Call for Papers: Move-in move-out: Impact of new flows and mobilities on translocal development
2015 AAG Annual Meeting, Chicago, April 21-25, 2015
Organisers:
Maggi Leung and Annelies Zoomers (International Development Studies, Department of Geography, Utrecht University, The Netherlands)
Globalisation has given rise to new and intensified transnational and translocal relationships. A wide range of people and institutions are becoming ever more interconnected. This is reflected in the rise and intensification of a range of new flows and mobilities of individuals and communities (as well as of commodities, money, knowledge, resources etc.). These linkages shape places, development trajectories and livelihood possibilities in distinct ways. In this session, we are particularly interested in examining the nature and impact of new types of ‘place hopping’ performed by individuals and communities of diverse geography and socio-economic backgrounds. They include highly-skilled academics (moving from university to university); business consultants integrating different localities in a single value chain; but also less-skilled workers contracted by far away mining companies or agro-industries; people working as volunteers in the context of development projects; residential tourists flying-in and out of sunny destination following the seasons; new categories of refugees and asylum seekers; and business people searching for opportunities while suddenly disappearing after bankruptcy.
These mobilities connect (parts of) the world in dynamic, complex, contextualised and often contested ways. Yet, existing research on the migration-development nexus has been slow in taking seriously the particularities of such mobilities and their relationship to development. Are popular notions and analytical frameworks in migration/mobility research such as transnationalism, circular or temporary migration sufficient in making sense of the mobility experiences and development impact of these ‘hopping crowds’? Are new conceptualisation and methodologies called for in our analyses of these mobility trajectories?
This session explores the impact of such move-in move-out ‘new(er)’ human mobilities, examined in intersections with other political, economic, socio-cultural and ecological processes. We invite contributions that examine specific new flows and mobilities (and the institutions behind the moving individuals and communities), how they play a(n important) role in creating a matrix of (new) links that connect people and places with places and people elsewhere (cf. Appadurai’s ‘landscapes of translocalities’), and in turn, how these new types of translocality create new development opportunities, but also restrict people’s manoeuvring space to escape from poverty or ‘capability deprivation’.
Contributions may be theoretical, empirical and/or methodological in their orientation. Topics include but are not limited to:
- What are the characteristics/particularities of different types of move-in move-out migrants or ‘hopping crowds’ (Who are they? How do they move? What institutions are behind these mobilities?)
- What are the results in terms of ‘translocal development’, in particular from equitable and sustainable development perspectives?
- Under what circumstances do these flows and mobilities slowly materialise and solidify in the form of ‘corridors’ (hence more than occasional nature)? How do these ‘development corridors’ produce development opportunities and/or constraints? (How) do these ‘development corridors lead to self-enforcement and path dependencies?
- What kind of ‘chain effects’ (indirect effects) do particular move-in move-out mobility trajectory lead to? How do development impacts travel in time and space? How can we capture the dynamics of a certain mobility-development process to chart longer-term and wider-spatial impact of certain mobility trajectory?
If you are interested in participating in these sessions, please send a short abstract of no more than 250 words with up to five keywords to Annelies Zoomers
Guidelines for preparing abstracts are available at:
http://www.aag.org/cs/annualmeeting/call_for_papers/abstract_guidelines
For more information about the 2014 AAG Annual Meeting, please visit www.aag.org/annualmeeting.