The politics of non-knowing, smart technology and just mobility transitions: A case study and research agenda

Abstract

Recent mobility scholarship suggests that in adopting a holistic perspective on just transitions towards low-carbon mobility, scholars should attend to the role of knowledge production and the exclusions it enacts. However, this call has yet to be realised, for analytical tools and empirical studies are scarce. In this article, I fill these gaps, arguing that it is crucial to focus on the ‘politics of non-knowing’: contested understandings of what is unknown and what should and can be known. Drawing on the case study of the datafication of cycling in four European cities, I lay bare car-centrism’s epistemic effects, including a lack of data on cyclists, vehicle-centred understandings of knowledge and the instrumentalisation of non-knowing in political debate around cycling. I also examine the role of smart technology in these discussions. In closing, I propose a research agenda on the politics of non-knowing in just mobility transitions.