Toby Smith | University of California, Davis (original) (raw)

Address: Davis, California, United States

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Papers by Toby Smith

The purpose of this report is to define and document the origins, definition, and themes of mobil... more The purpose of this report is to define and document the origins, definition, and themes of mobility justice. Methods included a literature review of both academic and activist usages of the term and interviews with early mobility justice leaders. Results revealed that mobility justice emerged as a concept simultaneously in academic and activist spaces. The field of critical mobilities studies began conversations in academia. Conversations in the field began among sustainable transportation practitioners who also identify as Black, Indigenous, or people of color, particularly at gatherings of a collective called The Untokening. Interviewees expressed the importance of respecting this genealogy and the definition as laid out by these leaders. They defined mobility justice as a movement towards liberation for all, particularly those most marginalized by systems of oppression. Mobility justice’s origins are grounded in past civil rights movements, especially for Black people. As such, it connects other justice-based movements and has strong ties to abolitionism. Practitioners advocate for strong community leadership in future transportation decision-making. They see mobility justice as centering life—of people, the community, and the environment. This requires an understanding of how identity shapes experiences of mobility, particularly in relationship to systems of power. Transportation researchers and professionals are encouraged to engage in further reading and training to better integrate history, local context, and attention to systems of power into their work.

You Are Here: The Journal of Creative Geography, 2021

I wish to acknowledge my deepest respect and gratitude to the Kānaka Maoli, the Indigenous people... more I wish to acknowledge my deepest respect and gratitude to the Kānaka Maoli, the Indigenous people of Hawai'i, whose traditional territories were yielded under threat of bloodshed in the name of colonial capital extraction, backed by the US military. I am not native to this region, having grown up on Lenape land. I hope to represent this region faithfully. In fall of 2019, I spent time with colleagues on Sand Island, once known as Kahaka'aulana, then as Quarantine Island when it was used to quarantine possibly-contagious ship passengers. It was also a site where Native Hawai'ians and Japanese Americans were forcibly imprisoned in internment camps. This Native land was stolen, and made a site of exclusion for non-white bodies in the service of the implicitly-white project of American empire. Thinking alongside the unhoused community who built and maintained a village here on "Squatter's Island" in the 1970s and '80s-only to be unceremoniously ejected by the state once more sanctionable usage for the site was proposed-I want to also consider what it means to live necessarily in response to the threat of water and to what water's proximities announce.

Drafts by Toby Smith

Conference Presentations by Toby Smith

American Studies Association annual conference, 2019

Talks by Toby Smith

The purpose of this report is to define and document the origins, definition, and themes of mobil... more The purpose of this report is to define and document the origins, definition, and themes of mobility justice. Methods included a literature review of both academic and activist usages of the term and interviews with early mobility justice leaders. Results revealed that mobility justice emerged as a concept simultaneously in academic and activist spaces. The field of critical mobilities studies began conversations in academia. Conversations in the field began among sustainable transportation practitioners who also identify as Black, Indigenous, or people of color, particularly at gatherings of a collective called The Untokening. Interviewees expressed the importance of respecting this genealogy and the definition as laid out by these leaders. They defined mobility justice as a movement towards liberation for all, particularly those most marginalized by systems of oppression. Mobility justice’s origins are grounded in past civil rights movements, especially for Black people. As such, it connects other justice-based movements and has strong ties to abolitionism. Practitioners advocate for strong community leadership in future transportation decision-making. They see mobility justice as centering life—of people, the community, and the environment. This requires an understanding of how identity shapes experiences of mobility, particularly in relationship to systems of power. Transportation researchers and professionals are encouraged to engage in further reading and training to better integrate history, local context, and attention to systems of power into their work.

You Are Here: The Journal of Creative Geography, 2021

I wish to acknowledge my deepest respect and gratitude to the Kānaka Maoli, the Indigenous people... more I wish to acknowledge my deepest respect and gratitude to the Kānaka Maoli, the Indigenous people of Hawai'i, whose traditional territories were yielded under threat of bloodshed in the name of colonial capital extraction, backed by the US military. I am not native to this region, having grown up on Lenape land. I hope to represent this region faithfully. In fall of 2019, I spent time with colleagues on Sand Island, once known as Kahaka'aulana, then as Quarantine Island when it was used to quarantine possibly-contagious ship passengers. It was also a site where Native Hawai'ians and Japanese Americans were forcibly imprisoned in internment camps. This Native land was stolen, and made a site of exclusion for non-white bodies in the service of the implicitly-white project of American empire. Thinking alongside the unhoused community who built and maintained a village here on "Squatter's Island" in the 1970s and '80s-only to be unceremoniously ejected by the state once more sanctionable usage for the site was proposed-I want to also consider what it means to live necessarily in response to the threat of water and to what water's proximities announce.

American Studies Association annual conference, 2019

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