Mobility

405 Pages·2017·3.546 MB·English

by  Peter Adey

MOBILITY
Mobility aims to take the pulse of this enormously expanded and energetic
field. It explores the breadth of the disciplinary areas mobility studies
now encompass, examining the diverse conceptual and methodological
approaches wielded within the field, and explores the utility of mobility
to illuminate a cornucopia of mobile lives: from the mass movements of
individuals within global processes such as migration and tourism, to
homelessness and war; from the entangled relations caught up in the
movement of disease, people and aid across borders, to the inability of
someone to cross over a road.
The new edition explores the more sustained elaboration of mobility
studies within a wide variety of disciplinary approaches and subject
matters. It echoes the growing internationalization of mobility research,
reflected in diverse case studies from the Global South, South Asia, Latin
America, the Caribbean and so far under-represented perspectives from
China, Australasia, post-socialist Eastern Europe, the Middle East and
elsewhere. The book also features an additional chapter on mobility
studies, to survey and explore the diverse quality of the field, and
methodologies, in order to reflect the growing diversity of methodological
approaches to mobilities, from walk-alongs and critical cartography to
the mobile arts.
The book offers an accessible reading of the way mobility has been
tackled and understood, neatly exploring and summarizing a topic that
has exploded into different variations and nuances. The text allows scholars
and students alike to grasp the central importance of ‘mobility’ to social,
cultural, political, economic and everyday terrains by providing accessible
writings on key authors within key ideas and case study boxes, suggested
further readings and summaries, while at the same time making a
significant contribution to scholarly writings and debates.
Peter Adey is Professor of Human Geography at Royal Holloway University
of London. He is the author and co-editor of six books and various
articles, including Aerial Life: Mobilities, Subjects, Affects, Air, From Above (ed.) and
The Routledge Handbook of Mobilities (ed.).
Key Ideas in Geography
SerieS editorS: Noel CaStree, UNiverSity of WolloNgoNg, aUStralia, aNd aUdrey
KobayaShi, QUeeN'S UNiverSity, CaNada
The Key Ideas in Geography series will provide strong, original and accessible
texts on important spatial concepts for academics and students working in the
fields of geography, sociology and anthropology, as well as the interdisciplinary
fields of urban and rural studies, development and cultural studies. Each text will
locate a key idea within its traditions of thought, provide grounds for
understanding its various usages and meanings and offer critical discussion of
the contribution of relevant authors and thinkers.
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com/series/KIG
Home
ALISON BLUNT AND ROBYN DOWLING
Landscape
JOHN WYLIE
Scale
ANDREW HEROD
Rural
MICHAEL WOODS
Citizenship
RICHARD YARWOOD
Wilderness
PHILLIP VANNINI AND APRIL VANNINI
Creativity
HARRIET HAWKINS
Migration, Second Edition
MICHAEL SAMERS AND MICHAEL COLLYER
Mobility, Second Edition
PETER ADEY
MOBILITY
Second edition
Peter Adey
Second edition published 2017
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2017 Peter Adey
The right of Peter Adey to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Names: Adey, Peter, author.
Title: Mobility / Peter Adey.
Description: Second edition. | New York : Routledge, 2017. | Series: Key
Ideas in Geography | “First edition published by Routledge 2010”--T.p.
verso. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016052243| ISBN 9781138949003 (hardback : alk.
paper) | ISBN 9781138949010 (paperback : alk. paper) | ISBN
9781315669298 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Human geography. | Migration, Internal--Social aspects.
| Social mobility.
Classification: LCC GF41 .A34 2017 | DDC 304.8--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016052243
ISBN: 978-1-138-94900-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-94901-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-66929-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Joanna MT
by Saxon Graphics Ltd, Derby
In memory of John Urry

C
ontents
LIST OF FIGURES ix
KEY IDEAS BOXES xi
CASE STUDY BOXES xiii
PREFACE xv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xvii
1 Introduction 1
Big and little mobilities 7
Immobilities and stillness 11
The approach 14
How the book is laid out 16
Conclusion 20
2 Mobility studies 21
Introduction 21
Rise of the ‘new mobilities paradigm’ 23
Alter-native mobilities: the subaltern, post-colonialism and
beyond the Global North 45
Funders, benefactors and mobilities beyond academia 57
Conclusion 59
3 Meanings 62
Introduction 62
Meaningful mobilities 63
Figures and metaphors of mobility 69
viii CoNteNtS
Nomadism 81
Fluidity and fixity 91
Conclusion 102
4 Politics 104
Introduction 104
The politics of mobility 107
Entanglements of mobility 130
Protest and resistance 151
Conclusion 165
5 Practices 167
Introduction 167
Doing mobility 168
Practice, performance and more-than representational
mobilities 176
Motion and emotion: the feeling of mobility 192
Conclusion 206
6 Mediations 208
Introduction 208
Planes, trains, automobiles and more: transported mobilities 211
Diffusion and disease 244
Networks, infrastructures and logistics 251
Prosthetic technologies and mobile phones 264
Conclusion 271
7 Mobile methodologies 272
Introduction 272
Mobile bodies, being there and its fallacies 273
Lives, liveliness and making mobilities live 277
Security, secrets and the fragility of method 301
Conclusion 315
8 Conclusion 317
BIBLIOGRAPHY 320
INDEX 364
F
igures
2.1 The Lusitania arrives to crowds on its maiden voyage
in 1907 38
2.2 Informal parking in Tallin, Estonia 57
3.1 Cresswell’s diagram of movement 65
3.2 Representing time–space routines 77
3.3 The Tropicana motor park, Las Vegas 79
3.4 Passage Jouffroy, Paris 89
3.5 Translocal places in Hong Kong 100
4.1 Buses remain underwater in New Orleans during
Hurricane Katrina 111
4.2 Helicopter mobilities in São Paulo 124
4.3 View from Jerusalem towards Beit Jala 136
4.4 The red umbrella, the logo of International Committee of
the Rights of Sex Workers in Europe 140
4.5 An eviction free zone in Boeung Kak 149
4.6 Barricades of the Paris Commune, 1871 156
4.7 Steven Saville performs Parkour 158
4.8 Protesters stage a ‘die-in’ at London, St Pancras
International Terminal 162
4.9 Greyhound Bus Station at 210 South Court Street in
Montgomery, Alabama 164
6.1 Monument of the late Thomas Hibbert, Esq., at Agualta Vale,
St. Mary’s, 1820–1824, Hakewill (1825), ‘A Picturesque Tour
of the Island of Jamaica’ 216
6.2 J. M. W Turner’s Rain, Steam and Speed, 1844 218
6.3 A hierarchy of business air travel networks 232