Geographies of Mobilities: Practices, Spaces, Subjects

Tim Cresswell, Peter Merriman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9780754673163
• eBook ISBN: 9781317129158
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geography
• Index: Geography

Over the past fifteen years or so, there has been a widespread and increasing fascination with the theme of mobility across the social sciences and humanities. Of course, geographers have always had an interest in mobility, but as yet they have not viewed this in the same 'mobility turn' as in other disciplines where it has been used to critique the standard approaches to the subjects. This text brings together leading academics to provide a revitalised 'geography of mobilities' informed by this wider 'mobility turn'. It makes connections between the seemingly disparate sub-disciplinary worlds of migration, transport and tourism, suggesting that each has much to learn from each other through the ontological and epistemological concern for mobility.

Chapter 1
Introduction: Geographies of Mobilities – Practices, Spaces, Subjects

Tim Cresswell and Peter Merriman

What can geography offer to a ‘new mobilities paradigm’ (Sheller and Urry 2006)? The very question suggests that geography needs to embrace mobility. Sociology, anthropology and other disciplines across the social sciences and the humanities have gone mobile (Urry 2007; Urry 2000; Clifford 1997; Kaufmann 2002). Why not follow suit? In many ways, of course, we have. Geographers are leading contributors to and editors of the journal Mobilities. We have our own mobilities text book (Adey 2009) and monographs on mobility in general (Cresswell 2006) and specific forms of moving (Merriman 2007). Our conferences are jam packed with sessions with mobility or mobilities in the title.

Equally, it could reasonably be argued that we have no need to embrace a ‘new mobilities paradigm’ because we have always had mobility as a central focus of work in human geography. Indeed, a call for a new mobilities paradigm in our discipline has often been repeated. In 1938, for instance, the Scottish geographer Percy Crowe, in an argument for a ‘progressive geography’, suggested that we had become too focused on fixed things and needed to pay attention to process and circulation (Crowe 1938). Geographers, he argued, had ‘advanced a static geography ... incapable of seeing movement except as pattern’, but a future ‘dynamic’ geography must adjust its focus to study ‘men and things moving’ (Crowe 1938, 14):

The study of things moving will at least take us a step along the right road, for, as compared with static distribution, movement implies three essentials – origin, destination, and an effective will to move. Movement does not take place in a vacuum, it is effected upon the surface of the earth and it is very largely through movement that Mankind becomes conscious of its geography. (Crowe 1938, 14)

Crowe’s call was largely ignored, but it was repeated with the move to a ‘theoretical geography’ of space (rather than region) that we now know as the quantitative revolution. One proponent of such a mobile human geography was William Bunge. He suggested that it was movement and pattern which lay at the heart of a new ‘theoretical geography’ that could cut across the human and physical domains:

Notice that any explanation of a location involves the notion of movement. Even such static features as mountains and sea coasts are explained by movements over long geologic periods. In many ways patterns and movements are interrelated as are the chicken and the egg with one causing the other. Does the location of the river valley cause the movement of the river or is it the other way? Obviously one operates on the other. Thus, theoretical geography, the geography of explanation, is interested in both movements and patterns. (Bunge 1966, xvi)

In his manifesto for a ‘Theoretical Geography’ Bunge argued that movement was the key geographical ‘fact’ to be explored, modelled, theorized and explained. It was in the study of movement, he argued, that theoretical geography had made its most significant advances. Chapter 5 of his book is called ‘Toward a General Theory of Movement’. It is rooted in the question posed by Edward Ullman – ‘What makes objects move over the earth’s surface?’

It can be argued that Ullman’s question encompasses all geographic theory, since in explaining how an object acquires its location it is difficult to avoid the notion of movement. Even such “static” features as mountains and seacoasts are explained in terms of movements taking place over long periods. (Bunge 1966, 112)

At a time when spatial scientists were looking to theoretical approaches to space and time in physics and mathematics (see, e.g. Harvey 1969), Bunge suggested that the movement of people could be equated to the movement of electricity or the flows of fluids, as understood by scientists. To a positivist such as Bunge (in Theoretical Geography anyway) it is important that generalizations are as general as possible. So laws that could be applied to people and to water were particularly valued. Movement, then, was incorporated into a general mathematical geography. It was positioned at the heart of the project of spatial science.

This was never clearer than in the development of transport geography. The study of transport became a central part of geography during the late 1960s and early 1970s when the urge to quantify and produce ‘laws’ was at its height. Gravity models and spatial interaction theory were both used to understand and predict transport-aided movement. A ‘rational-mobile-person’ was invented who was seen to make careful decisions about when and how to move. Here is how this is described at the end of an influential transport geography text.

Transport exists for the purpose of bridging spatial gaps, though these gaps can be expressed not only in terms of distance but also of time and cost. It is the means by which people and goods can be moved from the place where they are at the moment to another place where they will be at a greater advantage; goods can be sold at a higher price, people can get a better job, or live in the sort of house they prefer, or go for a holiday at the seaside. In short, people and goods are transported from one place where their utility is lower to another where it is higher. Transport as a fundamental human activity may thus be effectively studied in spatial terms: geographical methods are basic to such study and are of practical relevance to the solution of many of the problems associated with the transport industry and with its activities. (White and Senior 1983, 207)

Occasionally, however, other marginal figures would appear as quaint and unpredictable exceptions to law-like behaviour. Three such exceptions occur at the beginning of the same text book.

For the most part the demand for transport is derived. With exceptions such as motorists who simply drive into the country, passengers on cruise liners and ‘railfans’, transport is used as a means to an end: the movement of people and goods from where they are to another place where, for the time being at any rate, their satisfaction of value will be enhanced. Transport creates utilities of place. (White and Senior 1983, 1)

While movement is most often seen as the outcome of rational choices involving the comparison of one location or mode with another, there are people such as ‘the leisure motorist’, ‘cruise ship passenger’ of ‘trainspotter’ who conduct mobility for its own sake. These people are beyond the scope of spatial science. They are scientific anomalies, or perhaps simply irrational. Needless to say, they are irrelevant to the scientific approach.

This is not the only place that the differently-mobile appear as exceptions and deviations. Abler, Adams and Gould also note the always-awkward exceptions to general rules of movement. ‘Least net effort’ is one of the important organizing principles of many approaches to mobility in spatial science. It suggests that there is (or perhaps, should be) a general drive to reduce the amount of effort spent in moving from place to place.

We stress net effort to emphasize that the very movement process itself may carry benefits at the same time that costs are incurred. A commuter sitting in a traffic jam inhaling gasoline and carbon monoxide fumes pays a high cost for his trip, but he also has relative peace and quiet twice a day, a radio to listen to, and the feeling that for a while at least he is the boss. If his job were to move next door to his house he would probably move. (Abler et al. 1971, 253)

This is but one example of how movement is presented as a secondary geographical fact made necessary by the arrangement of primary considerations of space and location. So despite Crowe’s call for geographers to focus on ‘men and things moving’, rather than the nodes or networks that provide the material infrastructure for such movement, geographers who worked obsessively on movement continued to relegate it as logically secondary to the arrangements of space and place. This is why the apparently throw-away references to patterns of mobility that do not fit the various models put forward by spatial scientists catch the attention. Qualitative exceptions, differences and experiences of movement leap off the page, but spatial scientists relegate such details to footnotes and asides. In contrast, we see the qualities of mass movements, as well as marginalized or purportedly ‘irrational’ movements, as important and worthy of study. We are interested in producing critical analyses of these practices, spaces and subjects, whether the ‘motorists who simply drive into the country, passengers on cruise liners and “railfans”’ (White and Senior 1983, 1), or the commuter enjoying ‘relative peace and quiet twice a day, a radio to listen to, and the feeling that for a while at least he is the boss’ (Abler et al. 1971, 253). Turning these experiences into a footnote is a result of thinking of movement as a cost and as dead time.

Mobilities Again

In many ways, then, geographers are not coming to mobilities anew but are revisiting an old friend. In our discussion thus far, we have concentrated on spatial science and transport geography, but there are many other ways in which geographers have positioned things or people on the move as central to the discipline. These include the development of migration theory in population and development geography (Boyle and Halfacree 1998), the tradition of time-space geographies associated with the Lund School (Hġgerstrand and Pred 1981; Pred 1977), accounts of journeys to work developed within feminist geography (Hanson and Pratt 1995; Law 1999), geographies of tourism (Crouch 1999), choreographies of place developed within the phenomenological tradition (Seamon 1979), historical geographies of transport and mobility (Freeman and Aldcroft 1985; Thrift 1990; Freeman 1999; Pirie 2009), geographies of commodities, globalization and capital (Allen and Pryke 1999; Cook 2004), research on the imaginative geographies of travel writing (Blunt 1994; Duncan and Gregory 1999), and accounts of the role of travel and exploration in the very foundation of our discipline (Driver 1999; Stoddart 1986; Domosh, 1991).

Despite all of this, however, it is still the case that geographical knowledge often assumes a stable point of view, a world of places and boundaries and territories rooted in time and bounded in space. A new focus on mobilities in geography allows us to re-centre it in the discipline. While drawing on the traditions of mobility research noted above, geographies of mobility often start with the fact of moving and retain that as a focus. The apparently marginal mobilities of spatial science (the trainspotter etc.) become central to our investigations. We do not want to leave the commuter listening to the radio as a marginal curiosity. Rather we want to make her central to our interests by asking exactly what happens on the move. How is mobile time and space filled with liveliness? The mobile worlds that are labelled dead, irrational and dysfunctional by transport geographers and others come alive when they become the focus of our attention.

This book is divided into three sections that reflect the subtitle – practices, spaces and subjects. We recognize at the outset that every chapter includes aspects of all three. How could it be possible to write about the practice of driving without considering the space of the road or the subject position ‘driver’? We have simply asked authors to start from a departure point and journey from there.

Practices

Mobility is practiced, and practice is often conflated with mobility. To move is to do something. Moving involves making a choice within, or despite, the constraints of society and geography. It is no surprise, therefore, that in Michel de Certeau’s oft-cited classic The Practice of Everyday Life (de Certeau 1984), he focuses on the act of walking in the city in order to elucidate the tactical practices of the weak. Staying still (insofar as such a thing is possible) is also a notable practical positioning in the face of surrounding mobilities and the compulsion to move. An attention to the practice and performance of mobilities forms an important component of recent work on the geographies of mobilities, and the philosophical agendas driving much of the ‘new mobilities paradigm’ are inspired by a post-structuralist sensitivity to movement and practice. Indeed, in outlining and defining what he terms ‘non-representational theory’, Nigel Thrift has referred to it (though, elsewhere, he stresses the plurality of such theories) as a ‘theory of mobile practices’ (Thrift 2000, 556), and he has shown how there is an ‘almost/not quite ontology which is gathering momentum around the key trope of mobility’ (Thrift 1996, 258). Mobile, embodied practices are central to how we experience the world, from practices of writing and sensing, to walking and driving. Our mobilities create spaces and stories – spatial stories.

In this section the authors examine five modes of mobile practice: walking; running; dancing; driving; and flying. These practices are associated with different spaces and scales of movement. They involve a range of embodied engagements and an array of technologies and infrastructures. As the chapters by Hayden Lorimer and John Bale show, even running and walking – practices associated with the physical capacities of animate bodies – have become embroiled with a range of more-or-less complex technologies, from the shoe, running trainer and walking boot, to the asphalt running track, digital stopwatch, personal stereo, rucksack and map (see also Matless 1998; Michael 2000; Bull 2000). Driving and flying are practices which have clearly become dependent upon an extensive network of technologies and spaces, from different types and makes of airplane and motor vehicle, to the spaces of the road, motorway, car park, airport and the sky. These practices and associated spaces are entwined with a complex array of political, cultural, economic and environmental debates. All of these embodied mobile practices have complex histories and geographies, as has been exemplified by recent work on dance in geography (Nash 2000; Cresswell 2006). These practices have also come to be associated with different ways of being and thinking, and different ethics, aesthetics and ecologies. Walking has been variously constructed as romantic, reflective, escapist, natural; running as efficient, powerful, or exhausting; dancing as elegant, poetic, fun or embarrassing; driving as modern, essential, stressful, dangerous or environmentally destructive; flying as wonderous, modern, and (again) polluting. While there is a focus, in this section, on embodied practices which appear to be active and controlled (rather than passive), we should not forget that such actions as standing still, sitting or being a ‘passenger’ in a car, train or plane are equally, if differently, active in their embodied practices, affects, mobilities and fixities (cf. Laurier and Brown 2008; Laurier et al. 2008; Bissell 2010).

In Chapter 2 Hayden Lorimer provides a critical overview of the geographies of walking studies. He discusses how walks have been presented as a product of places, as features of everyday life, adopted as an artistic practice, and used as a way to interrogate the relationship between self and landscape, or self and world. He shows how walking has been adopted as an embodied methodological practice as well as a practice to observe or study, and how walks have been the subject of historical geographic study as well as integral to contemporary phenomenologies of landscape. Walking as a historic practice, artistic method and contemporary philosophical aid appears to connect important themes which lie at the heart of geography: embodiment, landscape, place, experience, practice, mobility, representation, materiality, subjectivity, objectivity.

In Chapter 3 John Bale addresses the practice of running. Running is frequently presented as a leisure pursuit, but in this chapter Bale shows how competitive, ‘sportised’ running is perhaps best considered as a form of work. Over the past century and more, speeds have increased, average times have decreased and the sport has been encompassed by a vast array of technologies, from the standardization and improvement of track surfaces, to the global commodification of the running shoe, and changing technologies for timing races. The practice of running is very much an achievement of the hybrid, trained and equipped runner.

In Chapter 4 J.D. Dewsbury discusses the ephemeral embodied mobile practices of dance, and he provides a critical intervention into recent geographical debates about non-representational theory, representation and dance. Dewsbury draws upon the writings of philosophers Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze to show how an interrog...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• List of Contributors
• Introduction: Geographies of Mobilities – Practices, Spaces, Subjects
• Practices
• Spaces
• Subjects
• Index