Geographies of Mobility: Recent Advances in Theory and Method

This book seeks to bring together different philosophical, theoretical, and methodological approaches to the study of human mobility within the discipline of geography. With five thematic sections – conceptualizing and analyzing mobility, inequalities of mobility, politics of mobility, decentering mobility, and qualifying abstraction – and 27 substantive chapters by leading researchers in the field, it provides a comprehensive overview of the latest thinking about human mobility and related issues. The contributors discuss mobility issues as diverse as everyday mobilities of young people, migrants and refugees, and sex workers; the relationships between citizenship and mobility; and the potential and pitfalls of big data for understanding mobility. This, coupled with a broad international focus, means that Geographies of Mobility will not only encourage and enrich dialogue on a theme that is of major importance to varied geographic research communities, but will also be of great interest to students and researchers across the wider social sciences. This book was originally published as a special issue of Annals of the American Association of Geographers.

Mei-Po Kwan is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. Her research interests include human mobility, environmental health, sustainable transport and cities, and geographic information science. She has received many prestigious honors and awards for her groundbreaking contributions to these areas.

Tim Schwanen is an Associate Professor of Transport Studies and the Director of the Transport Studies Unit in the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford, UK. His research focuses on questions around mobility, cities, climate change, well-being, and inequality.