The Politics of Proximity
Mobility and Immobility in Practice

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.

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