Book review on ‘Mobility Justice. The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes’, by Mimi Sheller

Abstract

This book overviews the political and ethical issues of modern-day mobility and outlines conceptional strategies to make it more equitable. A brief description of the main challenges facing the world today is followed by racial, transport, infrastructural, migrant and climate perspectives of justice, with a separate chapter dedicated to each. Connecting human bodies, streets, cities, nations and environments, the author creates an overarching theory of the modern, continuously shifting, world. Sheller examines the issues in various scales and reveals fundamental unsolved conflicts between, for instance, the freedom of movement and states’ migration policies. To conclude, Sheller offers a list of 28 principles which could be used to bring justice to mobility. Despite the fact that the principles have a simple and clear form, their disruptive character demands the reinvention of dozens of established practices such as international tourism and offshore finance. The reader should be aware, that the book was published in 2018, so it includes concepts that have been seriously affected by regulations and policies connected to the Covid-19 pandemic.