Contesting mobility injustices and infrastructural violence: the frictions arising from a modern transportation project in Hanoi, Vietnam

This chapter develops a conceptual framework that draws from key debates regarding infrastructural violence, infrastructural lives, mobility (in)justice, and mobility frictions to explore how urban infrastructure projects in the Global South impact local residents’ lives and livelihoods. As municipal governments in such locales implement new transportation infrastructures, the common argument is that these will improve mobility options for all city residents. Yet, in a case study focusing on a new urban railway line in Vietnam’s capital city, Hanoi, the conceptual framing the chapter develops highlights the nuanced everyday impacts, experiences, and responses to such projects by urban residents, not all of which are positive. Important social, economic, and mobility frictions and ramifications are thus revealed, as well as the complex political nature of this form of urban infrastructure.