24 FEB 2026 (TUE) 14:00-15:00

Departmental Research Seminars Series

There Ain’t No Fuel! Addressing Material Scarcity in Urban Mobility in Santiago de Cuba

Date: 24 FEB 2026 (Tuesday)

Time: 14:00-15:00 (HKT)

Venue: CLL, Department of Geography, 10/F, The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

Registration link: TBC

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Abstract:

This seminar examines the relative absence of research on urban cases of large-scale and long-term reduction of resource consumption. I focus on mobility in Santiago de Cuba, a city where geopolitical embargo has caused material scarcity, severely reducing access to fuel, vehicles, and spare parts. As a result, mobility is both constrained and structurally decoupled from individual motorised transport, relying instead on limited operations of collective transport. I explore how the local State and society address scarcity by developing governance models and social practices that follow a dual strategy of collectivisation and privatisation of transport. Questioning the usual North-to-South vector of knowledge transfer in geography, I argue that Santiago’s response to scarcity provides valuable lessons for other urban contexts, and informs the debates about sustainability, transport efficiency, commoning mobility, and urbanising degrowth. This case highlights the importance of maximising the benefits obtained from available mobility resources, restricting individual vehicle ownership, positioning the State as central actor in provision and regulation of transport, and enabling self-managed practices among workers and passengers. Taken together, these dynamics raise a question about the extent to which transport sustainability is achievable in capitalist societies—a transition that might instead require aligning mobility with socialist principles that consider mobility not as question of individual behaviour, but collective need and labor.

Professor Wojciech Kębłowski

Assistant Professor, Department of Urban Planning and Design, The University of Hong Kong

Professor Wojciech Kębłowski is an Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong’s Department of Urban Planning and Design. His research and photography explore various themes and geographical contexts at the intersection of urban political economy, transport and mobility, and global China.

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