Tim Schwanen

Mei-Po Kwan

This book seeks to bring together different philosophical, theoretical, and methodological approaches to the study of human mobility within the discipline of geography. With five thematic sections – conceptualizing and analyzing mobility, inequalities of mobility, politics of mobility, decentering mobility, and qualifying abstraction – and 27 substantive chapters by leading researchers in the field, it provides a comprehensive overview of the latest thinking about human mobility and related issues. The contributors discuss mobility issues as diverse as everyday mobilities of young people, migrants and refugees, and sex workers; the relationships between citizenship and mobility; and the potential and pitfalls of big data for understanding mobility. This, coupled with a broad international focus, means that Geographies of Mobility will not only encourage and enrich dialogue on a theme that is of major importance to varied geographic research communities, but will also be of great interest to students and researchers across the wider social sciences. This book was originally published as a special issue of Annals of the American Association of Geographers.

Recent Advances in Theory and Method

Geographies of Mobility

Ronald van Kempen

This collection brings together the latest thinking in urban geography. It provides a comprehensive overview of topical issues and draws on experiences from across the world. Chapters have been prepared by leading researchers in the field and cover themes as diverse as urban economies, inequalities and diversity, conflicts and politics, ecology and sustainability, and information technologies. The Handbook offers a valuable resource for students and researchers interested in cities and the urban in geography and across the wider social sciences.

Handbook of Urban Geography

David Tyfield

Katharina Manderscheid

Although Foucault’s work has been employed and embraced enthusiastically by some ‘mobilities’ scholars, discussion across these two traditions to date has mostly been partial and unsystematic. Yet Foucault’s work can make critical contributions, for example, to thinking about governing mobilities in contemporary societies, while conversely mobilities research opens up new perspectives on Foucault. In combination these bodies of work can illuminate issues as diverse as: the greater interdependencies between mobility systems (e.g. transport, tourism, trade, internet use); the proliferation of the undesired mobilities of viruses, of natural phenomena like fire, of (what is taken to be) criminality and other seemingly inevitable by-products of globalisation; the perceived threats to desirable forms of mobility as constituted by climate change, peak oil and energy security, and terrorism and warfare; and the increased popularity of logics of governance premised on choice, responsibilisation and the (re)coding of phenomena in economic terms under neo-liberalism. Against this background, this book brings together the first major collection of contributions from across the social sciences with a shared interest in both mobilities and Foucauldian thinking. This book was published as a special issue of Mobilities.

Tim Schwanen

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