‘These people should not rest’: mobilities and frictions of the homeless geographies in Athens city centre

The paper relates homelessness to the ‘new mobilities paradigm’ by highlighting mobility’s constitutive character in homeless geographies, and the politics involved in the making of mobile homeless subjectivities in central Athens. Ethnographic material demonstrates that, within the city’s institutional and material context, a specific sense of mobility prevails, which may reflect broader mentalities of managing the poor in times of austerity. The case of a night shelter exemplifies how this institutional sense materialises, whereas crucial frictions are involved in the city’s homeless geographies. Yet it is the homeless subjects that embody, experience and make these mobilities and frictions meaningful and political.     

‘Walking out’: the mobilities of love

ABSTRACT

In this article, I propose that mobility performs a crucial role in the production and sustenance of intimate relationships and focus, in particular, on courtship practices and their modern-day equivalents. I pursue this discussion through close readings of literary and autobiographical texts from the nineteenth century through to the millennium, and by means of a framework that triangulates the work of Tim Ingold, David Seamon and Henri Bergson. My focus here is on how the mobilities we practice during the everyday routines of courtship – i.e. the paths we make, the routes we take, the roads we travel, the journeys we repeat, the transport we use – come to characterise the relationship concerned and impact upon its progress. Both Ingold’s work on ‘lines’ and Seamon’s on ‘place-ballet’ are conceptually suggestive in this regard and speak to recent work in mobilities/cultural geography on the significance of patterns of movement in the praxis of relationships.     

Scrambled systems: the (im)mobilities of ‘storm Desmond’

This article examines a 3-day blackout, triggered by a ‘1-in-100-year’ rainfall event. Storms and floods account for almost three-quarters of weather-related disasters, and are typically accompanied by cascading infrastructure failures, which pattern and amplify their effects in highly significant ways. Such disruptions reveal aspects of everyday life that ordinarily remain obscure, including capacities for resilience embodied in people, cities and infrastructure. The article proposes that disruption events be understood in terms of ‘scrambles’, as they involve abrupt demobilisation and remobilisation of a range of people and materials. The article firstly examines the astonishing capacity for failure latent in ‘pervasively powered’ arrangements, as well as the many ways in which people and things were ‘scrambled’ in response. The article then proceeds to explore the ways in which vulnerabilities result in part from mobilisation in response to previous disruption events, before examining the ‘circuits’ that link far-flung places in mobile disaster geographies, global patterns of electricity dependence, the rise of data overload in the ‘cloud’ to carbon overload in the atmosphere. The article concludes by presenting further evidence in support of the thesis that disruptions and disasters are part of a ‘new normal’, and what this means for prevailing sociotechnical arrangements reliant on ‘sunk’ infrastructure.     

Art and materiality in the global refugee crisis: Ai Weiwei’s artworks and the emerging aesthetics of mobilities

ABSTRACT

Prominent artists and activists have documented, collected and appropriated discarded materials of refugee journeys, such as life jackets, rafts and clothing, transforming them into largescale artworks. Material belongings play an important role in migration experiences. However, materials are often used as representational measures of rights to movement, mode of travel and refugee status. This article explores how the mobilisation and transformation of materials into artworks raises questions on the material agencies operating within global representations of refugee mobilities. Discussing recent artworks of Ai Weiwei, I explore the emerging material aesthetics that open alternative dialogues on migration flows and mobilities futures.     

Corruption and the ‘Paradox of Redistribution’

The existing literature on the determinants of income redistribution has identified a ‘paradox’. Namely, that countries with a high degree of market income inequality redistribute little, which is in disagreement with the median voter theorem. In a first step, this paper outlines several mechanisms that explain why government corruption might be partially responsible for this ‘paradox’. In a second step, different corruption perception indices and an instrumental variable approach are used to provide empirical evidence that indicates a significant negative impact of corruption on redistribution levels for a sample of 148 developing and developed countries. This finding suggests that, next to political and need factors, government corruption explains to some extent the ‘paradox of redistribution’. This is especially true for many developing countries, given that they typically have relatively high degrees of corruption and low levels of redistribution.     

Tribal membership requirements and the demography of ‘old’ and ‘new’ Native Americans

This paper examines the twentieth-century population recovery of Native Americans with reference to urbanization, intermarriage, and differing definitions of the Native American population from census and tribal enrollment data. The recent increase in the Native American population reflected in regular US decennial censuses since 1960 is discussed in terms of changing self-identification of individuals as Native American. Also discussed are criteria for enrollment in Native American tribes, particularly blood quantum requirements. Census enumerations are compared with tribal enrollment data, and it is illustrated that a large proportion of those identifying as Native American in the census are not enrolled in Native American tribes. Special attention is given to how Native American tribal enrollment criteria might impact future population size.     

Dynamics of precarity among ‘new migrants’: exploring the worker–capital relation through mobilities and mobility power

ABSTRACT

This article conceptualises the role of mobilities within precarious working and living conditions, drawing on qualitative analysis of interviews (n = 52) and a policy seminar (n = 50) in North-East England. It focuses on refugees, asylum seekers, and Eastern European EU migrants, as policy-constructed groups that have been identified as disproportionately concentrated in precarious work. The article develops three ‘dynamics of precarity’, defined as ‘surplus’, ‘rooted’, and ‘hyper-flexible’, to conceptualise distinct ways of moving that represent significant variations in the form that precarity takes. The article concludes that understanding precarity through mobilities can identify points of connection among today’s increasingly heterogeneous working class.     

Examining the rhythms of ‘urban elements’ on walking and driving routes in the city

ABSTRACT

The article follows Kevin Lynch’s renowned formulation of ‘urban elements’ to examine the mobilities, experiences and materialities on ordinary routes in the city. Utilizing route narratives and participant-produced visual data, the article focuses on various identifiable micro-temporalities and mobility rhythms on repeated walking and driving routes, building on Henri Lefebvre’s notion of ‘rhythmanalysis’. The article examines how a framework built around rhythm and urban elements can add to the analysis of contemporary urban sites from the perspectives of situated mobile contexts, noting sequences and polyrhythmia as central temporal characteristics in the body?environment relations.     

‘When and where does being Welsh matter to me?’ The influence of cross-border mobilities on constructions of sub-national belonging in the lives of Welsh Muslims*

This article will discuss how Welsh Muslims construct what a sense of place means to them through their cross-border mobility between England and Wales, and how this contributes to the ongoing re-construction of a plural understanding of nationhood in an era of diversity. To understand when and where being Welsh matters to Welsh Muslims, it will explore how mobility rather than being the antithesis of belonging, can be used as an essential tool in highlighting how perceptions of the nation, sub-state nation, home and place are influenced and understood.     

The Only Gay in the Village? Everyday Life of Gays and Lesbians in Rural Slovenia

The article deals with the comparison of the characteristics, experiences, and perceptions of everyday life of gays and lesbians living in rural and urban areas of Slovenia. We focus on the following thematic aspects: (1) coming out; (2) intimate partnerships; (3) the access and the use of gay infrastructure; and (4) violence against gays and lesbians. The article also addresses and discusses the urban/rural divide as a Western construct that might not be completely applicable to other social and cultural contexts. Taking Slovenia as an example, this article questions the self-evidence of rural/urban divide as an analytical concept. On the basis of our research, we conclude that this concept requires continuous revisions and reinterpretations in a concrete social and cultural context(s). The characteristics of gay and lesbian everyday life either in rural or in urban context in Slovenia lead to the conclusion that even within a specific social and cultural context, the concept of urban/rural divide should be used carefully, taking into account complexities of everyday lives and various factors that influence them.     

A user’s guide to Lisbon: mobilities,spatial apprenticeship and migrant urban integration*

This paper engages with the ‘mobility turn’ scholarship in order to provide tools for the study of migrants’ integration to urban space. The analysis of urban mobilities draws attention to the practical know-how that underlies mobility practices. I argue that migrants’ urban apprenticeship – that is, the ways migrants learn (to use) city spaces – shape their access to urban resources and their participation in urban life. Based on fieldwork conducted in Lisbon, Portugal, I explore how migrants’ urban knowledges play out in their everyday practices and resonate with broader concerns over migrant integration.     

Invisible mobilities: stigma,immobilities, and female sex workers’ mundane socio-legal negotiations of Dhaka’s urban space

ABSTRACT

Drawing on ethnography, this paper conceptualizes invisible mobilities by exploring the linkages between mobility, invisibility and hotel and residence based sex work in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Since both are illegal in Bangladesh, hotel and residence based sex workers (HRSWs) become targets of the different laws and sex work related social stigma. We show, in this paper, how invisible mobilities is used to strategize and counter-enact against the existing exploitative gendered socio-political-legal regimes and practices involved in sex work. Invisible mobilities refers to the way HRSWs move in order to hide their occupation from society and the law. Invisibility is at the core of all these connections: It enables HRSWs to continue sex work and avoid exclusion from family and members of their communities. While making themselves invisible permits them to continue their daily ways to earn a living, it also reinforces the same social stigma they are constantly trying to avoid. In doing so, this paper reveals the political economy of sex work in the city and provides a new theoretical window to understand the connections between gender, mobility and the city, constructing a bridge between mobility and sex work studies literature.     

The Politics of Scaling,Timing and Embodying: Rethinking the ‘New Europe’

This paper explores ways in which we can fruitfully analyse and theorize ‘New Europe’ through migration, in so far as migration is an integral part of the way the world is imagined, and as such impacts on how individuals, communities, nations or multi/international formations such as the European Union imagine themselves and their (co)inhabitants. The article discusses three theoretical strands that relate to the forces of spatiality (scaling), temporality (timing and histories) and corporeality (embodying and ‘the European people’). These must be read as interwoven and impacting on each other in varying ways that are not linear, coherent or permanent. By bridging critical migration studies with mobilities studies, this essay calls for a reconsideration of the fluidity, accessibility and desirability of the assumed mobile world, while it also thinks about migration in relation to the ways in which ‘mobility’ has been variously established as a universal ‘right’.     

Extra-planetary mobilities and the media prospects of virtual space tourism

This paper responds to the emergence, proliferation and increasing relevance of various forms of virtual tourism set in outer space. It approaches virtual space tours as a distinct register of the changing nature of travel within global media cultures in their space age, framing them as a part of the ongoing socio-technical momentum of our emerging ‘extra-planetary mobilities’. We consider the extraterrestrial provisions of virtual tourism, including a host of space apps offering Martian tours and explore the ways in which the domestications of outer space through quotidian media practices affect our tourist disposition, altering collective ways of traveling and seeing, performing and consuming and configuring our mediated and embodied senses of place. We suggest that the prospects of mediated space travel are progressively shaping the relationship between human societies and our planetary exterior, sculpting the ambits of a ‘global abode’ beyond the globe.     

Taking Sacred Space out of Place: From Mount Sinai to Mount Getty Through Travelling Icons

Abstract

Starting from a behind‐the‐scenes tour preceding the opening of the recent Getty exhibition Icons from Sinai, this article seeks to destabilize traditional notions of sacred space as a territorially fixed entity defined through a binary opposition to the profane. Icons and other ‘travelling’ sacred objects are regarded as vehicles for the circulation and displacement of holy places outside of their physical boundaries and for the reconfiguration of sacred space in new, hybrid forms. The paper thus suggests a reconceptualization of sacred space in relational terms, as the product of human and non‐human interactions and networked flows, and of ‘sacred places’ as ‘reassuring anchors’ (both territorial and imaginative) within a world of fluid global networks.     

Negative Religious Rhetoric in the Lives of Black Cisgender Queer Emerging Adult Men: A Qualitative Analysis

Given the intersection of racial, religious, and sexual identities for Black queer populations, the current study examines sexuality-related religious rhetoric. Twenty Black cisgender queer men were recruited to participate in a qualitative interview. Using thematic analysis, the research team identified four themes: negative religious rhetoric, personal consequences of negative religious rhetoric, social consequences of negative religious rhetoric, and growth from negative religious rhetoric. Participants explained the pervasiveness of negative religious rhetoric within their churches and family structures. Men also conveyed how negative religious rhetoric frames societal ideologies around same-sex behavior, often condoning violence toward queer populations. Although men had negative experiences, participants articulated the importance of using oppression as a platform for growth. Black cisgender queer men are present within religious institutions; however, such negative religious rhetoric may negatively affect their mental and physical health. Researchers, clinicians, and clergy should consider the ways negative religious rhetoric marginalizes queer populations.     

Lesbian,Gay, and Bisexual Individuals’ Perceptions of American Religious Traditions

ABSTRACT

The cumulative alienation sexual minorities experience from American mainline religious groups may leave them feeling disillusioned and even hostile toward the religious organizations that have historically rejected them. However, research to date has not explored sexual minorities’ perceptions of religious traditions in the United States. The current study examines the variations between lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults’ (LGB) perceptions of whether religious traditions are friendly/neutral or unfriendly toward the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) population. Using data from the Pew Research Center 2013 Survey of LGBT Adults, the author conducts separate binary logistic regression analyses examining whether four religious traditions—evangelical Protestantism, the Catholic Church, the Jewish religion, and mainline Protestantism—are generally perceived as friendly/neutral or unfriendly toward LGBT people. The findings from this study offer rare insight on sexual minorities’ perceptions of major religious traditions and illustrates that sexual minorities have a complex relationship with religion.     

Resilience,Moorings and International Student Mobilities – Exploring Biographical Narratives of Social Science Students in the UK

Whilst research into the changing landscape of the UK Higher Education (HE) has produced a burgeoning literature on ‘internationalisation’ and ‘transnational student mobility’ over the past few years, still fairly little is known about international students’ experiences on their way to and through the UK higher and further education. Frequently approaching inter- and transnational education as ‘neutral’ by-products of neoliberal globalisation, elitism and power flows, much HE policy and scholarly debate tend to operate with simplistic classifications of ‘international students’ and therefore fail to account for the multifaceted nature of students’ aspirations, mobilities and life experiences. Drawing on the notion of ‘resilience’ and insights from the ‘new mobilities paradigm’, this paper envisages alternative student mobilities which run parallel or counter to the dominant flows of power, financial and human capital commonly associated with an emerging global knowledge economy. Engaging with ‘resilient’ biographies of social science students studying at three UK HE institutions, the paper challenges narrow student classification regimes and calls for a critical re-evaluation of the relationship between international student mobility and other contemporary forms of migration, displacement and diaspora.     

转型社会宗教参与养老的基础和优势研究

在我国社会转型时期,养老面临诸多现实困难。解决养老问题、提高养老质量需要宗教的社会支持。目前,宗教社会服务的相关政策环境不断得到改善,宗教参与养老发展空间广阔,具备了较好的社会基础;同时,宗教参与养老在改善养老环境、给予老年人精神支持和临终护理、组织开展各类慈善救助活动等方面也具有其他支持主体无法比拟的优势,因此,转型社会宗教参与养老具有可行性。