-------- Original Message --------
Subject: gomobility
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2003 23:03:34 -0700 (PDT)
From: Louise Nelson Dyble <[log in to unmask]>
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Dear Colleagues:
I would be very grateful if you would circulate this among your
colleagues who
may be interested in issues that fall under a rubric of mobility.
This list is one way to bring together scholars with a common interest in
mobility and how it constitutes the terms for social life. Until recently,
mobility has been perceived as a self-evident good, but
taken-for-granted in
its meaning. Consider the governmental and personal expenditures devoted to
getting Americans around: Houston boasts 50 parking spots per car, and
it has
been estimated that 40% of land in San Francisco is devoted to roads,
parking
lots and garages. Furthermore, Americans spend on average 20% of their
salaries on automobiles; gas; auto-related taxes (such as for highway
construction); and commuting time, which in the Bay Area averages 6
hours per
week or 45 7-hour working days per year. Mobility is central to American
culture and citizenship. As a result, the lack of ability to get around has
been demonstrated to be a key barrier for lower-income and disabled
people in
finding jobs, or for aging people to partake in normal social life after
they
are too old to drive and walk (Bullard and Johnson). Indeed, environmental
barriers to mobility were central to the Americans with Disabilities Act,
which mandates changes in the environment to increase social mobility by
alleviating the disabling impact of urban design (Wasserman).
With this list, I am interested in creating a network for scholars address
such crucial questions as: Who or what sets the standard for “average”
mobility? What assumptions do we make about why and how people move from
one
place to another in daily life? How are social meanings embedded in
modes of
transportation? How are power relations enacted and changed through acts of
mobilization?
The list will provide a forum: to circulate information on conferences,
calls
for papers, fellowships, etc.; to post essays, reviews, or recommended
readings in the field, and to discuss issues of disciplinarity,
"method", etc.
To subscribe, send a message to:
[log in to unmask]
and write:
subscribe gomobility
in the message field. You will receive a message confirming your
subscription.
For now, anyone may post messages directly to the list, and if there is
significant interest in this list, I will set up a digest form.
Many thanks, Sarah Jain
I regularly teach a course on "Car Culture" and a "Mobility Lab." On the
subject of mobility, I have published "Urban Errands: The Means of
Mobility,”
Journal of Consumer Culture (November, 2002), and "Dangerous
Instrumentality
(Bystander as Subject in Automobility)" forthcoming in Cultural
Anthropology.
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