARDO, OYUELA Et Al, 2005.

[24] OHNMACHT, 2006.

[25] MARTINEZ, 1996.

[26] URRY, 2003ª.

[27] VEGA-CENTENO, 2005; URETA, 2006; SPINNEY, 2007; JIRON 2007; 2010.

[28] BOURDIEU Et Al, 1999.

[29] SHELLER & URRY, 2003.

[30] WOOD & GRAHAM, 2004.

[31] ALLEMAND, 2003.

[32] HANNAM, SHELLER Et Al, 2006.

[33] TONKISS, 2006.

[34] HAMNETT, 1998; CLERT, 2000.

[35] WILSON & TAUB, 2006; WACQUANT, 2007.

[36] LOMNITZ, 1975; SCHAEDEL, HARDOY Et AL, 1978; GERMANI, 1980; SCHTEINGART, 1989; GUTIERREZ, 1997; GUTIERREZ, 1999; SCHTEINGART, 2001; PERLMAN, 2005.

[37] PERLMAN, 2005.

[38] MACHINEA & HOPENHAYN, 2005.

[39] REPETTO, 2005.

[40] HINE & GRIECO, 2003.

[41] BEALL, CRANKSHAW Et Al, 2002.

[42] LYONS, 2003.

[43] AUGÉ, 2007.

[44] DELGADO, 2007.

[45] For more detail about mobile places and transient places, see Jirón, 2009.

[46] VIDAL, 2003.

[47] CHURCH, FROST Et Al, 2000; HINE & MITCHELL, 2001; SEU, 2003; OLVERA, MIGNOT Et Al, 2004; CASS, SHOVE Et Al, 2005; MIGNOT & ROSALES-MONTERO 2006..

[48] MILLER, 1999; BARADARAN & RAMJERDI, 2001; HINE & MITCHELL, 2001; KENYON, LYONS Et Al, 2002; HINE & GRIECO, 2003; KENYON, RAFFERTY Et Al, 2003; MILLER, 2005; KENYON, 2006; KENYON, 2006; MILLER, 2006.

[49] AXHAUSEN Et Al, 2002.

[50] CHURCH, FROST Et Al, 2000; BARADARAN & RAMJERDI, 2001; HINE & GRIECO, 2003; KENYON, RAFFERTY Et Al, 2003; LYONS, 2003; SCHONFELDER & AXHAUSEN, 2003; CASS, SHOVE Et Al, 2005; MILLER, 2006.

[51] SEU, 2003.

[52] CASS Et Al, 2005.

[53] JIRON, 2007.

[54] Op. Cit.

[55] SHOVE, 2002.

[56] Based on Hagerstrand (1970); Church et al (2000), Cass, Shove et al (2005) and Law (1999).

[57] The creation of new centralization and subcentralization concentrates, disperses, spetializes and mixes the localization of activities, according to contents that transcend Fordist city conceptions (about residence, productivity, recreation and education.)

[58] Political goods (forms of territorial development, goods of environmental registration, goods of exercise of citizenship of informal sociability), landscape goods, informative goods, urban goods, etc.

[59] Language, operation and representation.

[60] Embodiment is a central concept in philosohy, science and art that displaces the center of attention to the phenomenal body as an explanatory agent, distinct from the physiological body, the object body. The phenomenal body isshaped in its interactions to the components of the spatial configuration as a singular way of being-in-the-world from which different cultures of inhabiting emerge.

[61] Op. cit.

[62] Related to the spatial experience conditions of the different forms of social exclusion.

[63] The concept has been elaborated by italian philosopher Formaggio to characterize the conditions of astatic corporeal experience of the physical world elaborated with other persons immersed in identical encounters. Following Choay (2006), the concept of intersomaticity refers to the foundational aspects of the condition of "urbanity".

[64] Understanding the spatiality of urban daily mobility as both an exercise of critical, recurrent practices in structures and systems; and as a public good that enables access to goods, products, exchanges, sociabilities among all connected: people, stills, animation, landscapes...

 

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Received: 23.11.2009
Accepted: 29.03.2010