Driving,Communicating and Working: Understanding the Work-related Communication Behaviours of Business Travellers on Work-related Car Journeys

Abstract

Despite an increasing number of workers requiring to travel extensively in carrying out their work, there are significant gaps in knowledge related to how business travellers make use of journey time. This paper addresses this gap in knowledge by examining the journey-time behaviours of business people travelling by car on work-related journeys. One of the central focuses of the paper is on the extent to which business travellers use mobile communication technologies and the extent to which they experience a pressure to remain in ‘perpetual contact’ with colleagues and clients while travelling.     

Corporate Mobilities Regimes. Mobility,Power and the Socio-geographical Structurations of Mobile Work

Abstract

This article introduces the concept of mobility regimes and points out three discursive dimensions: the normalization, rationalization and time-space-compression of mobility. It concentrates on corporate mobility, business travel and mobile work, and gives a focused overview on current developments in research. Sociology has largely neglected the topic of spatial mobility. Dealings with distance and travel, however, are driving forces for the modernization of modern societies. Economic activity is based on mobility and companies deploy sophisticated mobility regimes to be present in markets. The increase in mobile work brings new issues centre stage such as the control of mobile workers, social cohesion and the spatial complexity of corporate activities. The author theorizes mobile work and business travel as signifiers for social change in the organization of work. He presents theoretical reflections based on empirical work conducted among mobile workers in the IT, mechanical and the chemical industries.     

Driven to Care: The Car,Automobility and Social Work

Abstract

Welfare practices are invariably represented in static and sedentary ways and their mobilities ignored. This paper corrects for this by examining the car and auto‐mobility in social work. The car is not just a means to reaching vulnerable children and other service users quickly, and a mobile office, but a space where significant casework goes on and deeply meaningful ‘therapeutic journeys’ happen. The car carries similar emotional meanings and possibilities for workers as a space within which to contain the anxieties and emotions they routinely confront in their work. Drawing on mobile social science and psychoanalytic theory, the paper shows how the power and meanings of auto‐mobility in ‘car therapy’ are products of the design of cars and the distinct rhythms and mobilities they produce in themselves. The car in social work is conceptualised as a ‘fluid container’ for the processing of personal troubles, emotion and key life changes. The theoretical implications of this argument for the social science of mobilities are drawn out.     

Comparing Rail Passengers’ Travel Time Use in Great Britain Between 2004 and 2010

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a unique insight into aspects of stability and change regarding the travel time use of rail passengers in Great Britain between 2004 and 2010. Empirical evidence is presented on how rail passengers spend their time, how worthwhile they consider their time use to be, the extent of advance planning of their time use and how equipped for time use they are in terms of the items they have to hand when they travel. The results reveal a consistent dominance of reading for leisure, window gazing/people watching and working/studying as favoured travel time activities. Over the six-year period, the availability and use of mobile technologies has increased. Listening to music in particular has doubled in its incidence suggesting an increasing capacity for travellers to personalise the public space of the railway carriage. Most notably the analysis reveals a substantial increase in the proportion of travellers overall making very worthwhile use of their time.     

Business Travel from the Traveller’s Perspective: Stress,Stimulation and Normalization

For growing numbers of businesspeople, managers and public officials, work involves travel. This study investigates what business travel means to travellers. What are their experiences of travel and what are the consequences of travel for their professional and personal lives? Qualitative interviews with frequent business travellers and corporate travel managers show that travel may be both stressful and stimulating. It may be associated with physical and psychological strain, increased workloads and difficulties in balancing work and private life, but also with enriching experiences, social and professional status and a cosmopolitan identity. It may also promote travellers’ professional careers. However, in some respects, an ongoing normalization of travel seems to have moderating effects on both stress and stimulation among travellers. This normalization occurs on three different levels: the societal, organizational and individual.     

Inspired by Eruptions? Eyjafjallajökull and Icelandic Tourism

Abstract

The paper deals with the complex meaning of risk for tourism mobilities. The impact of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption on tourism in Iceland is outlined, as well as the response of Icelandic tourist authorities. A survey in June and July 2010 among international tourists in the country revealed that for many the eruption had added considerable depth to their travel experiences. The sense of risk affects the relation between mobile travellers and their destination. The paper also analyses how events such as the eruption can facilitate new paths towards being sensitive to the natural world.     

Mobile Music,Coded Objects and Everyday Spaces

Abstract

Building upon the existing work of Michael Bull and others on the everyday practices of mobile music, this article draws upon contemporary work on active and information dense urban spaces to begin to shape opportunities for a research agenda for mobile music that incorporates the technological and informational infrastructures within which it occurs. In particular the piece applies Dodge and Kitchin’s concept of logjects, devices that recall and communicate their history of use, to the case of the mobile music device. The article concludes with a discussion of the significance of these infrastructures for the study of mobile music and with some brief reflections linking this conceptualisation and example to contemporary debates on the future development of the social sciences.     

Geographies of Social Networks: Meetings,Travel and Communications

The past decade has seen striking increases in travel and in communications at‐a‐distance through mobile phone calls, text messaging and emailing. People in prosperous societies are both travelling and communicating more to connect with absent others. People can travel, relocate and migrate and yet still be connected with friends and family members ‘back home’. So, increasingly, people who are near emotionally may be geographically very far away; yet they are only a journey, email or a phone call away. In this article we attempt to examine how such strong ties are spatially distributed and sustained through specific geographies of travel, meetings and communications. How often do strong ties meet, talk at‐at‐distance and write, and to what degree does distance determine regularity? To what extent are communications enhancing and/or substituting for physical travel? We examine in particular to what degree far‐flung ties and emotional networking at‐a‐distance are characteristic of many people other than the transnational ‘elites’ and ‘underprivileged’ migrants. We consider the notion of ‘network capital’.     

When Migrants Travel Back Home: Changing Identities in Northern Sri Lanka after the Ceasefire of 2002

Abstract

This article looks at how social relations change when proximity is re‐established after a long period of separation. This theoretically inspired question is discussed in the case of Sri Lanka, where a peace process in 2002 enabled exiled Tamils to temporarily return to their ‘homeland’. The new mobility of these migrants constituted a significant momentum for the re‐negotiation of Tamil identity. Proximate relations resulting from mobility led to a growing awareness of differences in cultural expression and perspective. The empirical data show that the construction of difference is related not only to spatial mobility and to temporality. Spatial, but also temporal distance in translocal relations determines the construction of images, detached from face‐to‐face interaction and the locality, constituting an identity space.     

A Fiasco of Volcanic Proportions? Eyjafjallajökull and the Closure of European Airspace

Abstract

The unprecedented and recurrent closure of much of UK and northern European airspace from 14 April 2010, following the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano, caused the cancellation of 108,000 flights, disrupted the travel plans of 10.5 million passengers, and cost the airline industry in excess of $1.7 billion in lost revenue. The airspace closures highlighted the inherent riskiness of aviation and destabilised dominant cultural discourses of the ‘superiority’ and capability of aviation technology. It also brought issues of risk acceptability and our socio‐economic reliance on air travel into sharp relief. This paper explores how the political and media framing of the response to the airspace closures as a human ‘policy fiasco’ served to obfuscate the inherent dangers of aviation and ‘get Europe flying’ again. Thus, this paper contends that this particular fiasco was ‘necessary’ in that it served to highlight the fragility of air travel and the vulnerabilities of the mobile citizen.     

Co‐ordinating Passages: Understanding the Resources Needed for Everyday Mobility

Abstract

This article contributes to the ‘mobilities turn’ in social science by proposing new concepts and methods for analysing the ways in which people draw upon a range of resources to manage everyday mobility. We distinguish between the ‘projects’ people want to achieve and the ‘passages’ they need to go through in order to do so. We also distinguish between ‘pre‐travelling’ and ‘re‐ordering’. The analysis builds on insights from time‐geography, mobility studies and actor‐network‐theory to develop a conceptual vocabulary for understanding the dynamic and situated nature of travel in everyday life. The study combines qualitative and quantitative data from a study of hypermobile people in the Netherlands.     

The Social Affordances of Flashpacking: Exploring the Mobility Nexus of Travel and Communication

Abstract

The proliferation of digital devices and online social media and networking technologies has altered the backpacking landscape in recent years. Thanks to the ready availability of online communication, travelers are now able to stay in continuous touch with friends, family and other travelers while on the move. This paper introduces the practice of ‘flashpacking’ to describe this emerging trend and interrogates the patterns of connection and disconnection that become possible as corporeal travel and social technologies converge. Drawing on the concepts of ‘assemblages’ and ‘affordances,’ we outline several aspects of this new sociality: virtual mooring, following, collaborating, and (dis)connecting. The conclusion situates this discussion alongside broader questions about the shifting nature of social life in an increasingly mobile and mediated world and suggests directions for future research at the intersection of tourism and technology.     

Mapping the Super‐Whale: Towards a Mobile Ethnography of Situated Globalities

Abstract

In empirical discussion on global connections, frequent allusions are made to Michael Burawoy’s ‘global’ and George Marcus’ ‘multi‐sited’ ethnographies. While both have inspired transnational fieldwork, neither methodological approach has sufficiently analysed the local‐global dichotomy embedded at their core. Drawing on actor‐network theory (ANT), this article suggests an alternative framework for mobile ethnography, better suited to a social world conceived in network‐relational terms. Employing metaphors of mobility, scale‐making, and cartography, an empirically driven approach to situated and plural ‘globalities’ is outlined. These claims are developed drawing on the author’s inquiries into Japanese whaling practices, showing how ‘ethno‐socio‐cartography’ can contribute to the mapping of global‐scale micro‐cosmoses.     

Enforcing Mobility: Spatial Mobility under the Regime of Activation

Abstract

Spatial mobility is rarely investigated with a view on social policy and welfare administrations. Yet, recent activation and workfare policies have increased pressures on the unemployed, with one of these pressures concerning spatial mobility, i.e. the requirement to accept jobs that entail long commuting hours or even relocation. This paper investigates the shift towards activation in Germany, focusing on increased demands on job-seekers’ mobility, and uses a governmentality perspective, supplemented by the concept of symbolic violence, to gain insight into the strategies and practices deployed by Public Employment Service (PES) staff to produce ‘mobile selves’. It demonstrates that perceptions of (im)mobility figure prominently in the assessment not only of job-seekers’ labour market prospects but also of their character and motivation to seek work. Thus, the personal and familial implications of mobility are considered as mitigating circumstances mainly in the case of older jobless with poor labour market prospects. The majority of job-seekers, and particularly those living in regions with high unemployment, are subject to efforts on the part of PES staff to make them understand the necessity of being as mobile as possible; if such insight is found wanting, pedagogical devices are deployed to enhance job-seekers’ mobility.     

The ‘digital glimpse’ as imagining home

This paper proposes the concept of the ‘digital glimpse’, which develops the existing framing of imaginative travel. Here it articulates the experiences of mobile workers digitally connecting into family life and everyday rituals when physically absent with work. The recent embedding of digital communication technologies into personal relationships and family life is reconfiguring how absence is experienced and practiced by workers on the move, and through this, new digital paradigms for life on-the-move are emerging. This paper explores how such social relationships are maintained at-a-distance through digital technology – using evidence from qualitative interviews with mobile workers and their families. Digital technology now enables expressive forms of ‘virtual travel’, including video calling, picture sharing, and instant messaging. This has implications for the ways in which families can manage the social and relational pressures of being apart. Experiences of imaginative travel created through novel media can enrich the experience and give a greater sense of connection for both those who are at home and those who are away. While technology is limited in its ability to replicate a sense of co-presence, ‘digital glimpses’ are an emergent set of sociotechnical practices that can reduce the negative impact of absence on family relationships.     

Constructing Global/Local Subjectivities – The New Zealand OE as Governance through Freedom

Abstract

The New Zealand working holiday phenomenon is commonly called the ‘Overseas Experience’ – often simply abbreviated as ‘OE’. While the OE as a working holiday is fundamentally constructed as a time of freedom, fun and cultural experiences, it is also crucially understood as a personal development and coming of age experience. Yet, the sorts of changes young New Zealanders envisage as they embark on their temporary journey abroad have been largely unexplored. Drawing on qualitative research material gathered in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2006–20007, this article explores the multiplicity of reasons young adults from NZ have for engaging in this finite travel phenomenon. By using Nikolas Rose’s theorisations about governance through freedom and the constitution of subjects in advanced liberal democracies, this paper shows that the exercise of freedom and the personal transformation into a full adult member of New Zealand society are highly visible aspirations of OE travellers. This transformation seems to require the paradoxical obligation to be free and exercise choice. Drawing on Rose, the article illustrates how as young New Zealanders insert themselves into OE discourses, they are governed through freedom.     

Carers Cruising Cumbria and Meals on the Mile: The Drive of Migrants in Fieldwork and Fiction

Abstract

This article focuses on first-generation migrant workers in the service sector of England’s North West and their mobile subjectivities. It combines the research on cars and driving with the mobilities agenda on transnational migrants. In this essay, we draw from both fiction and fieldwork to explore the mobile experiences of migrants who work within the region’s ‘service diaspora’. Two inter-related stories unfold about cars, care and curry. Both groups, one in a city-region, and the other rurally based, are defined heavily by their mobile labour. By placing literary and oral accounts together, disparate locations and situations suddenly appear connected as never before and driving becomes embedded in migrant worlds in both real and imaginary ways.     

Mobile devices and their effect on the sociality on Dutch Intercity trains

ABSTRACT

Travelling by train is an activity that many people engage in on a daily basis, which is rarely performed alone. While trains are locations where many different strangers potentially encounter each other, they are also portrayed as non-social transient places of passenger conflict and disharmony. Especially the rapid rise of mobile devices has changed the way people interact on board. This mobile ethnography – based on observations, travel-diaries and diary-interviews with 16 frequent travellers of Dutch Intercity trains – contributes to earlier studies on passenger sociality by specifically focussing on how social interactions are influenced by these mobile devices. The findings illustrate that using a mobile phone is indeed the most reported on-board activity and direct interactions are limited. Nevertheless, people on the train speak a very subtle non-verbal language that enables them to interact without engaging in extensive direct interactions. Mobile devices are thus not just enabling or constraining but have become inherent parts of socialising. Furthermore, most people do watch out for each other and try not to bother others. Discomforts emerge from different interpretations and compliances of codes of conduct.     

Slowing Down Mobilities: Passengering on an Inter-war Ocean Liner

Abstract

This article contributes to recent work on the figure of the passenger and ‘passengering’ in mobilities research. It does so by considering the experiences of one passenger over two journeys on an ocean liner undertaken in 1930. The article ‘follows’ the passenger over the course of the two journeys in order to open up the processuality of passengering. The article makes two core contributions. First, it demonstrates the need to lend attention to the specific socialities and materialities of mobile modalities that work on and form the passenger. It is shown how specific assemblages come together at sea to create atmospheres that shape the experiences of long-distance travel over water. Second, by following the passenger over the course of journeying, it demonstrates the emergence of the passenger in relation to shifting affective atmospheres, not as a static figure but one of becoming passenger, as a shifting set of subjectivities, and, in turn, shows the value of ‘following’ a journey within mobilities research.     

When People Stay and Things Make Their Way: Airports,Mobilities and Materialities of a Transnational Landscape

Abstract

This article explores different meanings of mobility and place by examining the interweaving of people, things and airports in Guinea-Bissau and Portugal. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in two airports – of departure and arrival of this migratory route – I look at the practices of sending and receiving objects by migrants in Lisbon and their kin in Bissau. The transnational yet grounded setting helps to provide a better understanding of the complexity associated with different forms of mobility – including corporeal, imagined and desired – and their key role in socially and relationally constructing a lived airport space, as well as wider social landscapes. Bringing in evidence from a less-explored setting – a small airport in a West African country – will particularly challenge some of the assumptions that tend to associate mobility with ‘modernity’ and fixity with ‘tradition’. It will show how people in Guinea-Bissau are, as much as migrants abroad, dynamically involved in global practices of movement – materialised in trading and reciprocating objects between two continents – through local performances of mobility that do not necessarily involve corporeal travel across borders.