Regular Session:
The Politics of Proximity: Mobility/Immobility in Practice Session
Convener: Giuseppina Pellegrino, University of Calabria (Italy) - Department of Sociology and Political Science
Venue:
Intersections, overlaps and relations between globality and locality can be framed through the encompassing concept of mobility, which fosters both a powerful discourse in multiple settings and a renewed perspective in looking at socio-political transformations in the 21st century. Following John Urry and others, the sociology of mobility can be conceived as the study of mixtures and hybridations of people, objects, artefacts, information. Mobility (and immobility as its opposite, complementary side) involves multiple encounters and new inclusions and exclusions: proximity, closeness and togetherness increasingly depends on how mobility is articulated through the ever-present influence of infrastructures.
This raises some important questions:
- What does it mean to be mobile/immobile?
- Is mobility a resource or a boundary?
- How is 'being on the move' accomplished?
- How is the sense of time, space, global and local shaped through mobile practices?
- How is the sense of proximity constructed through multiple informational and communicational infrastructures?
- How are practices of mobility/immobility supported and fostered in the global arena?
- What is the relationship between proximity and contextualization?
Given such a broad scenario, this session invites contributions, amongst others, on the following themes:
- relationships between mobility, immobility and globalization (with particular reference to inequalities and asymmetries in accessing mobility as a resource) ;
- relationships between mobility and its technological mediation (mobile technologies, mobile information, mobile people);
- practices and settings where 'being mobile' is a 'must';
- mobilities and information distribution;
- mobilities and communicational practices;
- face-to-face/mediated proximity.
Abstracts of papers should be sent by 15th January to both the emails:
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Official web-page: www.iisoc.org/iis2008