[Urbanstudy] Fw: PANEL SEARCH: Mobility & Urban Spaces in Asia

[Curt Gambetta]

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Wendy Plotkin <wendyplotkin at WBHSI.NET>
To: H-URBAN at H-NET.MSU.EDU
Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 4:32:42 PM
Subject: PANEL SEARCH: Mobility & Urban Spaces in Asia

From: Frank Conlon <conlon at u.washington.edu>

Cross-posted from H-ASIA (March 14, 2008)

Looking for paper presenter on mobility and urban space
************************************************************************
Ed. note: Here is a fascinating opening for recent work on 
"automobility"--personally I hope we can locate someone who has done 
something on the post-Maruti Indian case, but Vietnam or Korea are also 
noted--I am forwarding this also to H-Net's urban history list H-Urban 
to cast the net a bit wider. Regardless of the subject I don't 
recommend you plan on driving to San Francisco; the parking is a 
nightmare!  FFC
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Notar, Beth E." <Beth.Notar at trincoll.edu>

Looking for paper presenter on mobility and urban space

We are looking for a paper presenter for a conference panel 
<<Mobility\Mentalities: Moving through Urban Spaces in Asia>> (please 
see the full panel description below) The conference will be the 
American Anthropological Association meetings to be held in San 
Franciso, November 19 -23, 2008. We already have panel participants who 
conduct research in China and Japan and are interested in finding an 
anthropologist, geographer or sociologist who does research in another 
part of Asia, particularly India, Korea or Vietnam.

If you are interested, please contact Joshua Roth at 
jroth at mtholyoke.edu before March 21st.

Panel Description:
Mobility Mentalities:  Moving through Urban Spaces in Asia
Panel Organizer: Joshua H. Roth, Mount Holyoke College

Throughout the past century, the mass production and consumption of 
automobiles has transformed daily life for most people throughout the 
world, and reshaped not only geographical landscapes, but also the 
mindscapes, or mentalities, of those who could newly afford to own or 
ride in automobiles and those who could not. In many contexts, the 
acquisition of one's own car represented full participation in modern 
life, among other things characterized by the thrill of speed, broader 
encounters, greater individual freedom and status mobility. However, 
mass automobility has been accompanied by the human tragedy of traffic 
accidents, making automobility at best an ambivalent form of modernity. 
Moreover, automobility, while representing individual freedom, has 
quickly become the object of quintessentially modern forms of risk 
analysis and management and forms of neoliberal governance, such as 
mandatory insurance systems, licensing requirements, and traffic law 
and law enforcement. More informally, but connected to the 
institutionalized focus on safety, driving manners have evolved in 
certain societies to control interactions among strangers in the public 
spaces of the road.

While mass automobility began in the U.S. and parts of Europe in the 
first half of the 20th century, and in Japan in the 1960s, it has only 
gotten underway in China, India, and other countries in the last ten to 
fifteen years. To what extent has the meaning of automobility in these 
various countries differed from each other? Has it symbolized modernity 
and status equally in each context? To what extent has automobility 
followed a single developmental pattern? Has the later arrival of 
automobility in certain countries allowed it to follow this 
developmental patter in condensed format or has it allow it to develop 
differently? The collection of papers on this panel allows insight into 
these kinds of comparative questions. Moreover, it explores local 
cultural, social, and institutional configurations, with special 
attention to the complex of driving emotions, desires, manners, and 
mental mappings of danger.

Thank you!
Joshua H. Roth
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology and Sociology
Mount Holyoke College
South Hadley, MA  01040
jroth at mtholyoke.edu

Beth E. Notar
Associate Professor
Anthropology Department
Trinity College
Hartford, CT  06106
beth.notar at trincoll.edu
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