Race and the micropolitics of mobility mobile autoethnography on a South African bus service
Abstract
Th is article takes an autoethnographic approach in exploring the micropolitics
of mobility with particular reference to race, class, and identity on one South
African bus service. For his daily commute between an inner-city Cape Town
suburb and a worksite near the metropolitan edge, the author explores personal, embodied, and political dimensions of mobility in a context where race
continues to dictate the expected parameters of mobility practice. When socioeconomics might allow for private car ownership and use (and when timegeographies almost require it), the autoethnography at the heart of this article
requires the author to question the politics of choosing not to drive; to be a
public transport passeng er when one is expected to be a driver. In spite of the
author’s intentional status in the member group of bus passengers, experience
of six months of everyday bus use sheds light on hidden dimensions of mobility
inequality. It contributes toward fi lling a gap in empirical evidence on contemporary bus passengering and the continuing role of race in contexts of visibly
diff erentiated and diff erentiating everyday mobility.