Mobility Among the Spatialities

Abstract

Despite the explosive growth of mobilities research, much sociospatial theory continues to be rooted in a sedentarist perspective, failing to incorporate the insights of this burgeoning field. Mobilities research, in contrast, often considers a variety of sociospatial relations, yet stops short of coherent integration with other dimensions of sociospatiality. In this article, we examine the mobilities turn in light of Jessop, Brenner, and Jones's (2008) TPSN framework, which recognizes the polymorphic nature of sociospatial relations. We discuss the interrelationships between mobility and the four distinct sociospatialities identified by Jessop, Brenner, and Jones: territory (T), place (P), scale (S), and networks (N). Each of these sociospatialities is coimplicated with mobility: Territory concerns the malleable areal and bordered structure of the state and the uneven freedoms granted, and constraints imposed on, objects and bodies as they attempt to move through and across political jurisdictions; place emphasizes the embedded and performative nature of mobility and considers place-appropriate and place-transgressive activity; scale concerns movement associated with the tangled and politicized processes of scale production and examines how mobility is affected by the uneven scaling of power, resources, opportunity, and identity; networks address flows of bodies, objects, and knowledge across space, through specific channels. To illustrate the coimplicated relationships among mobility and territory, place, scale, and networks, we examine the practice of automobility, stressing the ontological contingency of mobility: Neither mobility nor fixity can be assumed. Mobility is, rather, a social, cultural, and political achievement, inherently power-laden and recursively bound up in the production of territory, place, scale, and networks.