This BSP Urban Mobility seminar will feature Jana El Hajj, a PhD student at the University of Oxford’s Transport Studies Unit. Her research assesses the social impacts of popular transport systems on disadvantaged residents of an informal settlement in Beirut. Within such contexts, transport difficulties can stand in the way of accessing basic opportunities. The study adopts a qualitative approach underpinned by transport-related social exclusion to investigate popular transport’s role in relation to multi-scalar processes of exclusion facing informal settlement dwellers. Popular transport is showcased as both an enabler and a barrier to social inclusion, depending on individual conditions and contexts. The work reveals unique disadvantages, unequally accessible resistance strategies, and diverse conditions of exclusion within the same settlement. The seminar will highlight the importance of complementing accessibility frameworks with multi-scalar, user-focused approaches. Within its geographical context, this research contributes to a deeply underexplored understanding of urban and transport disparity and (in)formality, with relevance to research, policy and practice.
Speaker Information
Jana El Hajj is a PhD student at the University of Oxford's Transport Studies Unit. Her PhD focuses on the conditions of transport workers in Beirut's popular transport. She has a master's in Transport and City Planning from UCL's Bartlett School of Planning, and an undergraduate in Civil Engineering from the Lebanese American University. Her experiences have spanned across research and planning consultancies in Lebanon and the UK.
