A viscous cycle: low motility amongst Phnom Penh’s highly mobile cyclo riders

Abstract

This paper uses the concept of viscosity to highlight how structural impediments to movement affect not only populations and individuals characterised by low (or no) mobility but also highly mobile groups. Using the ‘cyclo’ riding paratransit workers of Phnom Penh as a lens, it is suggested here that groups of this sort are trapped in high-mobility cycles by a combination of structural factors and the discourse of their livelihoods. Specifically, cyclo riders are bound to their livelihoods by three overlapping forces: the evolution of Cambodia’s paratransit system during the past 20 years leading to diminishing demand for their services; shifts in agricultural production practices; and the changing narrative meaning of the occupation in the eyes of its customers. By combining a migration systems perspective with insights from previous work on the cultural discourse of mobility, it is argued here that this combination of pressures impels cyclo riders movement – and prevents its cessation – in such a way as to constitute the components of a circular, or mobile, viscosity.

Keywords:

• Cambodia
• paratransit
• migration
• translocality
• mobile livelihoods
• rural-urban linkages
• viscosity

Notes

1. Given that close to 100% of paratransit workers are men, all of the informants in this study were male.

2. Psar Kandal has been translated here as Kandal market, which is the name commonly used by English speakers. However, the Khmer name translates as ‘central market’. It is rarely translated as such in order to avoid confusion with the French built Central Market, which is know in Khmer as the New Market [Psar Thmei].