Moving towards power? Mobilities and the Political Mobilization of Motorcyclists in Uganda Kenya and Eastern DRC
- Title
- Moving towards power? Mobilities and the Political Mobilization of Motorcyclists in Uganda Kenya and Eastern DRC
- Year
- 2025
- Abstract
- Motorcycle taxis are omnipresent in the lives of East Africans. They provide the population with much-needed and cheap transport services. The motorbike allows them to carry up to four persons or even a small cow. Thereby motorcycle taxi riding also provides the livelihoods of millions of people in eastern Africa. A large number of scientific publications address these hybrid mobile subjects, although surprisingly, two important aspects have received little attention so far: their mobility and their role in politics. Although motorcycle taxi drivers are a highly mobile group very few publications engage more closely with the nature of their mobility. Likewise, their political participation, e.g. as campaign activists or protesters is repeatedly mentioned but not reviewed closely. In the light of the intricate entanglement of mobility and power, this gap provided the impetus for this dissertation. One reason for the lack of engagement with the political role of motorcycle taxi drivers is likely the general difficulty of conducting political research in the area. Especially in Uganda, fieldwork on political topics is dangerous and researchers can face state repression. Although there is a rich conceptual literature on the relationship of mobility and power, there is a notable gap in addressing the role of mobility in the reproduction of political power through election campaigns and political mobilization. Likewise, literature on political mobilization hardly addresses the role of mobility for activists within campaigns. This dissertation project worked towards closing these gaps within mobility studies and the studies of political activism by conducting extensive research on the political mobilization of motorcycle taxi drivers in eastern Africa. It sought to answer the main question: How are processes of political mobilization in Uganda, Kenya and Eastern Congo linked to mobility?
- Language
- English
- Source ID (eref-/epub-)
- eref-94455
- Repository URL
- https://eref.uni-bayreuth.de/id/eprint/94455/
- Authors
- Muller, Carol
- Number of pages
- 56
- Publication type
- Doctoral thesis
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