Increasingly, everyday living and practices depend on how mobility (and immobility) is articulated through the ever-present influence of a range of physical and virtual infrastructures. This book focuses in particular on the 'political' dimension of mobility and immobility, which plays a key role in establishing patterns of proximity in real and virtual co-presence. Proximity is seen as the result of choices, negotiations and practices carried out in different settings.

Drawing from different literature streams (Sociology, Organization Studies and Science and Technology Studies), this book analyses patterns of mobility in relation to new possibilities of organizing space, time, and proximity to others. Different phenomena - from memorial sites to migration, from urban mobility to mobile work - are analysed, illustrating different types of proximity through mobility and immobility. In doing so, this book offers a cross-cultural and innovative theoretical framing of issues linked to mobility, through the link with immobility and proximity.

Contents: Foreword, John Urry; Preface; Introduction: studying (im)mobility through a politics of proximity, Giuseppina Pellegrino; Part I Categories of Proximity/Mobility: Space, mobility and new boundaries: the redefinition of social action, Maria Cristina Marchetti; Mobility and the notion of attainable reach, Kjell Engelbrekt; The harvest of Dionysus. Mobility/proximity, indigenous migrants and relational machines, Carmelo Buscema. Part II Discourse/Identity on Proximity and Mobility: The semiotics of (im)mobilities: two discursive case studies of the system of automobility, Chaim Noy; Mobility after war: re-negotiating belonging in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, Eva Gerharz. Part III Global Firms/Urban Landscapes as Scenery for Proximity and Mobility: Human costs of mobility: on management in multinational companies, Laura Gherardi; Urban mobility, accessibility and social equity: a comparative study in four European metropolitan areas, Matteo Colleoni; Mobility practices in Santiago de Chile: the consequences of restricted urban accessibility, Paola Jirón; Index.

About the Editor: Giuseppina Pellegrino is a Lecturer in Sociology of Culture and Communication, at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Calabria, Italy

Reviews: 'The Politics of Proximity is a very fine contribution to the mobilities literature. In particular by inserting the analysis of mobilities into the context of proximity, politics, immobility, and practice the book makes important contributions. The volume consist of novel and insightful explorations wedded to issues of relational geographies, performed proximities, and socio-technically mediated relationships. As such the book is on the cutting edge of the contemporary mobilities research agenda.'
Ole B. Jensen, Aalborg University, Denmark

'This is a totally necessary book, at just the right time! Exciting, illuminating and intellectually provoking it provides new insights at the cutting edge of mobilities research. What we learn here is a basic feature of the mobile risk society - the blurring of boundaries between mobility, space and technology, movement and the embodied politics of individuals to transgress and connect themselves across time and space. This is a rich contribution to the sociology of time-space compression and it makes visible how the new mobility regimes transform everyday life and the proximities of people.'
Sven Kesselring, TU Munich, Germany

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Full contents list

Introduction

Index