mCenter Director Mimi Sheller discusses her forthcoming book Aluminum Dreams: Lightness, Speed, Modernity (MIT Press, 2014)
For more information please contact mimi.sheller@drexel.edu
* please note that the European pronunciation of “aluminium” has been used throughout for a global audience
Posted in Research
Tagged Aluminum, Caribbean, Sustainability, Technology, Tourism, Transport
Water Station in Belloc, Haiti
Over the Spring break Dr. Mimi Sheller traveled to Haiti to present a final report on the NSF-Rapid research conducted in 2010 with professors Franco Montalto, Patrick Gurian and Michael Piasecki on post-earthquake water and sanitation reconstruction in Leogane. We held a meeting of the community groups who had participated in our 2010 Workshop and presented them with a final report translated into Kreyol, as well as giving a presentation and answering their questions. An English version of the report is available here: Final HAITI Report
We are also pleased to have published an article on “Women’s Water and Sanitation Needs in Post-earthquake Leogane, Haiti” in the online journal wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water, Vol 2., No. 1. The article can be found here: http://issuu.com/wh2ojournal/docs/vol2_no2. wH2O is a new initiative at the University of Pennsylvania that publishes an annual online, open-access academic journal and blog focused on gender and water/sanitation issues worldwide. Dr. Sheller will also be presenting this work at the April 9th Conference of the Philadelphia Global Water Initiative on Gender and Water: Leading Beyond the Burden. Information on the conference can be found at http://pgwiconference2013.wordpress.com/
Flooded farmland around Lake Enriquillo
Finally, Dr. Sheller also began work on a new NSF-RAPID project with colleagues at CCNY (see an overview at http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/news/spring-break-lake-enriquillo.cfm). The project, RAPID: Understanding Sudden Hydro-Climatic Changes and Exploring Sustainable Solutions in the Enriquillo Closed Water Basin (Southwest Hispaniola), Award #1264466, seeks to understand the causes for, impact of, and potential mitigation strategies in response to the rising water levels of two lakes on the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic which have submerged farmland, houses, roads, and are threatening entire towns. Dr. Sheller conducted 35 interviews on the social and economic impacts of the flooding with local inhabitants and leaders in affected areas of Haiti (La Source, Fonds Parisien) and the Dominican Republic (Boca de Cachon, Jimani, Discubierta).
Fore more information please contact: mimi.sheller@drexel.edu
Posted in Publication, Research
Tagged Borders, disaster risk, Dominican Republic, Engineering, Haiti, Water
The mCenter is pleased to announce the award of a Rapid research grant from the National Science Foundation, with the following investigators in collaboration with CCNY:
Jorge E. Gonzalez (Principal Investigator) gonzalez@me.ccny.cuny.edu
Reza Khanbilvardi (Co-Principal Investigator)
Fred Moshary (Co-Principal Investigator)
Michael Piasecki (Co-Principal Investigator)
Mimi Sheller (Co-Principal Investigator)
AbstractThe two largest lakes in Haiti and the Dominican Republic are, respectively, the Saumatre and Enriquillo lakes, both of which are salt water lakes. Lake Enriquillo is at the lowest point in the Caribbean, and is within several miles of Lake Saumatre. Both lakes have been growing drastically in size over the past several years. The socio-economic impact of this growth of the lakes has been very dramatic. Since the lakes began their recent rapid growth, more than 15,000 hectares of agricultural and grass land around the lakes have been flooded, having a strong negative impact on 2,500 farms in 16 communities with total estimates of 10,000 individuals affected. Urgency to address this growth problem has risen sharply over the past few months due to the unprecedented water levels reached. Further, the Caribbean is in the midst of its tropical depression/hurricane season, a unique time for embarking on a research effort as the Lakes are responding to these extreme events in a unique fashion. The window is relatively short and if missed would require waiting an entire year to possibly get a similar weather pattern passing through the lakes region again. Meanwhile, the emergency resulting from floods will have worsened. The research plan integrates observations, integrated earth-system modeling and community engagement and is designed to lead to accelerated documentation of the causes of the growth and to support policy formulation for handling the consequences. The urgent questions in need of answers are: Through rapid monitoring and modeling, can the hypothesis be supported that a warming climate is impacting the overall hydro-balance of the lakes? How is this hydro-balance reflected in terms of lake volume and surface area? What may be the response of informed communities to the emergency presented by continuously expanding flood lands?
In relation to mobilities research the question of how communities adapt to climate change and disruptions caused by changing environmental conditions is very important. This project builds on previous research on post-earthquake Haiti, and also involves collaboration between engineers and social scientists.
For more information please contact Mimi Sheller, Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, mimi.sheller@drexel.edu
Posted in Research
Tagged Caribbean, climate, disaster risk, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Water
Drexel Professor of Sociology and mCenter Director Mimi Sheller will be joining a small team of international experts who have been invited by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute to provide advice to the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery on lessons emerging from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami for developing countries. In that capacity Sheller will be going to Tokyo from January 14th-19th, 2012, along with 10 experts from the USA, Canada, China, India, Turkey and the UK to meet with Japanese researchers and government representatives. A second meeting including experts from Turkey, Peru and Iran will take place later in the year. The team will be writing Knowledge Notes for the World Bank, conveying lessons on disaster response and recovery that will guide and influence its actions in countries like Haiti. For the first publication in this series see the GFDRR’s Earthquake Reconstruction Knowledge Notes.
It is now two years since the terrible earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12th, 2010. Despite the promises of “building back better”, little reconstruction has taken place there. At least half a million people are still living in minimal shelters in what were meant to be temporary camps. Little of the promised reconstruction money has actually been spent. For some important updates on the situation, see some of the following sites:
Two Years Later, Where Is The Outrage? By Melinda Miles, Let Haiti Live Founder and Director, Lethaitilive.org
Haiti After the Quake: Where the Relief Money Did and Did Not Go by BILL QUIGLEY and AMBER RAMANAUSKAS
Our Drexel research team has been writing up and publishing findings, and is planning a return trip to Haiti in the summer of 2012 to distribute a final report on the project, disseminate recommendations, and determine future plans of action in collaboration with Haitian partners. Following up on NSF Haiti-RAPID Award #1032184 ‘Supporting Haitian Infrastructure Reconstruction with Local Knowledge’, with PI Franco Montalto and Co-PIs Patrick Gurian, Michael Piasecki, and Mimi Sheller, we have submitted the following articles:
HC Galada, PL Gurian, FA Montalto, M Sheller, M Piasecki, T Ayalew, S O’Connor: Restructuring in the Midst of Disaster: Post-Earthquake Water and Sanitation Management and Payment Options for Leogane, Haiti, submitted to Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management.
M Sheller, S O’Connor, HC Galada, FA Montalto, PL Gurian, M Piasecki: Participatory Engineering for Recovery in Post-Earthquake Haiti, submitted to Engineering Studies, Special Issue on Engineering Risk and Disaster, eds. SG Knowles and G Downey.
HC Galada, FA Montalto, PL Gurian, M Sheller, M Piasecki, T Ayalew, S O’Connor: Transitions to Sustainable Sanitation Infrastructure in post-earthquake Leogane, Haiti: Including Stakeholder Preferences, Haiti, submitted to Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2013, Special Issue: Geographies of Water.
In related developments, mCenter Director Mimi Sheller has had the following article accepted for publication: M Sheller, The Islanding Effect: Post-Disaster Mobility Systems and Humanitarian Logistics in Haiti, accepted for Cultural Geographies, special issue on Islanding Geographies, eds. Eric Clark and Godfrey Baldaccino.
If you would like continuing news on our project, please join our 347 Twitter followers @HaitiWater where we continue to post news relating to water, sanitation, and overall reconstruction efforts in Haiti.
Also see the Special Issue of Earthquake Spectra on the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, published by EERI.
We also strongly recommend the new book: Tectonic Shifts: Haiti Since the Earthquake (Kumarian Press, 2012) Edited by Mark Schuller , Pablo Morales
Posted in Commentary, Research
Tagged disaster risk, earthquake engineering research, Haiti, japanese earthquake, Leogane, NSF
ARCHIGRAM WALKING CITY
Open Session Proposal in Mobilities Research organized by Mimi Sheller (Drexel University), Malene Freudendal-Pedersen (Roskilde University), Sven Kesselring (Technische Universität München) and Ole B. Jensen (Aalborg University).
Mobilities research touches upon crucial social and political imaginaries concerning the challenges and issues related to environmental problems, climate change, sustainability, social exclusion and new societal configurations of mobility as we face the planetary limits of growth (e.g. Dennis & Urry 2009, Urry 2011). In this session we want to bring to the forefront elements of radical thinking and imaginative envisioning that from time to time surface through utopian and dystopian speculation about the future. Whether in literary, social scientific, architectural, cinematic or other genres of spatial representation, the session aims to open up the interesting tensions in these visions of the future of mobility, both realized and virtual.
While the more utopian outlook emphasizes innovative and unprecedented solutions to future mobilities, many 20th and 21st century future visions of mobility may be argued to carry dystopian dimensions such as the end of capitalism as we know it or the collapse of urbanism (e.g., Lefebvre 1973/1976; Graham 2010). The session will focus on how to connect earlier utopian ideas related to technology and design (e.g. Buckminster Fuller, Archigram, LeCorbusier, Bauhaus, etc.) to the contemporary practices and discussions about ‘alternative mobilities’ (e.g. off-the-grid living, Transition Towns, local/slow movements, etc.) and connect these to imaginations of future mobile utopias and dystopias (e.g. post-carbon mobilities, zero-emission mobilities, low-energy futures, cybermobilities, etc.). The session aims to connect research within geographies of mobilities with projects of utopian and dystopian thinking that have often inspired actual designs and practices. It shall explore the creative potentials in a cross-fertilization of these fields of thought.
Key references
Dennis, K. & J. Urry (2009) After the Car, Cambridge: Polity Press
Graham, S. (2010) Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism, London: Verso
Lefebvre, H. (1973/1976) The survival of capitalism, London: Allison & Busby
Urry, J. (2011) Climate Change and Society, Cambridge: Polity Press
Please submit abstracts no longer than 250 words, along with a brief bio and contact information, to the session co-organizer: mimi.sheller@drexel.edu by August 30th, 2011. Those selected for the panel will then be asked to register for the meeting and submit their abstract on-line at: http://www.aag.org. A copy of the abstract, along with your personal identification number (assigned by the AAG), should then be forwarded to the session organizer(s) no later than September 21, 2011 (The AAG Deadline is September 28th).
Posted in Call for Proposals, Conference, Research, Urban Space
The Forge is a network of social science researchers interested in novel ways of conceptualising and analysing transport and travel (www.its.leeds.ac.uk/theforge). Its key objectives are to:
• integrate transport researchers – often isolated in areas of applied research – in wider communities of social science/social theory.
• promote substantive and critical discussion around topics relating to transport, travel and mobility from a range of social scientific perspectives.
• develop a self-sustaining network of researchers in transport, travel and mobilities research that will provide a step-change in the research capacity of the community.
The Forge offers several opportunities targeted primarily at early career researchers and postgraduate research students:
1. A fully-searchable database of graduate students and early career researchers enables you to connect with a host of likeminded peers, whether these be people with whom you share direct research interests or in another department you never knew existed.
2. Access to funds for network members to jointly propose ‘mini-symposia’ or other events. So, if a few members want to arrange a workshop on a particular theme or invite a particular expert along to an event, The Forge can help to meet travel and meeting costs. All events are open to all network members, and will be advertised at: www.its.leeds.ac.uk/theforge/other-news
3. An annual summer school with subsidized places for up to 40 attendees. This year’s Summer School is 5-7th September in Leeds on the theme of crisis. Apply now at http://www.its.leeds.ac.uk/theforge/summer-school/
We encourage you to sign up to this dynamic new network at the earliest opportunity and we look forward to receiving requests for funding for events and attendance at the Summer School.
SIGN UP AT: http://www.its.leeds.ac.uk/theforge/researcher-network/
We look forward to working with you
The Forge Network is run by Dr Thomas Birtchnell (Lancaster), Tom Cohen (UCL), James MacMillen (Oxford), Dr Kate Pangbourne (Aberdeen), Alison Pridmore (JRC and Aberdeen) and Louise Reardon (Sheffield) and coordinated by Dr Greg Marsden (Leeds) and Prof. Elizabeth Shove (Lancaster)
The Forge is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and replaces the UKTRC Research Capacity Building activity. Whilst The Forge is only able to fund travel for UK based researchers it is an international network and international participants are welcome at the Summer School. We welcome applicants working at the interface between social sciences and other disciplines.
Dr Greg Marsden The Forge Network Coordinator Senior Lecturer Transport Policy and Strategy Institute for Transport Studies University of Leeds Leeds LS2 9JT
Posted in Research
From January to March 2011, the Transport Studies Unit (TSU) at the University of Oxford will host a high-profile lecture series featuring several world-renowned academics working in the field of transport and mobility. The overarching theme of the lecture series will be “the future of transport research”, with each speaker offering a detailed and considered perspective upon a specific issue of interest to the discipline.
The Oxford Lectures promise to stimulate lively and interesting debate, and aim to identify some of the major issues facing the transport research community in the coming years.
The Aeolus Airship by Christopher Ottersbach
The full list of speakers is given below and all details can be found on the TSU website at http://www.tsu.ox.ac.uk. All lectures will take place at 5 p.m. on Wednesdays in the Halford Mackinder Lecture Theatre, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford.
All are welcome!
Professor David Banister, University of Oxford
19 Jan.: ‘Distance, Speed and Time: The Fundamentals of Transport Geography.’
Professor John Urry, University of Lancaster
26 Jan.: ‘Does Mobility have a Future?’
Professor Anthony Perl, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver
2 Feb.: ‘Understanding the Paths to Post-Carbon Mobility: Research Needs for Anticipating Transport Revolutions.’
Professor Kay Axhausen, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH), Zürich
9 Feb.: ‘Translating daily life into simulation: MATSim and its possibilities.’
Professor Ole B Jensen, Aalborg University, Denmark
16 Feb.: ‘More than A to B – transport and mobility research as cultural explorations.’
Professor Roger Vickerman, University of Kent
23 Feb.: ‘Myth and reality in the search for the wider benefits of transport.’
Professor Robert Cervero, University of California, Berkeley
2 Mar.: ‘Mobility, Place-making, and Economic Competitiveness.’
Professor Andrew Goetz, University of Denver
9 Mar.: ‘Investment in Transport Infrastructure and Economic Development: Recent Debates in the United States.’
Series Convener: Dr M. Givoni
* These seminars are partially funded by the UKTRC.
VPAP Q&A between Chris Manzione, founder of Virtual Public Art Project (VPAP), and Mimi Sheller, director of the mCenter@Drexel. The Q&A was conducted via email and is the first in what will be an ongoing conversation with Chris Manzione about VPAP and future applications of augmented reality.
Sheller will also be a Mellon Regional Fellow in the Penn Humanities Forum at University of Pennsylvania, where this year’s theme is “Virtuality”.
Breadboard has two projects planned with VPAP, one of which is set to launch in the Fall of 2010.
Posted in Commentary, Research, Urban Space
Tagged Art, Events, Technology, Urbanism, Virtuality
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~content=t724921262~link=cover
This new issue contains the following articles:
Narrating Translocality: Dagong Poetry and the Subaltern Imagination, Author: Wanning Sun
Choreographing Resistances: Spatial-Kinaesthetic Intelligence and Bodily Knowledge as Political Tools in Activist Work, Author: Jaana Parviainen
‘The Right to Enter Every Other State’ – The Supreme Court and African American Mobility in the United States, Author: Euan Hague
Co-ordinating Passages: Understanding the Resources Needed for Everyday Mobility, Authors: Peter Peters; Sanneke Kloppenburg; Sally Wyatt
Consequences of Overnight Work Travel for Personal Social Relations: Problems, Promises, and Further Repercussions, Author: Gunilla Bergström
Sightseeing Buses: Cruising, Timing and the Montage of Attractions, Author: Ignacio Farías
Gambling Drivers: Regulating Cultural Technologies, Subjects, Spaces and Practices of Mobility, Authors: Sarah Redshaw; Fiona Nicoll
Visiting Scholars
mCenter Visiting Scholars Report
We were very pleased to host a recent visit by two international Visiting Scholars Maria Quvang Lund Vestergaard and Andrea Davide Cuman, who were both here for a few weeks last month. Andrea is a PhD student at University of Sacred Heart in Milan, Italy, and is working on a thesis “Mediating/mediatizing territory: the travel guidebook and the rise of locative media”. Maria is a PhD student at Aalborg University in Denmark, working on a thesis on “Mobility in rural Denmark”. Both attended the 2nd annual jointconference of the Pan-American Mobilities Network and the Cosmobilities Network, which was held at North Carolina State University, and took the opportunity to also spend some time at Drexel University, where we welcome international visitors at the doctoral and postdoctoral level. Below are remarks they each have made about their visit to the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, and to the Culture and Communication Department at Drexel University in Philadelphia.
Visiting scholars Maria Vestergaard (left) and Andrew Cuman (right) with Dr. Sheller
“When I first planned to visit the mCenter and Professor Sheller at Drexel University, I wanted to draft the methodological tools for a case study of my project and improve my overall research design. For my research project I am studying mobile media and sense of place in the touristic experience, and I knew that the mCenter would be an ideal place to deepen and integrate the mobilities paradigm within my thesis. Reflecting on the concepts of mobility (and immobility of course) thus helped me re-frame some of my ideas and better inform my methodologies.
The weekly meetings arranged by professor Sheller, both individual and with the other students of the PhD program, have been invaluable moments: they provided me with specific and pragmatic suggestions regarding my research methods on the one hand, and offered me the chance to reflect on the broader issues connected with my thesis on the other. Above all, it has been an experience of intellectual exchange, of finding and sharing new ideas, and learning to look at my subject from different perspectives, maintaining focus on my work and at the same time inspiring it.
What I didn’t expect was how much I gained also from the free time spent in the Culture and CommunicationDepartment of Drexel University and the city more generally. The department staff were welcoming and helpful throughout the day, and the enjoyable lunches I had with other faculty members provided me the occasion to tell more about my project and network with persons of great expertise. And when the day was over, spending time with Maria Vestergaard, another visiting PhD student, made visiting the city not only leisure time, but also an opportunity to further discuss what we had learned during the day and about each other’s projects, receiving some great ideas for my research. My most sincere gratitude to all for this period, I had a truly rewarding and memorable experience, and I definitely plan to return there in the future.”
– Andrea Davide Cuman, University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, Italy
“In May 2011 Professor Sheller visited my home University (Aalborg University) and I got a chance to discuss my project about “Mobilities in Peripheral Areas in Denmark” with her. The feedback I got then was so good that I just wanted more. This was one of my reasons to try to have a visit with the mCenter, another reason was to experience and discuss mobility in another research environment than my home environment at Center for Mobility and Urban Studies. When I discovered an interesting conference (Local and mobile) coming up “over there” it was just obvious for me to try to combine these things. Luckily the mCenter agreed to host me for a month stay.
My aim with the stay was to develop my conference paper from the Local and Mobile conference even further and gain knowledge about tourism mobilities, which matched very well the program that professor Sheller suggested including among other things a reading group with herself, two local Ph.D.’s and another visiting scholar, Andrea Cuman, from Italy. Within the reading group we read and discussed the newly published book “Digital Divide in Philadelphia” and we all presented our projects, in which several of us were working with tourism mobilities in different ways.
Sitting here in my office one week after getting back to Denmark I still have troubles putting into words all the things that I gained from my stay. Things like new perspectives on my projects and a changed mind-set are difficult to phrase more precisely than that. The time to read and to be immersed into the field and especially the discussions with the others in the reading group, with Professor Sheller at other meetings and with Andrea at all times contributed to my theoretical knowledge and gave me new ideas for my methodologies. More specifically the discussion about the use of different terms has been very valuable for me as a none-native speaker of the language. Thank you to you all for giving me new perspectives, ideas, knowledge and insight it has improved my project and it has matured me as a researcher. Also a thank you to various employees at the Culture and Communication Department for welcoming me and introducing me to Philadelphia and the American culture. I have truly enjoyed my stay.
– Maria Vestergaard, Aalborg University, Denmark
We thank both for their very productive visit. And we invite inquiries from other graduate students who would like to spend time at the mCenter. For further information please contact mCenter Director, Professor Mimi Sheller: mimi.sheller@drexel.edu.
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Posted in Commentary, Research
Tagged Visitors