1. Dictionary

This is a list of essential terms of the mobility. Your contributions help keep the list fresh and up to date: you can propose new words or redefine those already on the list by refining or supplementing their current definitions. Each lexicon entry comes with both a brief definition and a more detailed explanation, accompanied by a bibliography. Some definitions include suggestions for further discussion or research opportunities. Wherever a lexicon entry appears on the site, its brief definition is available as well, and if so required, you can follow a link to see the complete definition.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Long-distance travel

By Giulio Mattioli

Long-distance travel is variously defined, with reference to either distance, travel time, overnighting or being outside of a person’s usual environment. When defined by distance (for example, over 100km), it typically accounts for the top 1-2% of trips.

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Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies

Teleworking

By Anne Aguiléra

The remote performance of a salaried activity outside of the company’s premises, at home or in a third place during normal working hours and requiring access to telecommunication tools.

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Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies, Theories

Coherent area

By Jacqueline Lorthiois, Harm Smit

A "coherent area" refers to an inter-communal space determined by the overlap of an "employment pool" and a "labour pool"; it thus enjoys a certain autonomy, thanks to an optimal match between the resident labour force and local jobs. This has the effect of limiting the range of movements, promoting the population’s spatial integration and strengthening a sense of territorial belonging.

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Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies, Theories

Lockdown

By Vincent Kaufmann

The lockdown measures implemented throughout 2020 in the context of the Covid-19 crisis, while varying from one country to the next, implied a major restriction on people’s freedom of movement for a given period. Presented as a solution to the spread of the virus, the lockdown impacted local, interregional and international travel. By transforming the spatial and temporal dimensions of people’s lifestyles, the lockdown accelerated a whole series of pre-existing trends, such as the rise of…

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Thematics : Lifestyles

Geographical re-placement

By Thierry Ramadier

Re-placement is defined as the crossing of functional boundaries of geographical space without crossing the social and cognitive boundaries that result from the socialization to the geographical space of the individual who has moved. The concept of re-placement relegates the functionalist approaches of geographical accessibility and the notion of potentiality to the background, in order to emphasize the relationship to geographical space and examine socio-spatial segregations from the standpoint…

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Thematics : Lifestyles, Theories

History of the concept of mobility

By Vincent Kaufmann

Defining mobility is especially important because the term is highly polysemous. When geographers use the term mobility, they do so to evoke the act of moving across a space. As such, they aren’t speaking about the same thing as traffic engineers or sociologists, who both use this notion to refer, respectively, to transport flows and self-transformation. This diversity of meanings, far from adding richness to the concept, is an obstacle to understanding. Clearly, when mobility is mentioned, we…

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Thematics : Theories

Mobility

By Agathe Lefoulon, Mobile Lives Forum

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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Thematics : Lifestyles, Theories

Travel Speed

By Yves Crozet

Speed of travel is the relationship between the traveled distance and the time it takes for an individual to travel it.

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Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies, Theories

Formative Trip

By Alexandre Rigal

Whether it's undertaking a pilgrimage, going on a round-the-world trip or travelling to discover new ways of life or practices, many people embark on journeys that will forever change their lives. Formative journeys have offered true initiation experiences throughout history, combining a break with everyday life and self-realization, and connecting mobility to the core transformations within each and every one of us. Alexandre Rigal shows what’s at stake in these journeys.

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Thematics : Lifestyles, Theories

The Bicycle System

By Frédéric Héran

The bicycle system refers to all the facilities, materials, services, regulations, information and skills involved in ensuring effective, comfortable, safe cycling practice in a given territory.

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Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies, Theories

Mobilization

By Vincent Kaufmann, Christophe Gay, Sylvie Landriève, Dominic Villeneuve

Mobilization is the action by which individuals are called upon to gather in the public space for a concerted effort, be it to express or defend a common cause or to participate in an event. In this respect, it is a social phenomenon appertaining to mobility. This article has been written by Sylvie Landriève, Dominic Villeneuve, Vincent Kaufmann and Christophe Gay.

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Thematics : Lifestyles, Policies, Theories

Bauman (Zygmunt)

By Javier Caletrío

Zygmunt Bauman (1925 - 2017) was one of the greatest social theorists and public intellectuals of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In his writings mobility figures as an ambivalent practice and a defining aspect of major institutional transformations sweeping through contemporary societies.

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Thematics : Theories

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