Im/mobile lives in turbulent times: methods and practices of mobilities research

Virtual conference registration

Please find details below of our virtual ‘Im/mobile lives’ conference. The link for registration at the end of this message.

Given the turbulent geo-political, social and technological times in which we live, continued attention to the role of im/mobilities seems never more important. As a collaboration between Newcastle Business School, Northumbria NBS Tourism with MFRN (Mobilities Research Network), the Social and Cultural Geographies Research Group at Northumbria University and the Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe) Lancaster University, this 1st international inter-disciplinary mobilities conference provides a meeting ground for the ongoing development of the forms, theories and practices of mobilities research.

From a starting point that recognises, and values, the breadth of mobilities research, this conference will explore the possibility of intersections across this evolving body of work. Mobilities research encompasses a range of foci from those interested in the exclusions generated by the (in)ability of bodies to move across and within national borders, the movement (and restriction) of information in an unevenly networked society, through to accounts which emphasise the centrality of emotions, materiality and the sensuous-ness of (im)mobility in various aspects of everyday life. Mobilities research is therefore approached by those with varying interests, philosophical orientations and political positions. We hope that this conference will provide a constructive forum for conversations across what might otherwise operate as discrete and dis-connected fields of inquiry.

As a route to both valuing this diversity and igniting ‘inter-mobilities conversations’, the conference is particularly concerned with ways of approaching and researching im/mobile lives. We therefore look to explore the (dis)connections between different ways of thinking about and researching im/mobilities and the potentialities of cross-over, borrowings and hybridization.

We already have an exciting programme planned which includes: a conference introduction from Sven Kesselring (Nürtingen-Geislingen University), a keynote from Maggie O’Neill (University College Cork), a Brazilian Mobilities Panel, the launch of the Handbook of Research Methods and Applications for Mobilities, an Arts and Mobilities Exhibition, a Mobilising (for) Climate Change Roundtable and a closing speech from Stephen Graham (Newcastle University).

Following our successful open call for papers, we also have 85 papers across the two days organised around the following themes:

• Theorising (im)material mobilities

• Im/mobility, migration and borders

• Tourism mobilities

• Sensing im/mobilities

• Health and well-being

• Doing mobilities research in turbulent times

• Creativity and Arts

• Policy mobilities

• Mobilising interdisciplinary practices

• Politics of everyday im/mobilities

• Infrastructures

• Mobile methods

• Transport and design

• Caring and sharing

• Technology and autonomy

We hope that you will be able to join us. If you would like to register, please follow this link:

https://store.northumbria.ac.uk/conferences-and-events/campus-services/academic-conference/immobile-lives-in-turbulent-times-methods-and-practices-of-mobilities-research

Mobility

For the Mobile Lives Forum, mobility is understood as the process of how individuals travel across distances in order to deploy through time and space the activities that make up their lifestyles. These travel practices are embedded in socio-technical systems, produced by transport and communication industries and techniques, and by normative discourses on these practices, with considerable social, environmental and spatial impacts.

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Movement

Movement is the crossing of space by people, objects, capital, ideas and other information. It is either oriented, and therefore occurs between an origin and one or more destinations, or it is more akin to the idea of simply wandering, with no real origin or destination.

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Mobile methods

Mobile methods produce insight by moving physically, virtually or analytically with research subjects. They involve qualitative, quantitative, visual and experimental forms of inquiry, and follow material and social phenomena.

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