The Politics of Proximity: Mobility/Immobility in Practice

The Politics of Proximity: Mobility/Immobility in Practice

Session Convener: Giuseppina Pellegrino, University of Calabria (Italy) - Department of Sociology and Political Science

Conference website - www.iisoc.org/iis2008

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?

- 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:

gpellegrinous@yahoo.com, g.pellegrino@unical.it