Daily Mobility and the City

The layout of the city and urban are constructed by the meeting of individual and collective actors, bearers of a multitude of mobility projects, and the hospitality with which they are met as regards accommodation these projects in the urban space. Research in this domain is based on this conjecture, and explores the implications of the urban phenomenon, differentiations and public action in terms of substance within this framework.

Involved Professor

Vincent Kaufmann is assistant professor at the Swiss Technology Institute EPFL and director of LaSUR (Laboratory of Urban Sociology) since 2003. He specializes in the analysis of spatial mobility and urban dynamics. After completing a doctoral thesis on the subject of transportation use, Vincent Kaufmann became interested in the spatial aspect of lifestyles and the inequalities that accompany them, both in terms of residential localization and daily activity planning. Based on this, he developed a theory, “early recognition”, on the concept of mobility, initially as part of a mandate from the Swiss Science and Technology Council. He then went on to develop this theory with a federal grant for advanced research and published the work entitled “Re-Thinking Mobility” (2002). He is currently working on motility, and more specifically the connections between motility and habitat, and motility as a resource in terms of upward social mobility as part of the Cosmopolities Network. He has just finished editing a book on mobility that is scheduled to appear in the collection Le Savoir Suisse.

Involved Researchers

Hanja Maksim is a sociologist, research assistant, and doctoral student at LaSUR Laboratoire de Sociologie Urbaine in Lausanne Switzerland (under the direction of prof. Vincent Kaufmann). Her research focus lies on urban planning policy, mobility potential, and social inequalities.

Recent Publications

• Vincent Kaufmann (2010). “Mobile social science: creating a dialogue among the sociologies”, Accepted for publication in British Journal of Sociology [ISI Web of Science 1.473]
• Maksim, H., Vincent, S., Gallez, C., Kaufmann, V. (2010) L’action publique face à la mobilité, Paris: L'Harmattan.
• Vincent Kaufmann, Luca Pattaroni and Marie-Paule Thomas (2010) “Multi-faceted gentrification: a comparative analysis of the trajectories of six neighbourhoods in the Ile-de-France region.” Accepted with revisions for publication in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research [ISI Web of Science 1.265].
• Vincent Kaufmann and Fritz Sager (2009) “Amarrer le développement urbain aux infrastructures de transports publics: examen comparatif des politiques locales dans quatre agglomérations suisses.” Environnement Urbain Vol 3/09. pp 10-27.
• Ohnmacht, T., Maksim, H., Bergman, M. (2009) Mobilities and Inequality, Ashgate.