Keywords Of Mobility

Scholars from various disciplines have used key concepts to grasp mobilities, but as of yet, a working vocabulary of these has not been fully developed. Given this context and inspired in part by Raymond Williams’ Keywords (1976), this edited volume presents contributions that critically analyze mobility-related keywords: capital, cosmopolitanism, freedom, gender, immobility, infrastructure, motility, and regime. Each chapter provides an historical context, a critical analysis of how the keyword has been used in relation to mobility, and a conclusion that proposes future usage or research.

Turning the attention to the temporal as well as the more familiar spatial dimensions of mobility, this volume focuses on the momentum for and temporal composition of mobility, the rate at which people enact or deploy their movements as well as the conditions under which these moves are being marshalled, represented and contested. This is an anthropological exploration of temporality as a form of action, a process of actively modulating or responding to how people are moving rather than the more usual focus in mobility studies on where they are heading.

(1) Essays on terms and concepts that capture the conceptualisation of identity, race, migration, and transculturality in early modern England. (2) Wide-ranging relevance across multiple disciplines and readerships, from specialist scholars of early modern literature, history, and culture, to non-specialists interested in the development of issues of race, human mobility, and belonging in this crucial period of voyages and nation-formation. (3) Emphasis on approachability, readability, as well as scholarly thoroughness, supported by full bibliographical apparatus.

Mobility studies emerged from a postmodern moment in which global ‘flows’ of capital, people and objects were increasingly noted and celebrated. Within this new scholarship, categories of migrancy are all seen through the same analytical lens. This book builds on, as well as critiques, past and present studies of mobility. In so doing, it challenges conceptual orientations built on binaries of difference that have impeded analyses of the interrelationship between mobility and stasis. These include methodological nationalism, which counterpoises concepts of internal and international movement and native and foreigner, and consequently normalises stasis. Instead, the book proposes a ‘regimes of mobility’ framework that addresses the relationships between mobility and immobility, localisation and transnational connection, experiences and imaginaries of migration, and rootedness and cosmopolitan openness. Within this framework and its emphasis on social fields of differential power, the various contributors to this collection ethnographically explore the disparities, inequalities, racialised representations and national mythscapes that facilitate and legitimate differential mobility and fixity. Although they examine nation-state building processes, the anthropological analysis is not confined by national boundaries. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

As everything from immigration, airport security and road tolling become headline news, the need to understand mobility has never been more pertinent. Yet ‘mobility’ remains remarkably elusive in summary and definition. This introductory text makes ‘mobility’ tangible by explaining the key theories and writings that surround it. This book traces out the concept of mobility as a key idea within the discipline of geography as well as subject areas from the wider arts and social sciences. The text takes an interdisciplinary approach to draw upon key writers and thinkers that have contributed to the topic. In analyzing these, it develops an understanding of mobility as a relationship through which the world is lived and understood. Mobility is organized around themed chapters discussing – 'Meanings', 'Politics', 'Practices' and 'Mediations', and the book identifies the evolution of mobility and its implications for theoretical debate. These include the way we think about travel and embodiment, to regarding issues such as power, feminism and post-colonialism. Important contemporary case-studies are showcased in boxes. Examples range from the mobility politics evident in the evacuation of the flooding of New Orleans, xenophobia in Southern Africa, motoring in India, to the new social relationships emerging from the mobile phone. The methodological quandaries mobility demands are addressed through highlighted boxes discussing both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Arguing for a more relational notion of the term, the book understands mobility as a keystone to the examination of issues from migration, war and transportation; from communications and politics to disability rights and security. Key concept and case-study boxes, further readings, and central issue discussions allow students to grasp the central importance of ‘mobility’ to social, cultural, political, economic and everyday terrains. The text also assists scholars of Geography, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Planning, and Political Science to understand and engage with this evasive concept.

The advent of mobility-as-a-service and the disruption of the automotive industry are both overlapping and fuelled by the same developments and thus raise a very fundamental question: are we at peak car? Based on the author’s extensive field research, academic study, and professional experience, this book explores this very question as well as the underlying social, economic, generational, and regulatory changes that lead to a new mobility regime. Through rich descriptions of established OEMs and mobility start-ups, it discusses the current forms of mobility and the promise of autonomous technology. It further explores the strategic dimension of these developments so as to navigate and succeed within the disruptive and ever-changing environment of mobility services.

This collection investigates the relationship between mobilities and social justice to develop the concept of mobility justice. Two introductory chapters outline how social justice concepts can strengthen analyses of mobility as socially structured movement in particular fields of power, what new justice-related questions arise by considering uneven mobilities through a social justice frame, and what a ‘mobile ontology’ contributes to understandings of justice in relation to 21st century social relations. In 15 subsequent chapters authors analyze the material infrastructures that configure mobilities and co-constitute injustice, the justice implications of ‘more-than-human’ movements of food and animals, and mobility-related injustices produced in relation to institutional acts of governance and through micro-scale embodied relations of race, gender, class and sexuality that shape the uneven freedom of human bodily movements. The volume brings numerous scales, types and facets of mobility into conversation with multiple approaches to social justice, to theorize mobility justice and reimagine social justice as a mobile concept appropriate for analyzing the effects and ethics of contemporary life.

Explains the most widely used methods for analyzing cross-classified data on occupational origins and destinations. Hout reviews classic definitions, models, and sources of mobility data, as well as elementary operations for analyzing mobility tables. Tabular and graphic displays illustrate the discussion throughout.

The emergence of sharing mobility is having a profound impact on urban landscapes. In fact, it is deeply affecting the traditional organization of local services by calling into question how urban transportation is planned, and by redesigning city spaces. Further, by connecting people to shared assets, services or both, sharing mobility is poised to facilitate the more efficient use of underutilized resources, becoming a powerful tool for economic growth and social inclusion, while also contributing to sustainability. That being said, the economic, social and spatial impacts of sharing mobility have not been sufficiently investigated, and so far, the evidence is mixed. From a normative standpoint, while it is relevant to better understand the relations between sharing mobility, the city and the environment, it is also of crucial importance to define new policies and sound rules for sharing mobility in urban areas. Against this backdrop, this book adopts a multidisciplinary perspective to explore the role that sharing mobility can play in the creation of more just and sustainable cities.

On the Move presents a rich history of one of the key concepts of modern life: mobility. Increasing mobility has been a constant throughout the modern era, evident in mass car ownership, plane travel, and the rise of the Internet. Typically, people have equated increasing mobility with increasing freedom. However, as Cresswell shows, while mobility has certainly increased in modern times, attempts to control and restrict mobility are just as characteristic of modernity. Through a series of fascinating historical episodes Cresswell shows how mobility and its regulation have been central to the experience of modernity.