Mobility cultures as bundle of powerful practices

Mobility is more than getting from one place to another. Rather than being a technical phenomenon, it is about the options of satisfying needs by changing location. Many attempts have been made to conceptualise this, integrating both material and ideational elements such as (built) environments and meaningful social conditions. The Mobility Culture Framework is one such attempt that defines mobility cultures as the totality of material, symbolic, and discursive practices. Addressing the frequently expressed need for a conceptual further development of the framework to better inform environmental research, policies and planning, the paper works out the practice theoretical foundations of the framework and suggests the integration of political power concepts. This enables a robust analysis and better understanding of the persistence (and change) of current mobility practices that are in urgent need for a sustainable transformation. The advantages of the theoretical framework are illustrated by presenting results from an analysis of municipal planning practices in three medium-sized towns in Germany.