Call for Papers for the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers
AAG, Los Angeles, April 9-13, 2013
Contesting and Constructing Spaces of Mobility and Transport
Transportation geography is positioned to make important contributions to emerging debates in spatial theory and planning practice, including a significant ‘mobilities’ turn in the social sciences and the challenge of sustainable transport in transport/urban planning. But if the subfield has helped advance understanding of spatial processes in the past, ranging from quantitative modeling to the explicit inclusion of different in social analyses, some argue it must move beyond these decades-old advances (Hanson 2006). For example, processes of political-economic change like neoliberalism — at a variety of scales — are largely structured through transportation; the new field of mobilities has underlined the importance of the social meanings of transportation and mobility across all modes (Sheller and Urry 2006); and planners confront the challenge of greening transport and improving quality of life. But there remains to be seen how a critical engagement with institutions, practices, and discourses of transportation modes and infrastructures might contribute to understanding and engaging contemporary social, political, and economic challenges.
For this session, we are looking for papers that critically engage the spatialities of transportation, including mobile bodies and material (human/non-human, vehicular and non-vehicular), transport nodes and places, territories and scales, networks/infrastructure, and the spatial practices and relations that connect them. By “critical,” we mean an approach that highlights the power geometries (Massey, 1994) of transport systems, critiquing mobile actors and infrastructures, analyzing discourses of transportation and policy, or exploring the contested nature of spaces and places of transportation and mobility. But we also seek papers that explore the ways people, including planners, contest and construct transportation spaces in pursuit of more just and sustainable alternatives. Much as the mobilities literature has brought together multiple disciplines and upset the notion that sedentarism is the default state of affairs, we seek to contribute to geographical and planning debates by considering the political economy of transportation and infrastructure as it is and has been, and the possibilities for positive change.
If you are interested in participating in this session, please submit your abstract to the AAG and then contact us with your PIN: Julie Cidell, University of Illinois, jcidell@illinois.edu; or David Prytherch, Miami University of Ohio, prythedl@muohio.edu. This session is co-sponsored by the Energy and Environment, Transportation Geography, and Urban Geography Specialty Groups.
AND ANOTHER ONE!
Call for Papers: Urban Mobilities
2013 Annual Meeting of the AAG- Los Angeles
Session organizers:
Donald Anderson (Anthropology, Univ. of Arizona)
Asha Best (American Studies, Rutgers University)
Given that the upcoming meeting of the AAG is convening in the
hyper-car-cultured city of Los Angeles, it seems opportune to open up a
broader discussion about mobilities, immobilities and moorings.
(Hannam, et al 2006) As Tim Cresswell (2010) has argued, mobility
involves movement, representation and practice—all three of which are
entangled with and permeated by political relations. That is to say, how
certain bodies move through space, the means with which they move, and
the types of spaces to which those bodies have access has political
meaning. This panel invites presentations that consider how the politics
of mobility shape contemporary cities. How are mobilities and
immobilities in urban settings produced, channeled, and contested? And
how are these im/mobilities transformed by new technologies (e.g. GPS
tracking, transit television, mobile apps, Intelligent Transportation
Systems, driverless cars)?
Potential topics include but are certainly not limited to:
- car cultures and the future of driving
- affect and mobile interactions
- “just in time” mobility
- the politics of waiting
- public transit as a racialized/gendered mode of travel
- mobile tracking as a marketing tool
- the production of mobile subjects as consumers
- built environment and the shape of urban flows
- splintering urbanism, stratified transportation
- cities as receptacles and generators of flows
- technology as psychogeographic mediator
Interested presenters should send a title and abstract of up to 250
words to dna@email.arizona.edu and asbest@scarletmail.rutgers.edu by
October 20th. Please include your PIN if you have already registered; if
you have not yet registered, please note that registration for the AAG
should be completed by October 24th, 2012.
