Cosmobilities Conference

6th Cosmobilities Conference 2010

Aalborg University, Denmark

Call for Papers

Cultures of Mobilities: Everyday life, Communication, and Politics

Abstract submissions are invited for the 'The Cultures of Mobilities: Everyday life, Communication, and Politics' conference, to be held in Aalborg, Denmark, on October 27-29 2010. The conference is open to students, scholars, and professionals from various fields interested in the theoretical or applied study of mobilities.

Different forms of mobilities have increased dramatically in recent decades and are today essential for many spheres of contemporary societies. In various research disciplines mobility is still often thought of as a matter of rational organization, an important competitive feature in a global world, or as a dominating stratifying factor. As such, mobility is immanently connected to material practices of movement and access - or its opposites. However, what is less discussed in the recent debates on mobility research is that mobilities are not just material, but also signifying practices. Mobilities have just as much to do with the production of meaning and culture. The 2010 ‘Cultures of Mobilities" conference therefore takes up the challenge to theorize and analyze mobilities from the vantage point of a cultural perspective. The conference suggests that mobilities are understood with a particular emphasis on how they produce and re-produce norms, meanings and cultures.

The conference focuses particularly on the perspective of ‘Cultures of Mobilities’ within 3 different themes: Everyday life, Communication and Politics. The Everyday life perspective considers how the organization of everyday life mobilities produces and re-produces particular sets of values and norms relating to mobilities? It explores the ways in which everyday life mobilities are being organized, and ask if they are giving birth to new social communities and perspectives on social interaction, or eroding social connectivity? The Communication perspective considers how new digital communication technologies influence mobility practices and how they may create affordance to particular ways of engaging with mobilities? This part may also involve intercultural/cross-cultural perspectives on mobility as well as representation of mobilities in for example, literature, media, documentary, cinema, computer games and fiction. Finally the Politics perspective addresses how the new mobilities are being perceived politically; Are the political perceptions particularly encouraging or discouraging particular forms of mobility? Are there specific norms and cultures related to the ways states and governmental systems create policies for mobilities? Under this theme, critical perspectives, ‘the environment’, ‘mobility as a right’ and power/social stratification at scales from the neighbourhood to global mega-regions, are also encouraged.

Authors are invited to send in abstracts of maximum 300 words within these themes; however contributions that moves beyond these themes may also be considered. The conference is jointly organised by the Centre for Mobility and Urban Studies (C-MUS) at Aalborg University, Denmark and the Cosmobilities Network. The registration process will open in February 2010. The conference registration fee is 165 EUR (for faculty and other professionals). Reduced rate for students: 80 EUR.

Contact: Ole B. Jensen [e-mail]