The differential performativity of academic knowledges in urban transport and mobility policy and practice: A view from Brussels

This paper presents an inquiry into the differential performativity of academic knowledges on transport and mobility in policy and practice. Drawing on an extensive literature review, it sets out to identify various paradigms of academic knowledge in the field. Focusing on the particular case of Brussels, which is confronted with acute transport and mobility issues, the paper consequently traces how academic knowledges are picked up in various circuits of knowledge aiding in agenda-setting processes and ultimately materializing (or not) in actual policies, plans, and projects. The analysis shows that the three paradigms emerging from the literature—respectively the orthodox, sustainable, and critical paradigms—have a very differential impact in the Brussels policy field. In practice, the debate is centred around a rather secondary opposition between an essentially neoclassical, growth-oriented agenda on the one hand, and a largely depoliticized sustainable paradigm on the other. The critical paradigm, which highlights more structural inequalities underpinning transport and mobility issues, does not translate into an official political agenda. This may indicate that the impact of critical knowledges in contemporary urban regimes is quite limited, and consequently raises the salience of grasping the intricate mobilities of potentially critical policy alternatives.