Contemporary Mobility Research Articles

Of canoes, tinnies and helicopters: contemporary maritime mobility and place relations in north central Arnhem Land

The mobility of Indigenous Australians has long been a source of bureaucratic attention in the Northern Territory (NT). While much government policy has focused on sedentarising Indigenous people into towns – justified under the agendas of economic viability and streamlined service delivery – anthropologists have brought attention to the way these policies render invisible kin-based relationships to ancestral lands and sanction certain forms of movement. Ethnographic studies of Australian Indigenous mobility have examined the systems of interconnection between people and place that shape distinct Indigenous social and economic values related to movement. This literature, however, has left practices of maritime mobility largely unstudied. This paper examines historic and contemporary mobility between the towns of Warruwi and Maningrida in north central Arnhem Land. This coastline is devoid of both road access and outstations, in contrast to most of coastal Arnhem Land. As such, it is marked by patterns of maritime mobility, once by kupuny (dugout canoe) and now in motorised metal boats known as ‘tinnies’. The paper draws on several months of ethnographic research conducted in Warruwi, Maningrida, and the coastline between the towns to examine patterns of movement across these waters. The paper asks how the temporal acceleration of maritime mobility interfaces with the affective dimensions of relationship in ancestral Country. I argue that as mobility accelerates, non-Indigenous institutions have an increasingly acute mediating effect on encounters between Indigenous landowners and their ancestral lands and seas.

Co-designing accessible tourism WITH the disability community for embodied choice

Reflective of ‘Nothing about us without us’, this paper contributes to contemporary methodological approaches to research and practice about people with disability (PwD) through examining a case of policy co-design with PwD and disability advocacy organisations. Contemporary mobilities of PwD travelling to experience natural and protected areas requires whole-of-jourrney approaches. A narrative review of academic and grey literature provides insight into current conceptualisations of disability, accessible tourism, and stakeholder involvement. What becomes apparent from this review is the lack of involvement of PwD beyond often tokenistic consultation. Similarly, in academic literature, there are few examples of active engagement of PwD beyond being the subject of the research, where ableist perspectives consider PwD as ‘vulnerable’. Following the narrative reivew, a case study of an online policy-driven co-design process implemented by a protected area agency is present. The case explores the complexity, and benefits, of authentically working with PwD, to listen to their voices and lived experiences, to understand their needs across a whole-of-journey approach, so that they too may enjoy the benefits derived from visiting natural areas. This co-design process should be applied in future accessible tourism research to avoid further marginalising of PwD, understanding their abilities and agency.

Neuroliberalism in global education policy: towards a critical framework of neuroliberal governance in education

ABSTRACT This paper takes on the recent surge of neuroscience in global education policy and argues that the concept of neuroliberalism provides an insightful perspective through which to understand and critically analyze the contemporary mobilization of neurosciences within education. In particular, the paper unpacks the notion of neuroliberal governance as a context for examining emerging forms of behavioral government in education, and proposes a critical framework to enhance a research agenda on the implications of neuroliberalism in education policy and practice. The discussion explores the challenges for education scholars engaged in research and analysis that aims to bring the consequences of neuroliberal governance into view. In its account of what a critical neuroliberal framework might offer, the paper suggests that analyzing the ethical and political implications of neuroliberal governance in education is essential for unpacking the policy enthusiasm for neuroscience and its global reach.

Planning for socially sustainable rural housing in Sweden

The aim of this article is to analyse and discuss policies and planning for rural housing, with a special focus on social sustainability. In this endeavour, we review research with such a focus and put this in dialogue with an analysis of the contemporary situation regarding rural housing challenges and policies in Sweden. Countrysides in Europe, including Sweden, are diverse and face different housing-related challenges. The literature illuminates spatial as well as socio-economic inequalities. Both a low demand for housing related to a shrinking labour market and out-migration and a high pressure on the housing market triggering restrictive or conditional measures to avoid speculative developments and rural gentrification affect social sustainability.Our case study on policy and planning measures that deal with rural housing in Sweden shows that there is a need to further investigate and understand the role of housing in rural areas for various groups and people with fewer resources, including further elaboration on the connection between mobilities and housing needs. A narrow focus upon housing provision that does not take into account access to services and communications as well as contemporary mobility flows of different groups challenges equality and well-being in rural areas. In Sweden, housing is primarily a municipal, local responsibility. However, exogenous forces or trends mean that housing issues play out at both the regional and national levels and put the municipalities in a difficult situation.

Self Parking Car

Abstract: The use of vehicles has increased and results in creating parking issues. This research tackles the pressing need for improved urban parking efficiency and reduced human intervention through the exploration of self-parking cars. In this project, utilizing advanced sensor technologies and refined control strategies, has significantly enhanced accuracy, speed and adaptability in parking procedure, offering sensible solutions to urban challenges like traffic congestion and limited parking accessibility. In our self-parking car project, we use four motors to regulate movement, an Arduino processing unit to make decisions, and two ultrasonic sensors to identify obstacles. The motors allow for accurate vehicle movement, and the processing unit interprets sensor data and controls motor movements. Ultrasonic sensors identify obstacles, allowing the car to drive and park itself. This integration provides safe and efficient self-parking capability. While our work lays a solid foundation, ongoing research is advocated to fully unlock and integrate the transformative potential of self-parking cars into urban environments, addressing contemporary mobility issues. Sure, here's a simplified version. Continuously exploring and improving this technology is really important. It helps make sure that self-parking cars become a normal part of how we get around cities, which can change how we plan and move in the future.

Addressing the challenge of a “common” Future: The French contemporary mobilizations against injustice in face of the ecological and social emergencies

In face of the ecological and social emergencies, how the French contemporary mobilizations against injustices does address the issue of a fair and sustainable future? We will answer this question from a qualitative survey conducted in 2019–2020 of 130 association officials and activists on social and environmental justice, fight against racism, sexism, and /or speciesism. These mobilisations combine a radical denunciation of inequalities that goes back to their root causes with an attachment to fluidity concerning the “who”, the “what”, the “how” and the “when” of emancipation. We will examine in particular the way in which the emancipated common is part of a radical and fluid renewal of the relation to utopia by promoting both the diversity of tactics (advocacy, civil disobedience, border violence/non-violence) and the making (in) common. The activists interviewed address the link between local alternatives and the advent of a new global order in an elliptical, even enigmatic way, through metaphorical statements – “no big night, but shared gardens”, “the islets will make the archipelagos”.

Imagining post-fossil tourism mobilities with Norwegian tourists

ABSTRACT Sustainable mobility has become a catch-all term to describe forms, modes, policies and practices of mobility that are thought to have a lower environmental footprint and/or fewer social exclusions than the contemporary mobility system which is reliant on fossil fuels and private ownership. As a result, its main application has been in urban mobility contexts, often focused on everyday commuting journeys. In this paper we re-visit sustainable mobilities through the lens of tourism sustainabilities, a concept that opens space for multiple, contingent operations of sustainability for tourism mobilities. We draw empirically from qualitative interviews with 26 residents from Oslo (Norway) undertaken in 2020 to answer two questions: (1) How are tourism sustainabilities imagined and enacted by residents of the Oslo region, Norway, and (2) What (re)imaginings of tourism sustainabilities are made possible? Attentive to the sociomaterial nature of tourism sustainabilities and drawing from critical sustainabilities scholarship, we present three enactments of tourism mobilities: Forming sustainabilities; Fragmenting sustainabilities; Fracturing sustainabilities, and three (re)imaginings: Stripped Back; Having a Go; Stuck in the Mud. The social geographies of tourism mobilities are made visible, and these open space for an expansive reading of sustainable mobilities which may enable deeper understandings of the possibilities for alternative forms of mobility in a climate constrained world.

Digital public transport in New Economy – contemporary mobility trends

Public transport is treated as a nerve of all city systems. Changing cities need proper transport – contemporary trends play important role in the development of public transport in a requiring environment. In particular, the development of public transport means today phenomena such as IT systems, big data, alternative energy sources, autonomous mobility, transport effectiveness, sharing economy and personal mobility (micromobility). Author presents contemporary trends that affect cities mobility. The macroeconomic context was also taken into account – the COVID-19 pandemia, inflation, migration trends. Changes in the demand and supply of transport services have become one of the challenges for cities in the new, digital, post-pandemic perspective. The purpose of this article is to review current trends in public transport development and mobility changes. The article is an attempt to answer the questions: what is the impact of digitization and technology development on the development of public transport? How are contemporary social, economic and political problems and are they strongly changing public transport? Article is based at critical analysis of literature and selected case studies. The result of research work is the indication of the most important directions for the development of public transport and the related risks and opportunities.

People, Paper and Power: The Birth of the Passport in International Law

AbstractThis paper presents a genealogy of the passport in international law. For the most part, the origins of our contemporary mobility order are narrated from the vantage point of the grand principles of sovereignty, hospitality, and liberty. The nuts and bolts through which people access mobility – passports and visas – are generally understood to be the natural, inevitable, and fair by-products of these principles. This paper contributes to existing debates on the coloniality of international migration law by examining the universalization of the passport under the League of Nations. I argue that the universalization of the passport meant abandoning the old idea that the rights of free movement belonged to everyone and, instead, instituted a system that ranks human mobility based on national origins. Theoretically, it is proposed that attention to these “lowly” practices of mobility governance allows us to track the afterlives of race in the international order.

Encountering and Experiencing the Geopolitics of Tourism (Im)Mobilities: A Case of China’s Tourism in the South China Sea

ABSTRACT This research examines the geopolitical entanglements of China’s tourism in the South China Sea (SCS) and the geopolitical implications of uneven mobility rights on tourists’ geopolitical subjectivation. We show that maritime territorialisation in the SCS is mobile and constituted by tourism mobilities. However, although tourism mobility control constitutes and performs state territorialisation, it also generates unsatisfied internal bordering effects. We reveal that uneven mobility rights premised on territorial geopolitics are unevenly experienced by tourists. Within the contemporary deeply embedded structure of the territory-nation-state, mobility governance, hierarchy, inequity, and unevenness driven by national interests, security, and secrecy are widely accepted and taken for granted. The encounters and affective engagements of tourism mobility regulations in the SCS, intersecting with everyday experiences of mobility hierarchies as well as state geopolitical processes, contribute to shaping individuals’ geopolitical identity. This promotes the internalisation of the contemporary mobility regime and facilitates the naturalisation of state geopolitical competitions. By exploring the geopolitical experiences of selective mobility control and its geopolitical effects on tourists, this research sheds light on the uneven political spatiality of everyday tourism mobilities and offers a more nuanced and intimate understanding of the geopolitics of tourism (im)mobilities at the micro-scale.

SMS Security by Elliptic Curve and Chaotic Encryption Algorithms

Short message services (SMS) represent one of the components of the global communications network and are one of the important developments in communication technologies and communications technology. SMS messages without a password are stored in the SMS server. For the purpose of review and dispute resolution. The security of SMS content cannot be protected because it is transmitted in plain text and is accessible to network operators and employees. Therefore, the end-to-end key is based on encryption and decryption technology can provide SMS security. The security protocols used for SMS security on contemporary mobile devices were examined in this study. SMS security system encryption time affects how well mobile devices work. This shows that security technologies take longer to generate keys and encrypt keys as the key size increases. Due to the limited processing power of mobile devices, large-scale algorithms such as DES, AES, RC4, and Blowfish are not suitable for SMS encryption. SMS may be encrypted using the elliptic curve technique because it provides great security with a smaller key on devices with limited resources, such as mobile phones. And chaotic theory, encryption is simple, fast and secure data encryption. As a result, a combination of elliptic curve algorithm and chaotic encryption algorithm is proposed to achieve a high level of security. In this paper, several tests have been done to compare the algorithms in terms of throughput, power consumption, SMS size, encoding time, and decoding time. The results indicate that the proposed method is better than the comparison method.

Welcoming The Opportunities: Deciphering Contemporary Mobility of Indonesian Professionals to Japan

The research on how transnational mobility of professionals from developing countries is facilitated and constructed are still developing. Drawn on qualitative data from in-depth interviews with Indonesian professionals in Japan between 2018 and 2020 as a case study, this article discusses all the factors that facilitate the mobility of Indonesian professionals to Japan, including the individual narratives related to both Indonesia and Japan. The case study of Indonesian professionals in Japan demonstrates that the intersections of not only credentials, skills, and transnational economy between Japan and Indonesia, but also the various emerging channels such as scholarship regimes and the changing in Japan�s domestic labor market and recruitment systems have created a set of opportunities that increasingly pave the way for foreign professionals to build a career in Japan while contributing to the homeland. The transnational mobility of working professionals from developing countries to Japan could be seen as a form of welcoming such opportunities and it makes working in Japan as one of the options global talents can choose

Contemporary Mobile Commerce: Determinants of Its Adoption

Mobile commerce is the next generation of electronic commerce that allows consumers to perform many transactions via a mobile phone instead of a desktop computer. To online businesses, this commerce channel also allows them to have almost non-stop accessibility to a large population of mobile device users. This study examines the factors affecting intention to use contemporary mobile commerce on the basis of integrating perceived security, subjective norm, innovativeness, and self-efficacy into the TAM model. Statistical analysis results show that self-efficacy and innovativeness are positively related to perceived ease of use. Perceived ease of use has a positive effect on perceived usefulness. Perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived security, and subjective norm have a positive relationship with intention to use mobile commerce. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Finally, future research directions are outlined.

Concurrent Displacements: Return, Waiting for Asylum, and Internal Displacement in Northern Mexico

This paper explores the ways in which contemporary mobility dynamics in Mexico have changed over the last decade, leading to protracted displacement. It focuses on three populations: (1) the internally displaced due to violence; (2) Mexican nationals returning from the United States, both voluntarily and due to deportation; and (3) populations seeking asylum in Mexico and the United States. These three populations are not usually analyzed together and do not squarely fall under the traditional legal definitions. The paper outlines ways that situations of protracted displacement and insecurity present challenges in four interconnected arenas of life: housing, legal status, employment, and emotional well-being. For governments and local communities, protracted displacement requires immediate humanitarian responses and the development and implementation of public policies focused on integration. The paper concludes with a set of policy recommendations based on its findings.

Toward enhanced free-living fall risk assessment: Data mining and deep learning for environment and terrain classification

Fall risk assessment can be informed by understanding mobility/gait. Contemporary mobility analysis is being progressed by wearable inertial measurement units (IMU). Typically, IMUs gather temporal mobility-based outcomes (e.g., step time) from labs/clinics or beyond, capturing data for habitually informed fall risk. However, a thorough understanding of free-living IMU-based mobility is currently limited due to a lack of context. For example, although IMU-based length variability can be measured, no absolute clarity exists for factors relating to those variations, which could be due to an intrinsic or an extrinsic environmental factor. For a thorough understanding of habitual-based fall risk assessment through IMU-based mobility outcomes, use of wearable video cameras is suggested. However, investigating video data is laborious i.e., watching and manually labelling environments. Additionally, it raises ethical issues such as privacy. Accordingly, automated artificial intelligence (AI) approaches, that draw upon heterogenous datasets to accurately classify environments, are needed. Here, a novel dataset was created through mining online video and a deep learning-based tool was created via chained convolutional neural networks enabling automated environment (indoor or outdoor) and terrain (e.g., carpet, grass) classification. The dataset contained 146,624 video-based images (environment: 79,251, floor visible: 28,347, terrain: 39,026). Upon training each classifier, the system achieved F1-scores of ≥0.84 when tested on a manually labelled unseen validation dataset (environment: 0.98, floor visible indoor: 0.86, floor visible outdoor: 0.96, terrain indoor: 0.84, terrain outdoor: 0.95). Testing on new data resulted in accuracies from 51 to 100% for isolated networks and 45–90% for complete model. This work is ongoing with the underlying AI being refined for improved classification accuracies to aid automated contextual analysis of mobility/gait and subsequent fall risk. Ongoing work involves primary data capture from within participants free-living environments to bolster dataset heterogeneity.

Comprehensive analysis of continuous authentication for mobile devices

Continuous mobile authentication is an imperative aspect of ensuring the security and privacy of data in the contemporary mobile computing landscape. With the proliferation of mobile devices and the increasing dependency on mobile applications, traditional authentication methods are steadily becoming inadequate to protect sensitive information from unauthorized access. Continuous authentication techniques aim to provide ongoing and seamless verification of user identities, enhancing security while minimizing user inconvenience. This survey paper presents a comprehensive analysis of traditional authentication methods, highlighting key techniques, their integration in mobile systems, applications, and limitations. Then, we elaborate on the various techniques employed in continuous authentication. By examining the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches, this survey aims to provide researchers, practitioners, and developers with a comprehensive understanding of continuous mobile authentication, enabling them to make informed decisions when implementing authentication mechanisms in mobile applications.

Introduction—Migrants and Their Smartphones

The increasing symbiosis between contemporary mobility and global Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has been widely recognized in both migration and media studies.1 Advanced media technology, including smartphones, facilitates information exchange and instantaneous communication.2 The pervasive use of smartphones is an everyday reality for migrants, whose activities are increasingly taking place online and in real time.3 Smartphone use by migrants and their families illustrates the different scales of modern mobility within structural socioeconomic and political orders.4 Smartphones, and those applications downloaded to the device, enhance connectivity5 with regard to transactions, entertainment, socialization, networking, and activism. They help with community building and boost a sense of belonging among people who are connected via various applications.

Opposing otherness in motion: Mobile activism as transient heterotopia of resistance in Hong Kong’s networked mall protests

Although heterotopia has been widely studied as relating to the marginal or subliminal sites of the city, the ubiquity of social media and mobile technology has facilitated the development of transient forms of heterotopia in support of large-scale urban movements. Using the case of Hong Kong’s networked mall protests, this article examines acts of mobile activism, whereby the urban landscape and its routines are temporarily reconfigured and turned into spaces of popular dissent joined by people in all walks of life. Drawing on multiple data sources and guided by connective ethnography, this study illustrates how digitally connected protestors created fleeting counter-sites in and across shopping centres to defy urban policing and subvert the spatio-temporal order it imposed. Rather than reclaiming urban public spaces to offer reservoirs of freedom, the protestors enacted occasions of opposing otherness not outside of urban repression but rather carved out of it as a nimble, counter-normative type of political resistance. By charting the contours of several types of these networked mall protests, this article reveals how contemporary mobile activism invents and reproduces alternate protest time-spaces. Focusing on their capacity to refashion contentious political life in the city, it offers nuanced insights into the latest form of spatial political engagement in a networked urban setting.

Mina #Ecosmartphone Films 2021

MINA - Mobile Innovation Network and Association is the longest-running film festival in the Southern Hemisphere dedicated to mobile & smartphone filmmaking with a focus on moving-image arts, documentary, community-engaged film productions, experimental films and emerging film production forms and formats, such as MoJo, drone videos, AR and Mobile Cinematic VR. The tenth edition of MINA is presenting a special program titled #EcoSmartphoneFilms, a showcase of contemporary mobile film production about environmental protection and ecology in all its aspects. It is an eclectic collection of short international environmentally themed films from all over the world made on smartphones, pocket cameras, laptops and Instagram. The films show the planet’s beauty as well as the various local, regional and global environmental challenges we are facing. By using a variety of creative solutions that illustrate the power of mobile film, they help to raise awareness about environmental topics from around the globe and make us aware of the role mobile media can play in this. In the spirit of Margaret Mead’s statement that we should “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world” with this special #EcoSmartphoneFilms program we hope to inspire a deeper critical understanding of ecological issues and strengthen our commitment as both filmmakers and curators to inspire future generations to go mobile and stay sustainable. Save Me (UK) Michael CoppolaShot on iPhone 11 Pro Max SAVE ME is an experimental sci-fi drama short film about the fragmentation of the human psyche, manmade planetary destruction and the possible end of the subjective and objective world, told through the experiences of a lost girl stranded on a deserted beach, accompanied by an epic orchestral score and futuristic sound design with the use of CGI. Iumbar Project - The First One (Australia) Martin K. Koszolko Shot on iPad Pro This music video documents human intervention into environment. The footage shows the fate of trees and other plants disposed of by human inhabitants of the land. This short film raises questions about our relationship with the natural environment and highlights the beauty of the shapes and forms of trees. This beauty is evident even if the plants have been cut down and are no longer alive. The Almeda Fire (USA) David Scott LeibowitzShot on iPhone 11 Pro My Mobile movies took a swift turn from art to ENG when the Almeda fire swept through this part of the Rogue Valley. After The Flood (USA) Alexandra GuillossouShot on iPhone XR An observational piece on two seemingly dissimilar St. Louis events that took place in June 2019. Man and nature can be equally explosive and yet only one has the option of choice. Tree Time (USA) Alexandra Lerman Shot on iPhone 7 & iPhone X Tree Time imagines a relationship between nature and technology unmediated by human presence. The video was shot in the Amazon rainforest with a drone enacting a disembodied point of view that floats through the densely compressed forest canopy, taking off, hovering above the ground, and occasionally returning to it. Kaminda (NL) David van DeldenShot on iPhone X & iPhone 11 Pro A visual poem of a 3-year-old boy's journey of self-discovery. Kaminda revisits David’s childhood adventures narrated by a young voice in spoken words written by Juan- Carlos Goilo. From the dry northern plains to the atmospheric damp caves, Kaminda takes you through the rustic landscapes of Curaçao with stunningly captured scenes. Hear the primitive sounds of Curaçao's "Muzik di Zumbi" accompanied by scenes shot underwater, on land and in the air. Little Beings (Mexico) DiAminda Ordaz Shot on iPhone 8 I tended my senses and they were there,I stopped to contemplate and they were there, I opened my eyes and they were there,I woke up and they were there,I paid attention and they were there.So I wanted to take off my sandals,as not to hurt them with my walk.

Contemporary Mobility Decisions of International and Danish Students in Denmark Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic

The study investigates the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mobility decisions of international and domestic (Danish) students in Denmark employing a phenomonology research design. The study revealed that some of the study participants’ mobility decisions and future employment prospects were largely impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even those who had their internships abroad confirmed, uncertainties abound whether it will be done remotely or physically. Also, the switching from physical to online classes makes students-students and students-lectures interaction and relationship very challenging resulting in some cases, poor academic performance, loneliness, depression, and mental health problems. Besides, we discovered some positive endorsements towards the Danish government’s handling of the pandemic. Finally, the study proposed for a complete opening of the higher educational institutions and libraries in Denmark for physical teaching and learning to occur, with adherence to the safety protocols.