[URBANTH-L]CFP: Cultures of Movement: Mobile Subjects, Communities and Technologies in the Americas

[Angela Jancius]

With apologies for any cross-posting:

Cultures of Movement: Mobile Subjects, Communities, and Technologies in the 
Americas

Panel, paper, and alternative-format presentation submissions are invited 
for the "Cultures of Movement: Mobile Subjects, Communities, and 
Technologies in the Americas" conference, to be held in Victoria, British 
Columbia, Canada, on April 8-10, 2010.

Open to students, scholars, and professionals, the conference is meant to 
build new ties amongst all those interested in the theoretical or applied 
study of mobilities. The study of mobilities is a young and constantly 
evolving interdisciplinary field. The concept of "mobility" refers to the 
social, political, historical, cultural, economic, geographic, 
communicative, and material dimensions of movement. Students and scholars of 
mobilities focus their attention on the intersecting movements of bodies, 
objects, capital, and signs across time-space, paying attention as well as 
to the way relations between mobility and immobility constitute new networks 
and patterns of social life. The multiple forms of mobility, or mobilities, 
are often taken to include-amongst others-subjects such as: transportation; 
travel and tourism; migration; transnational flows of people, objects, 
information, and capital; mobile communications; and social networks and 
meetings. While the conference is open to all themes pertinent to the study 
of mobilities from a social and cultural perspective-irrespective of the 
geographical site of empirical or theoretical attention-the main focus of 
the conference will be on the experience, practice, social organization, and 
cultural significance of forms of mobility in North, Central, and South 
America.

Whereas in Europe the new mobilities paradigm has taken a strong hold in 
academic units, professional research networks, and recognized publication 
outlets, the study of mobilities is still in its infancy in the Americas. In 
contrast, mobility is very much part of the core of the social imaginary, 
geo-politics, and cultural life of the Americas. Indeed, to be "on the move" 
is amongst the most quintessential characteristics of what it means to be a 
citizen of the Americas. Furthermore, the Americas are home to many, 
distinct mobile cultures and practices: from indigenous cultures rooted in 
traditional meanings of home to the historical institutionalization of 
colonial and postcolonial trade routes and forced relocations, from 
controversial experiments in free transnational trade, to the politics and 
experience of migration and Diaspora, from the widespread diffusion of 
portable communication technologies, to the mobilization of surveillance 
systems, and from the leisure mobilities of tourism, to the social and 
cultural significance of transportation and movement in daily life.

For more information see here: http://tinyurl.com/l6k97s

Phillip Vannini, PhD
Associate Professor
School of Communication and Culture
2005 Sooke Road
Royal Roads University
Victoria BC V9B 5Y2
CANADA
Phone: (250) 391-2600 ext. 4477
Fax: (250) 391-2694
phillip.vannini at royalroads.ca