GOVERNING MOBILITIES

Lausanne, October 31st – November 1st, 2012

- New deadline for abstract submission - April 23rd -

Aspirations of seamless and universal mobilities are a hallmark of social and economic life at the beginning of the 21st century. As systems of governance relying upon particular forms of [...]]]> Call for papers – Cosmobilities Conference 2012

GOVERNING MOBILITIES

Lausanne, October 31st – November 1st, 2012

- New deadline for abstract submission - April 23rd -

Aspirations of seamless and universal mobilities are a hallmark of social and economic life at the beginning of the 21st century. As systems of governance relying upon particular forms of governmentality developed in western societies to more effectively and productively propagate and sustain the emerging capitalist system and manage its socioeconomic disjunctures, mobility has become a matter of special concern. A set of interlocking rationales, apparatus, institutions, roles and procedures of governance have come to sustain powerful `mobility regimes` justifying, stabilizing, naturalizing, controlling and disciplining particular forms of mobilities characterizing contemporary social, economic and political life in the north Atlantic rim.

Nowadays the modern society is more than ever a “society on the move”. The development of transnational mobility systems across the world involving huge networks of transport and communication infrastructures such as airports, roads, trains, shipping and mobile communication have enabled the flow of people, money, objects, and information at an unprecedented scale. In this process massive social, economic, political and environmental processes, connecting specific social groups, places and regions and disconnecting others, are activated. Thus motility, referring to entities’ capacity to be mobile in social and geographic spaces, is becoming increasingly important.

But the logic, form and versatility of these new, emerging mobility regimes still need to be thoroughly described and understood. Hegemonic mobility regimes such as global transport, urban and regional, corporate mobility regimes are being intensely contested and challenged by the realities of global risks, economic crises, demographic changes and alternative utopias pursued by various social actors. Controversies around climate change, for example, evidence that the cosmopolitization of societies, the potential for mobility afforded by multiple, interlocking and networked transport and communication infrastructures and the idea of a global market, critically rely upon unsustainable use of resources and increasingly fragile mobility systems.

This conference focuses on the question of which systems of governance are involved in these processes and how they are evolving as a result of these trends at a time when the future looks less and less like the past. In contrast to mainstream scientific literature and studies on transport and mobility dominated by works on travel and commuting, in this conference we propose to examine the governance of individual and collective actors’ mobility projects. In modern societies, where discourses lauding spatial  and social mobility seem prevalent, this conference aims to understand
critically how public policies consider the coexistence of different types of mobility projects, and inequalities linked to this diversity.

The conference is co-organised with the MSFS’ (Mobilités spatiales, fluidités sociales) francophone conference. Joint session(s) will take place October 31st. The call for papers for the MSFS conference will soon be available at http://lasur.epfl.ch/

Abstracts of no more than 350 words should be submitted electronically to Dr Hanja Maksim (hanja.maksim@epfl.ch) and Dr Emmanuel Ravalet (emmanuel.ravalet@epfl.ch) by April 23rd.

Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning,  Special Issue on “Sustainable Mobility: The role of consumers, current trends, policy approaches and future challenges”

Overview

Mobility is among the top priorities in making current consumption and production patterns more sustainable. Although sustainable mobility is confronted with different lock-in situations (e.g. high costs for infrastructure [...]]]> Call for Papers

Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning,  Special Issue on “Sustainable Mobility: The role of consumers, current trends, policy approaches and future challenges”

Overview

Mobility is among the top priorities in making current consumption and production patterns more sustainable. Although sustainable mobility is confronted with different lock-in situations (e.g. high costs for infrastructure and transport means that cannot be recovered in a short time period), there are also factors that offer new opportunities for transforming the current unsustainable mobility system that is largely based on fossil fuels. Moreover, the decreasing willingness to accept noise or congestion might give rise to alternative mobility approaches and to more sustainable mobility strategies.
The scope of the challenge is wide, e.g. the transport sector consumed about 32% of the EU-27 final energy consumption in 2008; transport is responsible for about 19.5% of greenhouse gas emissions within the EU-27 (2008); the provision and use of different transport infrastructures contribute to landscape fragmentation, as well as destruction of habitats and ecosystems; European citizens are travelling more often, further and faster than ever before, e.g. the increase of leisure travel; public transport systems do not keep pace with recent urban/spatial developments; to increasingly promote cycling and walking as important sustainable mobility strategies (particular in cities); the whole mobility sector is a key branch of the European economy as it employs about 16.6 million people in EU-27 (2007), etc.
The mobility domain is an area with high policy interest. This domain and its modernisation as part of a resource-efficient Europe are among the seven Flagship Initiatives of the Europe 2020 Strategy. As a domain inherent strategy, the European Commission published, in spring 2011, its new White Paper for Transport. These strategies and concepts highlight the attention of policy makers to greening the mobility domain. However, approaches that integrate sustainability challenges are still hard to find.
Generally, mobility is a major issue in the politics of sustainable consumption and production (SCP) debate, but policy patterns concentrate on improving the efficiencies of transport modes. The support of modal shift is relevant, but it often seems that this deals more with a relative alteration, instead of an absolute shift among modes. Of still minor importance is the reduction approach which is the most far-reaching objective of mobility policies: it is hard to address, as policy-makers are reluctant to intervene in people’s lifestyles; it is also difficult to implement, as it requires comprehensive tool boxes and rebounds may occur.

Aims of the Special Issue

This special issue will specifically focus on the demand side, i.e. consumers, and their contribution to, and pathways towards, a sustainable mobility system. Accordingly, attention should be paid to passenger rather than freight transport. In particular, we welcome contributions that:
 Deepen and further develop theoretical and conceptual foundations as well as scientific knowledge on sustainable mobility;
 Analyze current trends and practices in the demand for sustainable mobility at different spatial levels (e.g. mobility and final energy consumption; mobility contribution to GHGs emissions; Particulate Matters and health-related problems; high accidents and mortality rates; landscape fragmentation and habitats/ecosystems destruction; noise and congestion; mobility and employment, etc);
 Describe good practice case studies that illustrate the successful application of sustainable mobility by analysing objectives, policy instruments used, actors involved, reasons for success, and framework conditions;
 Address in-depth consumer and behavioural aspects of sustainable mobility, especially in relation to acceptance of sustainable mobility policies and practices, and transition management;
 Analyze policy instruments at different political levels that address the demand-side of the mobility system, incl. the transferability potential of policy instruments across Europe (cross-national policy development);
 Assess integrative policy approaches for sustainable mobility;
 Examine the role of future scenarios and foresight studies in sustainable mobility policy planning.

Contributions

The decision on full paper contributions for the special issue is done in a two-step process.
1) Authors are invited to submit an Abstract of up to 500 words to the editors by June 30, 2012.
2) On the basis of this abstract, the co-editors will invite a number of authors to submit articles (full papers) which, after completion by September 15, 2012, will undergo a double-blind peer-review process.

Provisional Schedule

Contributors with proposals for articles are encouraged to communicate with the editors by e-mail. The following schedule will be used to guide the project:
 Call for papers issued: 16 April 2012
 Submission of abstracts (maximum 500 words): June 30, 2012
 Response to authors on abstracts: July 15, 2012
 Submission of invited articles (full drafts): September 15, 2012
 Provision of peer-review feedback: December 15, 2012
 Submission of revised drafts: January 15, 2013
 Final Decision: February 15, 2013
 Publication: March 2013

Other Information
Articles should be no longer than 10,000 words in length, including references and any footnotes. Illustrations, photographs and/or figures that enhance the text are welcome. Additional technical and style requirements will be conveyed in accordance with the above schedule.
More information on “Instructions for Authors” can be found at the homepage of the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning at http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/journal.asp?issn=1523-908x&linktype=44.

Abstracts should be sent to:
Please send your abstracts until June 30, 2012 to:
Gerald Berger, Research Institute for Managing Sustainability (RIMAS), Vienna University of Economics and Business, E-mail: gerald.berger@wu.ac.at

Guest Editors’ Contact Information

 Dr. Frieder Rubik, Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IOEW), Office Heidelberg, Bergstr. 7, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany, E-mail: frieder.rubik@ioew.de

Professor Dr. Erling Holden, Sogn and Fjordane University College, Norway, P.O.Box 133, 6851 Sogndal, Norway, E-mail: Erling.Holden@hisf.no

Gerald Berger, MA MSc, Research Institute for Managing Sustainability (RIMAS), Vienna University of Economics and Business, Franz-Klein-Gasse 1, 1190 Vienna, Austria, E-mail: gerald.berger@wu.ac.at

This seminar series was hosted by the Transport Studies Unit (TSU), School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford and ran from January to March 2012. The following experts contributed to [...]]]> Podcasts and presentation slides for all the seminars in the Socio-spatial Inequalities, Transport and Mobilities series are now available online: http://www.tsu.ox.ac.uk/events/ht12_seminars/.

This seminar series was hosted by the Transport Studies Unit (TSU), School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford and ran from January to March 2012. The following experts contributed to the series:

Dr Karen Lucas, University of Oxford – Unequal Mobility and its Social Consequences
Dr Katharina Manderscheid, University of Lucerne – Automobile Subjects
Dr Gina Porter, Durham University – Transport and Daily Mobility in Sub-Saharan Africa: Exploring young people’s experiences
Dr Susan Kenyon – Transport Is Social Policy: Focus on higher education in the UK context
Prof Tim Cresswell, Royal Holloway – The Prosthetic Citizen: Forms of citizenship for a mobile world
Prof Rob Imrie, King’s College – Auto-Disabilities: The case of shared space environments
Prof Gordon Walker, Lancaster University – Breathing Unequally: Environmental justice and transport-related air pollution
Prof Margaret Grieco, Edinburgh Napier University – Gender and Transport, the Neglected Dimension: Social inclusion, access and sustainable urban mobility
Dr Ruth Butler, University of Hull – Bodies, Buses and Bureaucracy: Reflections on common interests in disability rights and service provision

Edited by Rowan Wilken (Swinburne University of Technology) and Gerard
Goggin (University of Sydney)
Summary:

An international roster of contributors comes together in this comprehensive
volume to examine the complex interactions between mobile media technologies
and issues of place. [...]]]> Mobile Technology and Place (New York: Routledge, 2012), 240pp
http://bit.ly/IiI2On

Edited by Rowan Wilken (Swinburne University of Technology) and Gerard
Goggin (University of Sydney)
Summary:

An international roster of contributors comes together in this comprehensive
volume to examine the complex interactions between mobile media technologies
and issues of place. Balancing philosophical reflection with empirical
analysis, this book examines the specific contexts in which place and mobile
technologies come into focus, intersect, and interact. Given the
far-reaching impact of contemporary mobile technology use – and given the
lasting importance of the concept and experiences of place – this book will
appeal to a wide range of scholars in media and cultural studies, sociology,
and philosophy of technology.
Table of Contents:

I: Theorising Place & Mobiles

1. Mobilising Place: Conceptual Currents and Controversies, Rowan Wilken &
Gerard Goggin. 2. The Place of Mobility: Technology, Connectivity, and
Individualization, Jeff Malpas. 3. Topologies of Human-Mobile-Assemblages,
Richard Ek.

II: Media, Publics and Place-Making

4. When Urban Public Places Become ‘Hybrid Ecologies’: Proximity-based Game
Encounters in Dragon Quest 9 in France and Japan, Christian Licoppe and
Yorika Inada. 5. The Urban Dynamics of Net Localities: How Mobile and
Location-Aware Technologies are Transforming Places, Eric Gordon and Adriana
de Souza e Silva. 6. The Real Estate of the Trained Up Self: (Or is this
England?), Caroline Bassett.

III: Urbanity, Rurality, and the Scene of Mobiles

7. (Putting) Mobile Technologies in their Place: A Geographical Perspective,
Chris Gibson, Susan Luckman, and Chris Brennan-Horley. 8.
Still Mobile: A Case Study on Mobility, Home and Being Away in Shanghai,
Larissa Hjorth. 9. Connection and Inspiration:
Phenomenology, Mobile Communications, Place, Iain Sutherland.

IV: Bodies, Screens, and Relations of Place

10. Going Wireless: Disengaging the Ethical Life, Edward S. Casey. 11.
Parerga of the Third Screen: Mobile Media, Place and Presence, Ingrid
Richardson and Rowan Wilken. 12. Encoding Place: The Politics of Mobile
Location Technologies, Gerard Goggin. 13. The Infosphere, the Geosphere and
the Mirror: The Geomedia-Based Normative Renegotiations of Body and Place,
Francesco Lapenta.

Have you recently completed a PhD in urban or transport planning, geography or economics (or will you complete your PhD before the end of June)? Are you interested in questions at the interface of transport and urban development, and of research and policy? Do [...]]]> Postdoc Job Vacancies on Transport and Urban Development in the Netherlands

Have you recently completed a PhD in urban or transport planning, geography or economics (or will you complete your PhD before the end of June)? Are you interested in questions at the interface of transport and urban development, and of research and policy? Do you wish to contribute to making our cities and regions more sustainable, and want to be part of an exciting new community of research and practice on Transit Oriented Development in the Netherlands? Then one of these post doc positions might be what you have been long looking for!
Postdoctoral Researcher Urbanisation, Public Transport and Accessibility, University of Twente:  www.academictransfer.com/13648

Postdoctoral Researcher Implementing Transit Oriented Development- iTOD, University of Amsterdam: www.academictransfer.com/13584

Postdoctoral Researcher in Urban Development and Mobility (governance), Delft University of Technology: www.academictransfer.com/13438 (in Dutch)
 

Postdoctoral Researcher in Urban Development and Mobility (behaviour), Delft University of Technology: www.academictransfer.com/13439 (in Dutch)

 
University of Amsterdam

Department of Planning, Geography, and International Development studies

Luca Bertolini
Professor of Urban and Regional Planning

Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130 | 1018 VZ Amsterdam
T 020 525 4007 | F 020 5254051
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/l.bertolini/
 

Luca Bertolini is member of the Editorial Team of Planning Theory and Practice

http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14649357.asp

SPECIAL ISSUE – 2nd CALL FOR PAPERS

Mobility and mobile media in Brazil

 Edited by:

Adriana de Souza e Silva (North Carolina State University)

Isabel Froes (IT University of Copenhagen)

 Important dates:

Full papers: June 15th, 2012 (8000/9000 words, including references) in English.
•Full [...]]]> Convergence: The international journal of research into new media technologies

SPECIAL ISSUE – 2nd CALL FOR PAPERS

Mobility and mobile media in Brazil

 Edited by:

Adriana de Souza e Silva (North Carolina State University)

Isabel Froes (IT University of Copenhagen)

 Important dates:

Full papers: June 15th, 2012 (8000/9000 words, including references) in English.
•Full papers will undergo a double blind-review process;

•Submissions may be in the form of empirical research studies or theory-building papers;

•For formatting guidelines, please see: URL

•Papers must also include:

•a brief biography of the author(s),

•250-word abstract, and

•6 keywords.

 Proposals and inquiries should be sent electronically to Isabel Froes (icgf@itu.dk).

Early submissions are greatly appreciated!

 By the second decade of the 21st century, mobile phones have reached saturation levels in many countries in the world, surpassing the number of landlines and personal computers. Although initial scholarly interest on the social use of mobile phones focused on Europe, Asia, and the United States, the impact of mobile phone on the developing world (or Global South) is increasingly evident and perhaps much more profound. For many, the mobile device is the first phone, the first internet connection, the first TV set, and the first global positioning system.

Among developing nations, Brazil is a key site for studying the social dimension of mobile technologies. The country is part of the so-called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China), an acronym that refers to fast-growing developing economies. Brazil is the fastest growing economy in Latin America, and has over 217 million mobile phones, which represents an average of 111 working devices per 100 inhabitants. The country has also experienced one of the fastest mobile phone growth rates in the world since 2005 (averaging 16.6% annually); is the largest mobile phone market in Latin America; and is the fifth-largest mobile market in the world in absolute numbers, with roughly 217 million subscriptions as of September 2011. However, numbers alone reveal little if not analyzed within a broader social, cultural, and economic framework. The focus on a homogeneous large-scale market leads to overly sanguine perspectives that often obscure how socioeconomic diversity causes and reflects mobile phone use. As in many developing countries, Brazil has astounding income gaps among different sectors of the population, which influence and are influenced by technology development and use. For example, the use of high-end services such as mobile banking, and location-based services like Foursquare and Yelp is an intrinsic part of the daily mobile practices of the high-income population in the country. Conversely, the lower-income population in Rio de Janeiro is familiar with the diretão—a mobile phone that allows users to make clandestine calls to anywhere in the world with the use of an illegal sim card. However, Brazil has also been at the forefront of an experimental and innovative approach towards new technologies, forecasted in cultural events that focus on art, music and film festivals dedicated to new and creative uses of mobile technologies, such as the Mobilefest and Arte.mov.

Despite this cultural and socio-economic diversity, and the relevance of its marketing, the social use and development of mobile phones in Brazil is largely under theorized and poorly studied. With the goal of contributing to bridge this gap, this special edition invites essays that critically investigate the inter-relations among mobile technologies, culture, and social development within the Brazilian society.

 Submitted manuscripts are encouraged (but not limited) to focus on:

(1) History of mobile phones in Brazil. Essays are encouraged to explore the development of mobile phones in Brazil, comparing them to the landline infrastructure and internet growth within the Latin America socio-economic and political framework. Authors may explore the development and use of new mobile services, such as the mobile internet, text messaging, mobile apps, etc.

(2) Social uses and appropriation of mobile phones. We welcome essays as empirical or theoretical studies dealing with the use and appropriation of technology by low-income communities. Of special interest are essays that explore how mobile and wireless technologies reconfigure the life of community dwellers and how people find new and unexpected uses for existing technologies.

(3) Mobile art and games. We invite essays that investigate mobile phones as artistic and gaming interfaces, including essays that explore uses of hybrid reality, location-aware and pervasive activities in educational contexts, media arts, and gaming.

(4) Location-based services. Submitted essays should investigate the uses and development of location-based services in Brazil, such as mobile annotation, location-based social networks, and mobile mapping.

 About the editors:

Adriana de Souza e Silva is Associate Professor at the Department of Communication at North Carolina State University (NCSU), affiliated faculty at the Digital Games Research Center, and Interim Associate Director of the Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media (CRDM) program at NCSU.Dr. de Souza e Silva’s research focuses on how mobile and locative interfaces shape people’s interactions with public spaces and create new forms of sociability. She teaches classes on mobile technologies, location-based games and internet studies. Dr. de Souza e Silva is the co-editor (with Daniel M. Sutko) of Digital Cityscapes—Merging digital and urban playspaces (Peter Lang, 2009), the co-author (with Eric Gordon) of the book Net-Locality: Why location matters in a networked world (Blackwell, 2011), and the co-author (with Jordan Frith) of Mobile interfaces in public spaces: Control, privacy, and urban sociability (Routledge, 2012).

Isabel Fróes has received her Masters degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Programme at New York University (NYU) and a Bachelor’s degree in psychology from Pontifícia Universidade Católica, Rio de Janeiro, PUC-RJ in Brazil. She is a lecturer at the IT University of Copenhagen (Denmark), where she works both as a practitioner and scholar in the fields of communication, mobility, art and design. With a focus towards valuable interactions between people and technology, her research analyzes the future implications and current uses of digital media. In her courses she taps into the value of interactive elements in every arena and explores how they could affect the ways new concepts and activities are developed in distinct fields. She has presented some of these thoughts at various events such as the AAM conference (2009), and the IXDA South America (2010,2011). She has taught various courses at Danish institutions such as IT University of Copenhagen, University of Copenhagen and Kolding School of Design as well as Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Querétaro in Mexico.

 Proposals and inquiries should be sent electronically to Isabel Froes (icgf@itu.dk).

GOVERNING MOBILITIES

Lausanne, October 31st – November 1st, 2012

- New deadline for abstract submission - April 23rd -

Aspirations of seamless and universal mobilities are a hallmark of social and economic life at the beginning of the 21st century. As systems of governance relying upon particular forms of [...]]]> Call for papers – Cosmobilities Conference 2012

GOVERNING MOBILITIES

Lausanne, October 31st – November 1st, 2012

- New deadline for abstract submission - April 23rd -

Aspirations of seamless and universal mobilities are a hallmark of social and economic life at the beginning of the 21st century. As systems of governance relying upon particular forms of governmentality developed in western societies to more effectively and productively propagate and sustain the emerging capitalist system and manage its socioeconomic disjunctures, mobility has become a matter of special concern. A set of interlocking rationales, apparatus, institutions, roles and procedures of governance have come to sustain powerful `mobility regimes` justifying, stabilizing, naturalizing, controlling and disciplining particular forms of mobilities characterizing contemporary social, economic and political life in the north Atlantic rim.

Nowadays the modern society is more than ever a “society on the move”. The development of transnational mobility systems across the world involving huge networks of transport and communication infrastructures such as airports, roads, trains, shipping and mobile communication have enabled the flow of people, money, objects, and information at an unprecedented scale. In this process massive social, economic, political and environmental processes, connecting specific social groups, places and regions and disconnecting others, are activated. Thus motility, referring to entities’ capacity to be mobile in social and geographic spaces, is becoming increasingly important.

But the logic, form and versatility of these new, emerging mobility regimes still need to be thoroughly described and understood. Hegemonic mobility regimes such as global transport, urban and regional, corporate mobility regimes are being intensely contested and challenged by the realities of global risks, economic crises, demographic changes and alternative utopias pursued by various social actors. Controversies around climate change, for example, evidence that the cosmopolitization of societies, the potential for mobility afforded by multiple, interlocking and networked transport and communication infrastructures and the idea of a global market, critically rely upon unsustainable use of resources and increasingly fragile mobility systems.

This conference focuses on the question of which systems of governance are involved in these processes and how they are evolving as a result of these trends at a time when the future looks less and less like the past. In contrast to mainstream scientific literature and studies on transport and mobility dominated by works on travel and commuting, in this conference we propose to examine the governance of individual and collective actors’ mobility projects. In modern societies, where discourses lauding spatial  and social mobility seem prevalent, this conference aims to understand
critically how public policies consider the coexistence of different types of mobility projects, and inequalities linked to this diversity.

The conference is co-organised with the MSFS’ (Mobilités spatiales, fluidités sociales) francophone conference. Joint session(s) will take place October 31st. The call for papers for the MSFS conference will soon be available at http://lasur.epfl.ch/

Abstracts of no more than 350 words should be submitted electronically to Dr Hanja Maksim (hanja.maksim@epfl.ch) and Dr Emmanuel Ravalet (emmanuel.ravalet@epfl.ch) by April 23rd.

Moving boundaries in mobilities research

Organised by the University of Cagliari in collaboration with the Cosmobilities Network

Venue: University of Cagliari (Sardinia, Italy)

Dates: 5-7 July 2012.

Keynote speakers

Malene Freudendal-Pedersen (Roskilde, Cosmobilities Network)

Sven Kesselring (MoRE, Munich, Cosmobilities Network)

Mimi Sheller (mCenter, Drexel, Philadelphia, Pan American Mobilities Network)

Background

Travel Ideals: Engaging with Spaces of Mobility
The University of Melbourne, 18-20 July 2012

Abstracts deadlines: 30 April 2012
http://www.travelresearchnetwork.com/conference2012.htm

Keynote Speakers:
Professor Mary Louise Pratt, Silver Professor, New York University
Professor Renato Rosaldo, Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences, New York University
Professor [...]]]> Call for papers

Travel Ideals: Engaging with Spaces of Mobility
The University of Melbourne, 18-20 July 2012

Abstracts deadlines: 30 April 2012
http://www.travelresearchnetwork.com/conference2012.htm

Keynote Speakers:
Professor Mary Louise Pratt, Silver Professor, New York University
Professor Renato Rosaldo, Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences, New York University
Professor Charles Forsdick, James Barrow Professor of French, University of Liverpool
Professor Tim Youngs, Professor of English&  Travel Studies, Nottingham Trent University

Travel is an ideal for many, with more and more members of affluent societies using travel to broaden their education while attempting to realize their true potential in a place and a culture where the burdens of class, gender, sexuality, history, politics, religion and language can be renegotiated. Many questions can be raised about ‘the ideal’ of travel, such the imperative to prioritize ‘setting out’ and movement, and possession of the traveling experience by means such as photography, or the blog entry.

Mary Louise Pratt’s seminal work on travel narratives Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (1992, 2007) provides a framework for analyzing the “appropriating gaze” of colonial territoriality, but is also relevant to contemporary travel in developing regions, as well as various other contexts.

We invite papers (and panels) that focus on either the trajectory or the destination or encompass both, and which will contribute to an overall program that demonstrates the pluralism of ideals in travel writing, cultural tourism and mobility studies. We welcome proposals from various disciplines including anthropology, area studies, cinema studies, creative writing, cultural studies, geography, historical studies, language and literature studies, media and communications, migration and mobility studies, philosophy, postcolonial studies, sociology, tourism, and travel writing and other relevant areas, as well as interdisciplinary approaches.

Postgraduate students are most welcome to submit proposals for papers and panels in the program and there will be activities and sessions designed to address specific research issues for postgraduate students during the conference.

Please visit the conference website for more details:
http://www.travelresearchnetwork.com/conference2012.html

This conference is organized by the Travel Research Network for Travel Writing, Cultural Tourism and Mobility Studies at the University of Melbourne.

Please send abstracts of 200-300 words including Paper/Panel title, Institutional Affiliation and Contact Details before 30 April 2012 to Josiane Smith (Research Associate): josis@unimelb.edu.au<mailto:josis@unimelb.edu.au>