Capabilities and Missing Users: Progress In Gender Analysis In Transport

The  paper uses a normative framework of transport justice to recognize the link between mobility and “capability enhancement” as articulated in Sen’s writing and extended by others to the field of transport (Bezayit, 2011) (Creed, 2004) (Martens, 2012.) Transport justice reveals the mode of thinking and insitutional mechanisms behind a nation’s transportation planning and delivery systems (Vasconcellos, 2001) (Litman, 2012) to elucidate how and why particular social groups (e.g. low-income women and minority communities) often face the brunt of negative impacts of transportation investment in terms of access and transport-related burdens of poor safety and environmental stardards.

'Gender' is a key analytical concept used alongside transport justice to address a set of policy concerns to show how particular understandings and values of “gender” influence the construction of categories of analysis in transport and spatial planning (Levy, 2013). Empirically, the study documents the needs and perspectives of urban transport users in Davao City, Philippines as related to their access, or lack thereof, to transport and their access to employment, education and services. These findings are contrasted with the realities of power and political processes in decision-making to show how concerns of users from low-income groups and how gender differentials in preferences, choice and agency are yet to be taken seriously by planners.

 Recognizing methodological pluralism as important  in interdisciplinary research, the study uses a combination of methods  which have distinctive roles. The survey captured  similarities and differences among 360 transport users, mostly of women traders and workers. Focus-group discussions with various sectors, field observations and in depth interviews with a subsample of 8 brought deeper insights on meanings of “safety” and “security” from the perspectives of women. Textual analyses looked into issues of misrepresentation and  invisibility .