John Randolph
Dec 9, 2009 6:55:06 PM
As is argued in Kaufmann, "Mobility" (see above), three branches of social sciences (geography, transport science, and sociology) have traditionally employed 'mobility' as a category of analysis, each understanding the term slightly differently:
1) geography: "movement in space";
2) transport science: "traffic flows";
3) sociology: "change of social position or role";
And of course, they don't own the term, since it may be found in any dictionary with a variety of meanings.
Yet as the artificiality of separating -- say -- migration from daily movement, or the history of transport from the history of social distinction -- has become more apparent, and as a range of other disciplines (academic and professional) have become more interested in understanding the role of movement in human life, the borderlines between these sub-disciplines are breaking down. The study of mobility has taken on a less topical, and more interdisciplinary character.
As a result, this bibliography features works drawn from multiple traditions -- transport studies, geography, historical sociology and migration studies, as well as new, humanistic interrogations of movement as a cultural phenomenon. What this analytic breadth lacks in clarity, I hope, it will gain in interpretive power and interest.
John Randolph
Dec 22, 2009 8:53:15 PM
I accidentally just uploaded a bibliography on the early Russian empire to this list; not all of it was on topic in this context. I've deleted as much as I could back out, but if you're stumped as to why there's a random entry or two here, that may be why.