Fast Futures and Everyday Endurance: Mobility, Temporality, and Cycle-Rickshaws in Dhaka

Abstract

This article takes the cycle-rickshaw industry in Dhaka, Bangladesh, as a point of departure for examining the discrepancy between the everyday rhythms and embodied realities of Dhaka traffic and the idealized image of mobility that drives imaginations of the urban future. The cycle-rickshaw is often excluded from such imaginations, as the vehicle is not only blamed for obstructing the flow of traffic but also for impeding trajectories of urban change. I argue that such exclusionary notions of the urban future, which build on linear and epochal notions of urban change, obscure the many ways in which everyday mobilities gesture to temporal experiences of endurance rather than transformation. I employ the notion of endurance to capture both the physical effort of navigating Dhaka traffic and the distinct temporality of rickshaw labor. I show that rickshaw labor, although arduous, allows drivers to keep on going amidst the various needs of the present by providing them with “instant cash.” Rickshaw mobilities thus highlight the friction between epochal notions of urban change and the durability and contingency of the imperfect safety nets and practices that people rely on for the time being.