Uneven Mobilities and the Production of Subjectivity

Conveners: Dr. David Butz, Department of Geography, Brock University, Canada Dr. Nancy Cook, Department of Sociology, Brock University, Canada

This paper session focuses on how uneven mobilities are entwined with the production of particular embodied subjectivities as shaped by inequitable systems of gender and racial domination, capitalism, colonialism, heteronormativity, ableism, nationalism, etc.

The mobilities paradigm has demonstrated the ways in which differential mobilities are both productive of a range of inequitable social relations and produced by them at a variety of scales. Much of this research has focused on the macro scale of global migration and material flows, border governance and travel, and the meso scale of mobility infrastructure, transportation and urban planning and design. Surprisingly little attention has been paid to the implications of uneven movement at the micro scale of the body and embodied subjectivity; how gendered, racialised, classed, sexualised, able-bodied, citizen and colonised subjectivities are constituted through uneven capacities to be (im)mobile. Subjectivities are performed in relation to movement in a range of corporeal power plays.

We are seeking papers from geographers and critical mobilities scholars that deploy feminist, queer, postcolonial, (dis)ability, critical race and other relevant approaches to analyse sites and processes of materialised differential mobilities that (re)create socially differentiated embodied subjectivities. Papers may also focus on marginalised social groups’ resistance to the bodily implications of uneven mobilities, and their struggles for improved access and rights to (im)mobility.

Paper abstracts should be submitted by e-mail to David (dbutz@brocku.ca) or Nancy (ncook@brocku.ca) by December 15, 2018. Abstracts should be no longer than 250 words, in plain text, and be saved in Word format. Please adhere to the following format:

Name of the session
Title of the paper (lowercase letters)
Author’s name and e-mail
Author’s institutional affiliation
Abstract
 

Authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by January 15, 2019. Accepted abstracts will be published on the conference webpage. Accepted abstract will be published on the conference homepage.