Interactive metal fatigue: a conceptual contribution to social critique in mobilities research

The ‘mobilities turn’ has reinvigorated the social critique on the automobility system. Theorizing its profound reconfigurations of social life, relationist commitments invite a certain silence regarding the associated social pathologies, however. This article explores a critical-theoretical interpretation of the mobilities paradigm. It proposes the ‘interactive metal fatigue’ (IMF) concept, which theorizes the emergence of ‘interpassive’ social relations as socio-technical dialectics. Taking into account the contradictions that surround the critical-theoretical project, IMF paves the way for balanced critiques of mobilities. This will be shown through the case of Shared Space, an attempt to free public space from traffic management colonization.