Dwelling in mobile times: places, practices and contestations

ABSTRACT

Mobile people dwell in local environments. The present special issue considers the relation between mobility and dwelling. This introduction to the special issue on ‘(Im)mobilities of dwelling: Places and practices’ provides a general introduction to places and practices of dwelling of highly mobile people and discusses why it is a promising subject for both cultural and mobilities studies that still needs to be addressed in its full theoretical and empirical significance. We carve out the state-of-the-art of research regarding (im)mobilities of dwelling and argue that dwelling and mobility are also an issue of power relations and contestations. Against this backdrop we demonstrate that mobility and dwelling are embedded in broader transformations of society, social inequalities and home. Moreover, this introduction demonstrates how the subsequent papers contribute to this integrated perspective on the mobile–immobile nexus.

KEYWORDS:

• Contestations
• dwelling
• home
• place
• mobility
• moorings

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Lars Meier, Dr phil, Sociologist and Geographer. He is a Senior Researcher in EU FP7 project RESCuE at the Institute for Employment Research in Nuremberg. Meier held positions as Researcher or Lecturer at the Department of Sociology at the Technische Universität Berlin, the University of Bremen, the University of Munich and the Technical University Darmstadt and was Visiting Academic at the University of Oxford. He was a Senior Researcher at the IAB and led the local team for the EU FP 7 project SPHERE. His work focuses on social inequality and diversity, cultural studies, work, migration, urban studies and qualitative methods. Recent publications include an edited book on Migrant Professionals in the City. Local Encounters, Identities, and Inequalities (Routledge 2015) and a special issue on Absence. Materiality, Embodiment, Resistance (Cultural Geographies, 2013).

Sybille Frank, Prof. Dr phil., is Junior Professor for Urban and Regional Sociology at the Department of Sociology, Technische Universität Berlin. She held positions as Researcher at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) and the Technical University Darmstadt. In 2011, Frank was awarded a Guest Professorship for Sociology of Space at the Goethe University Frankfurt; in 2014 she was a Visiting Researcher at the Priority Research Area Critical Heritage Studies of Göteborgs Universitet. Her work focuses on urban studies, tourism and heritage studies, comparative city research, and on the sociology of space and place. Recent publications include: Stadium Worlds: Football, Space and the Built Environment (ed., with Silke Steets, Routledge 2010); Städte unterscheiden lernen. Zur Analyse interurbaner Kontraste. Birmingham, Dortmund, Frankfurt, Glasgow (in German, ed., with Petra Gehring, Julika Griem and Michael Haus, Campus 2014); Wall Memorials and Heritage: The Heritage Industry of Berlin's Checkpoint Charlie (Routledge 2016a, forthcoming).