Climate-stressed urban mobilities from South Asia: Insights from Islamabad

• In Event: Urban-Environmental Futures in the Global South

Abstract

With the climate crisis manifesting itself across the world, sociology as a field is being called to make it a central focus of analysis. This article examines how everyday mobility intersects with the effects of climate change in Islamabad, Pakistan, to exacerbate existing forms of inequality. In particular, I focus on two major effects of climate change; rising levels of heat and erratic rainfall. I use semi-structured interviews and participant observation to understand people’s daily experiences with mobility in light of unpredictable rainfall and rising levels of heat, while using various modes of public transport in the city. My findings extend Sheller and Urry’s (2006) New Mobilities paradigm to understand how mobility intersects with climate change, in a South Asian city. By examining everyday mobility on public transport, I study the intersection of the effects of climate change with existing axes of inequality such as social class and gender as they are experienced in cities of the Global South. This article positions public transport as a critical site where the mobilities turn and climate-centered urban sociology converge. This allows us to make the effects of infrastructure and movement on shaping the embodied experiences of climate change legible. These human experiences are critical to direct a more people-centric vision and design of public transport infrastructure, especially in regions such as Pakistan, which are among the most severely affected by climate change.

Author

• Shanel Khaliq, Syracuse University