OPINIONS

Piketty and mobilities

Javier Caletrío

16/07/2018

Piketty’s work may open a new perspective to study the relationship between mobility and inequality, one that is more attentive to the diversity of time scales and rhythms in the creation and reproduction of wealth and the distribution of income.

OPINIONS

Christoph fink : objective information and subjective experience

Hanja Maksim

16/07/2018

“Touch time, touch space, touch experience…and we find ourselves surprised by the indescribable, the untouchable. A brief and intense moment of awareness.”

OPINIONS

MARTIN PARR - a photographic testimonial on the automobile

Hanja Maksim

16/07/2018

“When I first bought the car I couldn’t wait to catch a reflection of myself in a shop window. It’s terribly embarrassing to admit but I really enjoyed seeing myself in the car”.

OPINIONS

JEAN-PIERRE MARTIN – L’EXCITATION FERROVIAIRE

Hanja Maksim

16/07/2018

Born in 1948, French writer Jean-Pierre Martin became a professor of contemporary literature at the University of Lyon 2, after literature studies that culminated in a thesis on Henri Michaux. Meanwhile, as he himself confides, he lived several lives, first as a student, then a left-wing proletarian and labor activist. Travel and jazz have also played an important role throughout the years. His extensive bibliography continues to grow at a steady pace. His most recent work, L'autre vie d'Orwell, was published in 2013. The work we will look at here, Les Liaisons ferroviaires, was published in 2011 and reprinted in 2013.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Theories

OPINIONS

Jeremy Deller: The Reenchantment Of Public Transportation

Hanja Maksim

16/07/2018

“It's like some psychological warfare on the customer.” In response to an invitation from London transportation officials, artist Jeremy Deller chose to insert somewhat provocative philosophical messages in ads aimed at commuters. For instance, we hear a female driver citing Gandhi, or Sartre’s famous quote “Hell is other people,” shedding a philosophical light on issues such as promiscuity, which concern passengers directly.

OPINIONS

SOMEWHERE, SOFIA COPPOLA - THE CAR AS A SOCIAL MASK

Hanja Maksim

16/07/2018

We have chosen the film Somewhere not only for the variety of mobility-related concepts it addresses, but also for the fact that it explores and illustrates two major aspects of this domain that are central to the current interests in the social sciences in a particularly rich and relevant way: mobility as social change, and the question of speed as associated with the myth of the automobile, and its opposite — the slow.

OPINIONS

EXISTENZ, DAVID CRONENBERG - LIQUID LIFE: A CASE STUDY

Hanja Maksim

16/07/2018

eXistenZ is a film that has the potential to greatly inspire research in that it frontally challenges the virtualization of our existence through technology by offering a comparison between the real world, in which we continue to live and evolve, and a world made from scratch. Only this kind of artistic support, it seems, can address this topic in such a comprehensive manner, and thus tackle social science concepts from a new angle.

OPINIONS

Slow is beautiful. Or is it? John Berger on riding a bike

Javier Caletrío

12/07/2018

Experienced at once as an aspiration and a burden, speed is a much contested mark of modern lives which seems to have no place in visions of sustainable futures. Art critic John Berger has written thought-provoking passages about the thrills of riding a motor bike.

NEW VOICES

Technology and the family car: situating media use in family life

Chandrika Cycil

04/04/2018

Family life has seen a dramatic transformation with the infiltration of new technologies into homes and naturally into cars as families spend an increasing portion of time in their cars. The highly contextual nature of family technology calls for the need to study its use within sites of routine family life, but while attention has been paid to places of family life in the house such as kitchens and living rooms, the car has received far less attention.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Theories

SOUTHERN DIARIES

A tale of two cities? Everyday mobilities and individual opportunities in Bogotá, Colombia

Giovanni Vecchio, Geraldine Rodriguez

21/02/2018

Bogotá is the best place to observe how everyday mobility can support individual opportunities. Or at least this is the dominant narrative in academic research and policy reports. However, the peripheral neighborhoods of Bogotá tell a different story. The voices of their inhabitants express how everyday mobilities can negate access to urban opportunities.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

LIVRES

La Mondialisation par le bas

Lamia Missaoui

05/02/2018

Alain Tarrius's investigation of the growing complexity of international migration since the 1980s helps us to understand the birth of two paradigms that have marked sociological research - mobility and circulatory territory - and to discover a lesser known history of globalization.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Theories

NEW VOICES

The place to be? Living and moving in intermediate spaces: Young people and mobility in peri-urban spaces

Catherine Didier-Fèvre

22/01/2018

Teens living in suburban areas on the outskirts of Île-de-France often seem to be victims of these areas, structured largely by mobility. It therefore seemed pertinent to ask whether being a teenager in a peri-urban area is harder than being one elsewhere – in other words, when they become independent, acquire the skills that allow them to get around by themselves and explore new places not under parental supervision in the company of their peers.

Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies, Theories