Move on! Mobility meets (little) resistance

Though matters of and conflicts about mobility appear at first glance to be ubiquitous, scholarship faces the challenge of grasping the manifold and antagonistic conditions of mobility. New approaches still need to be found for exploring the contested territory of being and becoming mobile or immobile, as well as the hybrid forms that result from the interplay between these processes.

This graduate conference views topics of mobility in the social sciences and the humanities through the lens of big and little resistances. Through interdisciplinary exchange, it aims to develop an increased awareness of fragile and contradictory moments in systems of mobility and related research.

Whenever resistance is put up or met, it is structured by a fundamental ambivalence: it constrains mobility and channels opposing forces, but also mobilizes, brakes and even breaks, laying bare conflicting moments and movements. As soon as forces determining im/mobility become manifest, details and (little) formations of the resistant provide instructive insights for describing and questioning concepts, theories, phenomena and scopes of mobile action.

“Move on!” reflects the need to move further, transform, transfigure, develop, and maybe even leave behind academic commonplaces. But the title of the conference also puts the constellations of power that generate, enforce and presuppose mobility up for discussion.

Contributions to the conference may include contemporary and historical case studies about phenomena of mobility, as well as conceptual or methodological considerations.

The guiding themes for the conference include but are not limited to the following questions:

• Where, when and how can the relation between resistances and mobilities become visible, be experienced and understood?

• What role do subjects, objects, and (social, cultural, literary, religious, gender...) practices play in processes of mobilization and immobilization?

• How do regimes, discourses, ideas and ideologies enhance or constrain access to mobility?

• Which forms of resistance initiate unexpected and neglected movements?

• How do dissident and ‘minoritarian’ movements challenge the established concepts and orders of mobility?

• Where and how are concepts and questions of  mobility studies  putting up resistance in the field of social and cultural studies? Where do they meet resistances themselves?