RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2010, 1st-3rd September, London UK.

 

Call for Papers: Living on the Move

 

Convenors: Ariel Terranova-Webb (The Open University) and Dr. Sergei Shubin (University of Aberdeen)

 

Discussant:  Peter Adey (Keele University)

 

With the increased interest in ‘mobility,’ investigations have moved beyond documenting the routes of materials, ideas and people (Kaplan, 1996; Crang, 2002; Urry, 2000; Ahmed et al., 2003; Thrift, 2004; Cresswell, 2006). One emerging line of enquiry addresses how mobility is managed and stabilized as well as how stability can be found in movement (Alzaga, 2007; McCormack, 2008). By viewing mobility as a stabilizing process we can continue to move away from the common treatment of mobility as a disruptive process. Mobility in itself is a way of living and belonging to different communities, which redefines connectivity of mobile people and attachment to their “homes”. How do mobile people find stability in mobility and construct a sense of mobile dwelling?  This is one of the key concerns which this session aims to address by bringing up the importance of lived mobilities in structuring society.

 

Mobilities of people connect travel and dwelling on national, familial, community scales and involve both movement and “still” living while keeping family links and sense of the mobile community. Connectedness to these networks demonstrates the ability of mobile people to stay mobile and to create the sense of constancy through movement and the changeability of places. Stability through the mobile can come in many forms, from routine, to tradition, to sense of place.  This session invites papers that investigate the connection between stability and the mobile concentrating on mobile peoples and lives.  Possible topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Symbolic mobility and stability (expectations and perceptions of mobile living in relation to homelike attachments)
• Different rhythms and practices of settling within mobility
• Virtual mobilities and narratives of travel/stability in mobile dwelling
• Different conceptualisations of mobility (memory, performance, affect)
• The role of material (personal possessions, gifts, foods) and immaterial (mentalities, memories, emotions) elements of mobility in helping mobile people to live on the move
• 'Innovative' mobile methods exploring stability in movement

 

 

Please submit abstracts (of no more than 200 words) to Ariel ([log in to unmask]) by Monday, February 15^th, 2010.