June 12, 2018
On August 29-31, 2018 the “Nomadism, Mobilities and Media” conference will be held at AUCA. The conference is dedicated to the World Nomad Games III
‘Modern man might be so mobile that he can never establish roots and his experience of place may be all too superficial’ (Tuan, 1977, 183).
Manuel Castells outlined a "network society" and suggested that the "space of places" is being surpassed by a "space of flows." (Castells, 1989)
Mobilities is a contemporary paradigm in the social sciences that explores the movement of people (Human migration, travel, transport), ideas (see e.g. meme) and things (transport), as well as the broader social implications of those movements (Urry, 2000)
Several typologies have been formulated to clarify the wide variety of mobilities. Most notably, John Urry divides mobilities into five types: mobility of objects, corporeal mobility, imaginative mobility, virtual mobility and communicative mobility. Later, Leopoldina Fortunati and Sakari Taipale proposed an alternative typology taking the individual and the human body as a point of reference. They differentiate between ‘macro-mobilities’ (consistent physical displacements), ‘micro-mobilities’ (small-scale displacements), ‘media mobility’ (mobility added to the traditionally fixed forms of media) and ‘disembodied mobility’ (the transformation in the social order).
Mobility also incorporates how topologies of social networks relate to how complex patterns form and change. Contemporary information technologies and ways of life often create broad but weak social ties across time and space, with social life incorporating fewer chance meetings and more networked connections.
Nomadism has the central importance in the genesis of the modern nation of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakstan and other Turkic and Persian nations.
Nomadism is a way of life and human existence that is connected with permanent and more or less regular movements of people between different locations.
“Nomadism, Mobilities and Media” conference invites papers which examine both the large-scale movements of people, objects, capital, and information across the world, as well as more local processes of daily transportation, movement through public and private spaces, and the travel of material things in everyday life, the diverse mobilities of peoples, objects, images, information and wastes; and of the complex interdependencies between, and social consequences of, these diverse mobilities.
While mobilities is commonly associated with sociology, contributions to the “Nomadism, Mobilities and Media” conference are welcome from scholars in anthropology, cultural studies, economics, geography, migration studies, science and technology studies, and tourism and transport studies etc.
“Nomadism, Mobilities and Media” conference welcomes abstracts, research in progress and research papers in the following subjects which have been explored in the mobilities paradigm:
Please send your abstracts not more than 300 words to nomad@auca.kg no later than June 30, 2018.
American University of Central Asia
7/6 Aaly Tokombaev Street
Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic 720060
Tel.: +996 (312) 915000 + Еxt.
Fax: +996 (312) 915 028
AUCA Contacts
University Directory
Webmail
eCourses
Sitemap
Employment Opportunities
Emergency Contacts