Mobility in the Digital Context (original) (raw)
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The Construction of Contemporary Mobility
Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 2013
This paper stems from the issue of the mobility phenomenon, through the pathway tread by individuals in need of connection and access to an uninterrupted flow of information. In this informational, cultural and technological context, the presence of mobile devices, especially cell phones, stands out quite significantly. Such artifacts, which feature not only voice services, but also texting information and Internet connections, are increasingly present in urban settings, changing access, production, and dissemination of information. Therefore, on account of the mobilities paradigm and its connections to globalization theories and information societies, this article has aimed to discuss the role of information and mobile technologies in the constitution of the contemporary mobility pattern. Moreover, this paper has sought to identify and characterize the defining elements of the mobility era through information flows. Here, a prominent factor was the strength of the symbolic construction of a connected society that is constantly available for interactive processes. The connection made possible with the use of mobile technologies has become one of the most significant aspects of mobility for informational flows: connections are established for entertainment, work, study, location, consumption of goods and expression of feelings. Information processes resulting from a range of interactional operations and the mobility implemented by mobile technology have become increasingly complex and established new paradigms for the production, access, and dissemination of current information. This calls for a broader and more accurate view of what the era of mobility and connection is and what its demands are for a continuous flow of information.
Interplaced Mobility in the Age of “Digital Gestell”
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The following article explores meanings and implications of mobile technologies and embodiment in a globally networked context. Drawing on ethnographic research on global travelers moving through Nepal and India, we focus on the role mobile technologies play in mediating perceptions and performances of place. Facilitated by contemporary media and mobility infrastructures, we suggest that mobile subjects are relationally “interplaced.” By introducing this notion, we aim to illustrate how forms of virtual mobility overlap with and impact actual, corporeal experience. Following Heidegger, we also develop a concept we call “digital Gestell” (enframement). Applying Heidegger’s reflection that technologies of a given historical epoch frame the way subjects approach the world, we can say that many people today are “digitally enframed.” Facing this increasingly technologized Being-in-the-world, we suggest an “ethos of Gelassenheit” for a more responsive and responsible awareness of the powe...
Keywords of mobility: A critical introduction
Keywords of mobility: Critical engagements, 2016
As a concept, mobility captures the common impression that one's lifeworld is in fl ux, with not only people, but also cultures, objects, capital, businesses, services, diseases, media, images, information, and ideas circulating across (and even beyond) the planet. While history tells the story of human mobility, the scholarly literature is replete with metaphors attempting to describe (perceived) altered spatial and temporal movements: deterritorialization, reterritorialization, and scapes; time-space compression, distantiation, or punctuation; the network society and its space of fl ows; the death of distance and the acceleration of modern life; and nomadology. The academic interest in mobility goes hand in hand with theoretical approaches that reject a "sedentarist metaphysics" (Malkki 1992) in favor of a "nomadic metaphysics" (Cresswell 2006) and empirical studies on the most diverse kinds of mobilities (Adey et al. 2013), questioning earlier taken-for-granted correspondences between peoples, places, and cultures. The way the term is being used, mobility entails, in its coinage, much more than mere physical motion (Marzloff 2005). Rather, it is seen as movement infused with both self-ascribed and attributed meanings (Frello 2008). Put differently, "mobility can do little on its own until it is materialized through people, objects, words, and other embodied forms" (Chu 2010, 15). Importantly, mobility means different things to different people in differing social circumstances (Adey 2010).
Information
This paper explores the ways in which technologies reshape everyday activities, adopting a mobility perspective of the digital environment, which is reframed in terms of the constitutive/substitutive element of corporeal mobility. We propose the construction of a Digital Mobility Index, quantified by measuring the usage typology in which the technology is employed to enable mobility. Through a digital perspective on mobilities, it is possible to investigate how embodied practices and experiences of different modes of physical or virtual displacements are facilitated and emerge through technologies. The role of technologies in facilitating the anchoring of mobilities, transporting the tangible and intangible flow of goods, and in mediating social relations through space and time is emphasized through analysis of how digital usage can reproduce models typical of the neoliberal city, the effects of which in terms of spatial (in)justice have been widely discussed in the literature. The ...
Mobility: an extended perspective
Proceedings of the 35th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
The emergence and convergence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are fundamentally transforming the use of technology, and in particular concerning the issues of mobility. The current debates on mobility, however, almost exclusively consist of functionalist analyses of how particular mobile technologies can alleviate geographical barriers for human activity. This paper reconsiders, from a theoretical perspective, the concept of mobility. We argue that mobility should not exclusively be linked to human corporeal travel. The concept also relates more broadly to the interaction people perform. In order to appreciate the relationship between mobility and human interaction, three interrelated dimensions are discussed-spatial, temporal, and contextual aspects of mobility. In order to characterize the social topology of ICT supported mobilized interaction, we suggest and discuss the adoption of a fluid metaphor. Based on these discussions, a case of a new mobile technology system introduced in a Japanese distribution service firm is discussed.
Networked Mobilities and Performative Urban Environments
vbn.aau.dk
Physical mobility has an important cultural dimension to contemporary life. The movement of objects, signs, and people constitutes material sites of networked relationships. However, as an increasing number of mobility practices are making up our everyday life experiences the movement is much more than a travel from point A to point B. The mobile experiences of the contemporary society are practices that are meaningful and normatively embedded. That is to say, mobility is seen as a cultural phenomenon shaping notions of self and other as well as the relationship to sites and places. Furthermore, an increasing number of such mobile practices are mediated by technologies of tangible and less tangible sorts. Thus by focusing on the complex relationship between material and virtual technologies within the sphere of mobility it is shown that we need to move beyond dichotomies of; global or local, nomad or sedentary, digital or material. The paper investigates the meaning of mobility and the potential in mediation and technologies to enhance the experiences and interaction in relation to urban transit spaces. In understanding the importance of mediation, globallocal interactions, networks, and the distributions of meaning and mediated discourses this way of thinking about mobilities points to the importance of understanding pervasive computing and situated technologies. In particular a critical awareness to how such technologies shape the foreground/background attention of social agents seems crucial. By studying embedded technologies and 'ambient environments' we increase our knowledge about the over layering of the material environment with digital technologies. The presences of GPS, mediated surfaces, mobile agents (robots), RFID and other technologies that all relate to contemporary mobility practices add a new dimension to the notion of movement and constitutes new arenas and tools for identity construction and social interaction (as well as of course commercial exploitation and state control). In the creation and design of new interaction spaces applying urban technology there is a potential for conceptual critique but also for discussing these mediated sites of interaction as venues for new meaningful social interaction and relationships ultimately shaping new ways of thinking about the political. It is argued that the design and experimentation with 'performative urban environments' constitutes a field of exploration into broader issues of democracy, multiple publics, and new mobile (electronic and material) agoras pointing towards a critical re-interpretation of contemporary politics of space and mobility.
New region, new story: Imagining mobile subjects in transnational space
2007
This article takes point of departure in the challenges to understand the importance of contemporary mobility. The approach advocated is a cross-disciplinary one drawing on sociology, geography, urban planning and design, and cultural studies. As such the perspective is to be seen as a part of the so-called 'mobility turn' within social science. The perspective is illustrative for the research efforts at the Centre for Mobility and Urban Studies (C-MUS), Aalborg University. The article presents the contours of a theoretical perspective meeting the challenges to research into contemporary urban mobilities. In particular the article discusses 1) the physical city, its infrastructures and technological hardware/software, 2) policies and planning strategies for urban mobility and 3) the lived everyday life in the city and the region.
Pioneering mobilities: new patterns of movement and motility in a mobile world
Environment and Planning A, 2006
The paper presents empirical data from a research project on mobility pioneers. It shows new mobility patterns and constellations of mobility and immobility, movement and motility (mobility potential). The author raises the question as to whether the reported subject-oriented strategies for coping with the modern`mobility imperative' open up a perspective on a structural change in the modern concept of mobility and mobility practice. The theory of reflexive modernization is used to discuss this question and to help to understand the relevance of the empirical findings. In concluding, the paper focuses on further mobility research and introduces a distinction between`transit spaces' and`connectivity spaces' as relevant issues for research on new configurations of spatial, social, and virtual mobility.