Dockless bikeshare in Amsterdam: a mobility justice perspective on niche framing struggles

摘要

This paper conceptually integrates socio-technical transitions with a mobility justice framework through the method of discourse analysis. A sample of media articles and secondary sources relating to the contested introduction of dockless bikeshare in the mature cycling city of Amsterdam was analysed using a multi-dimensional discursive interaction framework, which emphasises actors' ability to succeed in framing struggles by persuasively combining content-related claims with relevant aspects of their context. Mobility justice tenets were then applied to this framework, yielding a number of novel framings that correspond to a prescriptive logic rather than the descriptive, strategic focus of discursive transitions. These novel framings represent not only a new rhetorical resource for actors seeking to legitimate their innovations, but also enable transitions researchers to pay more explicit attention to groups and sets of interests who are affected by but excluded from innovation debates. This degree of attention may also bring to light inequalities, barriers and immobilities that as yet lie outside of the frames through which transitions research seeks to analyse innovation journeys. Mobility justice in its turn stands to benefit from closer engagement with the micro-dynamics of innovation journeys, which may yield more detailed insights into how normative frameworks can be embedded into specific contests.