Disruptive Zukünfte der Praxis: Katastrophe, Mobilität und die (Re)Produktion sozialer Praktiken

43. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, ‘Zukünfte der Gesellschaft’, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, 28 September–02 October 2026

This talk examines how disasters disrupt everyday mobility and how reconstruction reproduces automobile normality. Drawing on practice theory and ongoing qualitative fieldwork following the 2024 Valencia flood, it investigates how residents and urban professionals restore mobility’s material preconditions. Preliminary findings suggest that automobile practices remain resilient despite temporarily disrupted performance. Reconstruction is sustained through established infrastructures, institutional support, insurance, and the coordination of interdependent practices. Rather than enabling sustainable transformation, these processes appear to reinforce automobility. It is argued that disasters expose practices’ material and institutional foundations while demonstrating that infrastructural destruction does not necessarily translate into transformative mobility change.

More information
https://kongress2026.soziologie.de/programm