Revisiting rural mobilities in turbulent times

Conveners: Prof. Sarah Neal (University of Sheffield), Dr Anna Gawlewicz (University of Glasgow), Dr Jesse Heley (Aberystwyth University), and Rhys Dafydd Jones (Aberystwyth University)

Rural spaces have always been defined by mobility even as they have been presented as fixed and static. The forms of mobility have become more intense and complex over the last decade reflecting an extended period of rural restructuring and diverse rural migration patterns, on-going global social shocks, and permacrisis. The renewed focus on borders and restricting migration, the impacts Covid-19, and rising costs of living and associated housing crises are all working to constrain mobilities. Conversely, permacrisis can also lead to other forms of mobility, including relocation to more affordable areas, and movements of people seeking work, sanctuary, and refuge. The permacrisis-mobility nexus poses significant challenges for a range of rural groups, communities, and localities. These include disruptions of conflict, displacement, isolation as well as connections, situated shared lives, and practices of solidarity. In this session, we will explore how different forms of mobilities to, from, arrival, return, and within the countryside are entwined with broader social, political, economic, everyday/personal life changes and permacrisis thinking.

We invite contributions engaging with (but not limited to) the following:

• Crisis, mobility/migration, and the countryside
• Rural communities, social divisions, solidarities, gentrification ,and im/mobility
• Rural poverty and social exclusion
• Rural racisms, racialised inequalities and discrimination
• Rural mental health
• Sanctuary politics and living together in rural areas
• Nature, rural materialities, and social dis/connections
• Everyday rural social life, social practices, and mobility
• Decolonising the countryside
• Alternative rural futures
• New methodological approaches to researching rural mobilities

Keywords: permacrisis; mobility; migration; rurality.

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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Proposed session format: we hope to hold 2 in-person sessions with 15-minute papers and discussion time.

Submission deadline: Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words to rhj@aber.ac.uk by the close of Friday 16th February 2024.