Why and how does the pacing of mobilities matter?

Mobility Humanities, 2024

This special issue of Mobility Humanities explores the experiences and interactions of stopovers in transport infrastructure. It has two thematic foci: First, we analyse experiences of dwelling and states of being-in-the-world during moments of immobility embedded in the mobile life of modernity. Second, we explore social interactions in immobile situationsduring travel and journeys. The common argument linking the articles is that experiences of pausing, waiting and stopping during travel are not simply interruptions, but rather important aspects of mobile life that foster social interaction and community building. All articles draw on ethnographic studies and analyses of cultural production (literature and video) to explore how people experience these moments of (im)mobility and how they shape our understanding of mobility, place and environment.

Mobilities, 2010

This article contributes to the 'mobilities turn' in social science by proposing new concepts and methods for analysing the ways in which people draw upon a range of resources to manage everyday mobility. We distinguish between the 'projects' people want to achieve and the 'passages' they need to go through in order to do so. We also distinguish between 'pretravelling' and 're-ordering'. The analysis builds on insights from time-geography, mobility studies and actor-network-theory to develop a conceptual vocabulary for understanding the dynamic and situated nature of travel in everyday life. The study combines qualitative and quantitative data from a study of hypermobile people in the Netherlands.

Keywords of mobility: Critical engagements, 2016

As a concept, mobility captures the common impression that one's lifeworld is in fl ux, with not only people, but also cultures, objects, capital, businesses, services, diseases, media, images, information, and ideas circulating across (and even beyond) the planet. While history tells the story of human mobility, the scholarly literature is replete with metaphors attempting to describe (perceived) altered spatial and temporal movements: deterritorialization, reterritorialization, and scapes; time-space compression, distantiation, or punctuation; the network society and its space of fl ows; the death of distance and the acceleration of modern life; and nomadology. The academic interest in mobility goes hand in hand with theoretical approaches that reject a "sedentarist metaphysics" (Malkki 1992) in favor of a "nomadic metaphysics" (Cresswell 2006) and empirical studies on the most diverse kinds of mobilities (Adey et al. 2013), questioning earlier taken-for-granted correspondences between peoples, places, and cultures. The way the term is being used, mobility entails, in its coinage, much more than mere physical motion (Marzloff 2005). Rather, it is seen as movement infused with both self-ascribed and attributed meanings (Frello 2008). Put differently, "mobility can do little on its own until it is materialized through people, objects, words, and other embodied forms" (Chu 2010, 15). Importantly, mobility means different things to different people in differing social circumstances (Adey 2010).

The Information Society, 2002

The current explosion in mobile computing and telecommunications technologies holds the potential to transform "everyday" time and space, as well as changes to the rhythms of social institutions. Sociologists are only just beginning to explore what the notion of "mobility" might mean when mediated through computing and communications technologies, and so far, the sociological treatment has been largely theoretical. This article seeks instead to explore how a number of dimensions of time and space are being newly reconstructed through the use of mobile communications technologies in everyday life. The article draws on long-term ethnographic research entitled "The Socio-Technical Shaping of Mobile Multimedia Personal Communications," conducted at the University of Surrey. This research has involved ethnographic eldwork conducted in a variety of locales and with a number of groups. This research is used here as a resource to explore how mobile communications technologies mediate time in relation to mobile spaces. First the paper offers a review and critique of some of the major sociological approaches to understanding time and space. This review entails a discussion of how social practices and institutions are maintained and/or transformed via mobile technologies. Ethnographic data is used to explore emerging mobile temporalities. Three interconnected domains in mobile time are proposed: rhythms of mobile use, rhythms of mobile use in everyday life, and rhythms of mobility and institutional change. The article argues that while these mobile temporalities are emerging, and offer new ways of acting in and perceiving time and space, the practical construction of mobile time in everyday life remains rmly connected to well-established time-based social practices, whether these be ; web site: http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk institutional (such as clock time, "work time") or subjective (such as "family time").

Knowledge and Networks, 2017

The term place is used here in a general sense to refer to a location that can be occupied by an individual in any formally organized circuit, which can be geographical, organizational, or both. It is to be distinguished from the term position (White, Boorman, & Breiger, 1976)-a set of structurally equivalent actors called a "social niche" (Lazega, 2001, p. 25) when the ties between actors in the position are dense. A position makes sense in a system of positions (or niches) that differs from, though always combined and coevolving with, the system of places (Lazega, 2013). Space (contiguity) and network (connectivity), for example, are both different and related.

In E. Araújo, R. Ribeiro, P. Andrade & R. Costa (Eds.), Viver em|a mobilidade: rumo a novas culturas de tempo, espaço e distância. Livro de atas (pp. 49-67). Braga: CECS., 2018

This paper’s idea was triggered by the exhibition “Cedric Price: Mean Time,” presented at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montréal. Starting with the premise that mobility is a contingent (Till, 2009) act, this text looks at the different time(s) created by this contingency. The seven time(s) here conside- red are: Suspending Time, Free Time, Expanding Time, Distorting time, Fol- ded Time, Loosing time, and Living time. Through specific “spatial stories” (de Certeau, 2002) each time is explained, in their features, unfolding how time-mobility shapes the way we create different appropriations of space, transmuting not only places, but also the relationship between ourselves and the other.F

Space–Time Design of the Public City, 2013

This Chapter investigates the qualities of urban travel time by looking at daily mobilities as time-spaces of encounter wherein various actions are performed. Following the 'new mobilities paradigm' we regard everyday urban mobility not only as a 'means to an end', but also as 'end in itself'. This implies a move from instrumental, utilitarian and deterministic understanding of urban travel time towards a holistic conceptualisation of urban mobility that calls for embedding social qualities of urban travel in urban planning and design. We argue that urban public transport networks are political sites of the everyday wherein emancipatory and discriminatory practices are not only enacted, but also reshaped through different events, encounters, and processes. Hence, we challenge traditional time-saving strategies in transport appraisal and call for a more complex and politicized approach to time in policy-making that would highlight a socially-just consideration of speed, efficiency and qualitative aspects of urban travel. "To be teleported would be to lose something."

In a network society, as a result of technological, economic, demographic and cultural developments, individual activity and travel patterns have fragmented in space and time. The fragmentations will have a large impact on the use of places and spaces by visitors. To date, insight into the impact of a large variety of urban, suburban and rural areas on the presence of visitors is lacking. The aim of this study was twofold: first, to unravel some of the complexity and dynamics in the presence of temporary populations by identifying the most ...

2021

There are deep transformations visible in the current phase of globalization and have prompted scholars to search for approaches to make sense of current socio-spatial configurations. The increased mobility across different regions is shaping society economically, socially, and politically as globalization increases. Migration remains an issue that results in new balances of power generated by the international systems.

Regional and local responses in Portugal, in the context of marginalization and globalization, 2012

In terms of general spatial mobility, Portuguese society has come to register a wide variety of movements of a permanent nature. The search for wealth and competitive power, together with a supporting trend towards urban growth, has given rise to a clear increase in temporary movements in Portuguese society. Whilst this does not have any great impact on models of location, as Morrill (1974) states, it is responsible for a rise in the volume of production and consumption and a substantial increase in investment in traffic infrastructure. In addition to the importance of transport and communications infrastructure, which are determining factors in the process of utilising resources (the densest road systems are provided in the most industrialised districts and/or where the tertiary sector, which is basically the most important, represents an important part of the population’s activity), it is also evident that the preference given to certain specific channels of mobility depends on the social form and the nature of work done by the individual (man/resource).