Young People’s Urban Im/Mobilities: Relationality and Identity Formation

There is a mobility turn in the social sciences affecting how we scrutinise, research and represent the city. In recent scholarship on mobilities, global human mobilities have been identified as predominant. Nevertheless there have been calls for research that focuses on issues relating to everyday transportation, materialities and the spatial contexts of im/mobilities. This article is a response to those calls with a specific focus on young people’s local experiences of urban im/mobilities. It is also a challenge to the lack of attention afforded young people by urban studies. Young urbanites are of an age where personal physical mobility to take advantage of all the resources, recreation and sociality offered by an urban landscape is an important part of ‘growing up’ and identity formation. Utilising two of mobility studies’ conceptualisations, relationality and identity formation, this article examines young Aucklanders’ im/mobilities through urban space.