Informal transportation systems in the region of Urabá in Colombia through the lens of everyday forms of resistance

Abstract

The informal transport sector has various ambivalent characteristics and often a negative connotation since it commonly operates unauthorized and illicitly and is not part of the official transport sector. However, the informal sector provides a mix of legitimate transport offerings as well as important complementary services. The paper focuses on these ‘new mobilities’ and aims to understand informal transportation systems not only as a service coverage in specific areas lacking formal transit, but also as an activity that arises as a popular form of struggle and a covert and unorganized form of resistance against the political power embedded in dominant transportation systems. Through an empirical study conducted in the region of Urabá in Colombia the paper explores how the dominant agricultural industries in the region are causing huge challenges related to the overlap of transportation scales, congestion and risks of accidents in urban areas, affecting urban development, and how injustices of the existing public transport services and insufficient road infrastructures trigger the production of informal transportation. The paper mobilizes the theory of ‘everyday forms of resistance’, which draws attention to certain common behaviour and activities of subaltern groups as tactics to survive and undermine repressive domination. As such, this paper questions through its case study to what extent the informal transportation actions in Urabá are in a way challenging oppression and can be called an everyday form of resistance.