Toward a Sociology of Transportation

Despite the relevance of transportation to the economy, lifestyle, culture, and politics of the modern world and its importance in shaping the global climate, American sociologists have tended to exempt it from direct analysis. This has resulted in a missed opportunity for theoretical innovation around issues of movement, the environment, racial disparities, civil society, and political beliefs. The goal of this paper is to showcase how transportation processes, particularly automobility, are integral to social organization and change and how recent work in various fields is increasingly incorporating transportation into theorization about social life. Taking three areas of sociological inquiry?microsociology, social stratification, and political sociology?I show how deeper concentration on the material and symbolic aspects of transportation can enrich these topics and meaningfully shape future research directions.