Rules of Thumb: An Investigation into the Potential of Contextual Transposition in Social Design

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When hitchhiking was sufficiently common as to constitute a recognised mode of transport (albeit a transgressive one), those who stood by road junctions with their thumbs in the air, though they may not have known it, were acting to exploit fissures in the infrastructure (the cars, roads, laybys) and mobile cultures (social norms around travel and spatiality) that constitute the automobility system. In this way they repurposed an aspect of an infrastructure to suit their needs, and capabilities. Through a process of 'Contextual Transposition', this research examines the structural and cultural imperatives of hitching as a mobility practice and, through the development of a design toolkit, uses this knowledge to reveal ways in which other infrastructures may be 'hitched'. In the examples examined here, that of neighbourhood planning and civic action, a whole range of actors may have needs and capabilities that are unfulfilled and untapped, and the proposition being explored here is that a process such as hitching may offer tactics for individuals and organizations to further their objectives in novel ways.