Landscapes of Mobility : Culture, Politics, and Placemaking

Our world is unquestionably one in which ubiquitous movements of people, goods, technologies, media, money, and ideas produce systems of flows. Comparing case studies from across the world, including those from Benin, the United States, India, Mali, Senegal, Japan, Haiti, and Romania, this book focuses on quotidian landscapes of mobility. Despite their seemingly familiar and innocuous appearances, these spaces exert tremendous control over our behaviour and activities. By examining and mapping the politics of place and motion, this book analyses human beings' embodied engagements with their built world and provides diverse perspectives on the ideological and political underpinnings of landscapes of mobility.In order to describe landscapes of mobility as a historically, socially, and politically constructed condition, the book is divided into three sections - objects, contacts, and flows. The first section look at elements that constitute such landscapes, including mobile bodies, buildings, and practices across multiple geographical scales. As these variable landscapes are reconstituted under particular social, economic, ecological, and political conditions, the second section turns to the particular practices that catalyze embodied relations within and across such spaces. Finally, the last section explores how the flows of objects, bodies, interactions, and ecologies are represented, presenting a critical comparison of the means by which relations, processes, and exchanges are captured, depicted, reproduced and re-embodied. "Our world is unquestionably one in which ubiquitous movements of people, goods, technologies, media, money, and ideas produce systems of flows. Comparing case studies from across the world, including those from Benin, the United States, India, Mali, Senegal, Japan, Haiti, and Romania, this book focuses on quotidian landscapes of mobility. Despite their seemingly familiar and innocuous appearances, these spaces exert tremendous control over our behavior and activities. By examining and mapping the politics of place and motion, this book analyzes human beings' embodied engagements with their built world and provides diverse perspectives on the ideological and political underpinnings of landscapes of mobility. In order to describe landscapes of mobility as a historically, socially, and politically constructed condition, the book is divided into three sections-objects, contacts, and flows. The first section looks at elements that constitute such landscapes, including mobile bodies, buildings, and practices across multiple geographical scales. As these variable landscapes are reconstituted under particular social, economic, ecological, and political conditions, the second section turns to the particular practices that catalyze embodied relations within and across such spaces. Finally, the last section explores how the flows of objects, bodies, interactions, and ecologies are represented, presenting a critical comparison of the means by which relations, processes, and exchanges are captured, depicted, reproduced and re-embodied."-- Back cover Objects. Replaceable skins : clothing as mobile home -- Jennifer Johung Container ecology -- Douglas Hecker Zombie housing for the displaced in the aftermath of disaster -- Stephen Verderber Guerrilla planning : James Rojas' urban planning initiatives -- James Rojas Contacts. Crossing the Milwaukee River : a case study in mapping mobility and class geographies -- Sarah Fayen Scarlett Re-inventing the center : urban memory, political travel and the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania -- Andreea Mihalache Mobility and property : Japanese Americans and African Americans coming and going in San Francisco's Japantown -- Lynne Horiuchi Roads of joy, pathways of anger : emotional responses to landscapes of mobility -- Marcus Filippello Flows. Out of place : postcolonial traces of dynamic urbanism -- Anoma Pieris Map, mother and militant : visualizing India in diaspora -- Arijit Sen Infrastructure cartography : drawing the space of flows -- Clare Lyster.