AIR TIME-SPACES: NEW METHODS FOR RESEARCHING MOBILITIES

AIR TIME-SPACES: NEW METHODS FOR RESEARCHING MOBILITIES

Lancaster University UK - 29 & 30 September 2006

Confirmed Speakers:

Gillian Fuller, University of New South Wales
Ross Harley, University of New South Wales
Rob Kitchen, University of Maynooth
Claus Lassen, Aalborg University
David Pascoe, University of Glasgow
Peter Peters, University Maastricht
Frank Witlox, Ghent University
Saulo Cwerner, Lancaster University, plus possible art and film installations

Monumental airports of glass and steel designed by celebrity architects, gigantic planes that dwarf jumbos, flights greatly cheaper than surface travel – these are icons of the new global order. Such air time-spaces are global transfer points, entries into a world of apparent hypermobility, extensive time-space compression/distanciation, and apparent boundless opportunities. Work and play, leisure and pleasure are opened up through such reconstituted spaces. They link the local to the global, and place particular cities and societies upon the global map. The transformation of China, India and other countries into societies of hyper-aeromobility brings these issues centre-stage in the early years of the twenty first century. Even as air travel is taken for granted, these spaces are simultaneously sites of intense contestation especially around the environmental, economic and social impacts of cheap flights, new runways and airports, and novel security issues in managing the complex flows of baggage and passengers. This all indicates the intensely political nature of “making aero-mobilities”.

The social sciences and humanities have had relatively little to say about these systems and processes, partly because such time-spaces are gated and off-limits. This next meeting of the CosMobilities Network will seek to remedy this neglect by addressing through papers, discussions, and media installations just how to analyse and research some ways in which the most dramatic changes in the contemporary world are being reorganised through time and space.

This Air Time-Spaces Workshop is intended to be a substantial contribution to a cosmopolitan perspective within mobility research. Issues of theory and especially methods will be highlighted since research techniques will have to be as 'mobile' as the passengers, the staff, the security instruments, baggage, and the gleaming, cheap airplanes.

The Workshop is organised by the Centre for Mobilities Research, Lancaster, and the CosMobilities Network. It will be held in the new state-of-the-art Institute for Advanced Studies, County College South at Lancaster University commencing at 10.30 am on 29 September and ending at 4.30pm on 30 September. Numbers will be restricted to a maximum of 50 so as to facilitate debate.

The cost for the 2 days will be £75 to include all meeting costs, meals (including workshop dinner on the 29th) and tea/coffee. Overnight accommodation is available at cost on campus. Please contact Pennie Drinkall if you would like to attend - p.drinkall@lancaster.ac.uk. Unfortunately, Saturday 30 September is the start of our academic year and there is no accommodation available in university guest rooms. Should you need to stay on Saturday night please book your alternative accommodation very soon (see list attached to the registration form). Pennie can also help you with this.

Registration Form here