Losing Touch with People and Place: Labor Mobilities, Desensitized Bodies, Disconnected Lives

Abstract

Losing touch is a pervasive bodily experience that has received surprisingly little geographical attention. Developing geographical thought on mobility and touch, our article aims to provide a more comprehensive account of the geographies of losing touch. Conceptually, we propose that enclosure and exposure are two spatial metaphors that can help to understand processes of losing touch in terms of reconfigured body–environment relations. Substantively, we explore losing touch by referring to experiences of mobile workers who work away from home for periods of time. Reflecting on interview encounters with male mobile workers in Australia, we present four distinctive experiences of losing touch and analyze them in terms of enclosure and exposure. For our mobile workers, losing touch is an iterative process of desensitization that can crystallize in tipping points where losing touch eventually becomes sharply registered in sensation, potentially catalyzing new forms of agency. We conclude that losing touch can be understood as a form of estrangement that is intensified by mobile work regimes.

失去联系是很多人都有过的亲身经历, 但这个现象在地理层面上却极少受到关注。本文将通过对关于流动性和联系的问题进行地理层面的思考, 为失去联系在地理学上的意义进行更为全面的阐述。我们从概念上认为“封闭”和“暴露”是两种空间隐喻, 它们可以就重新设定身体和环境的关系帮助我们理解失去联系的过程。在实际研究中, 我们通过在外工作的流动工作者的经历来探究“失去联系”这个现象。在对澳大利亚的男性流动工作者进行了采访接触后, 我们提出了四种针对“失去联系” 的显著经历, 然后从“封闭”和“暴露”的角度对其进行分析。对于这些流动工作者而言, 失去联系是一个反复的、渐失敏感性的过程, 该过程最终将在临界点处使“失去联系”通过情感得到具体体现, 并有可能催生新的作用形式。我们得出的结论是：我们可以将失去联系理解为一种疏远的形式, 而各种流动工作体制将会进一步加剧这种现象。

La pérdida de contacto es una experiencia corporal generalizada que sorprendentemente ha recibido poca atención entre los geógrafos. Al desarrollar pensamiento geográfico alrededor de movilidad y contacto, nuestro artículo provee un recuento más amplio de las geografías relacionadas con la pérdida de contacto. Conceptualmente, proponemos al confinamiento y la exposición como dos metáforas espaciales que pueden ayudar a entender los procesos de pérdida de contacto en términos de cuerpo reconfigurado–relaciones ambientales. Sustancialmente, nosotros exploramos la pérdida de contacto refiriéndonos a las experiencias de trabajadores móviles que trabajan lejos de sus casas durante determinados períodos de tiempo. Reflexionando sobre encuentros para entrevista con trabajadores móviles masculinos en Australia, presentamos cuatro experiencias distintas de pérdida de contacto y las analizamos en términos de confinamiento y exposición. Para los trabajadores de nuestra encuesta, la pérdida de contacto es un proceso repetitivo de insensibilización que puede cristalizar en escenarios de punta donde la pérdida de contacto eventualmente se convierte en agudo registro sensorial, potencialmente catalizando nuevas formas de agencia. Concluimos que perder contacto puede llegar a entenderse como una forma de distanciamiento que es intensificada por los regímenes de trabajo móvil.

Key Words:

• embodiment
• estrangement
• labor
• mobilities
• sensation

关键词:

• 体现
• 疏离
• 劳动力
• 流动性
• 感觉

Palabras clave:

• distanciamiento
• movilidades
• personificación
• sensación
• trabajo

Acknowledgments

We thank Nik Heynen and three anonymous reviewers for their supportive engagement with our article. We are also grateful to Tim Edensor and Vickie Zhang for their constructive comments on a previous version.

Notes

1 An Australian term for a portable building used for temporary accommodation in remote locations.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

David Bissell

DAVID BISSELL is an Associate Professor in the School of Geography at The University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC 3010, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]. His research draws on cultural geography and theories of mobility to investigate contemporary social problems involving mobility–labor relationships.

Elizabeth R. Straughan

ELIZABETH R. STRAUGHAN is a Research Associate in the School of Geography at The University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC 3010, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research considers the sensory and emotional aspects of embodied practices with attentiveness to their social, cultural, and ethical implications.

Andrew Gorman-Murray

ANDREW GORMAN-MURRAY is a Professor in the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University, Penrith NSW 2751, Australia. E-mail: [email protected]. His research explores urban and regional transformations, household dynamics, and disaster planning and emergency management.