Mobility in History

Gijs Mom, Gordon Pirie, Laurent Tissot

Description

For decades scholars in diverse fields have examined problems in the history of mobility. Their diversity was their strength but also their limitation, as disciplinary boundaries impeded the exchange of ideas that lets scholarship flourish. Since 2003 the International Association for the History of Traffic, Transport and Mobility (T2M) has served as a free-trade zone, fostering a new interdisciplinary vitality in a now-flourishing field. Now, with the publication of its first yearbook, T2M has surveyed these gains in the form of a comprehensive state-of-the-art review of research in the field. Here, twenty-seven scholars in the history of mobility, from sixteen countries and five continents, present synopses of recent research. Besides reviews of research in thirteen countries, contributions also include thematic reviews relating mobility to the environment, automobile fetishism, race, gender, and other transnational themes. All in all, more than sixty scholars within and beyond T2M cooperated in this project, making it a truly collective work.

Sujets

• Durability
• Mobilité
• Pratique
• Transport
• Développement durable

Informations

• Publié par: alphil-presses-universitaires-suisses
• Nombre de lectures: 2
• EAN13: 9782940489701
• Langue: English

Extrait

Couverture
4e de couverture
Titre





M OBILITY IN HISTORY
T HE STATE OF THE ART IN THE HISTORY OF TRANSPORT , TRAFFIC AND MOBILITY



edited by:

Gijs Mom
Gordon Pirie
Laurent Tissot




Editions Alphil – Presses universitaires suisses
Copyright


© Éditions Alphil – Presses universitaires suisses, 2009
Case postale 5
2002 Neuchâtel 2
Suisse

www.alphil.ch
www.presssesuniversitairessuisses.ch

EAN Epub : 978-2-940489-70-1




Publié avec l’appui du Fonds national suisse de la recherche scientifique.






Photo de couverture: Cover Zig-Zag Magazine (Santiago, Chile), Vol. 4, number 150, 5th January 1908. Source: Biblioteca Nacional de Chile.


Responsable d’édition: Alain Cortat
Conception graphique et mise en page: www.nusbaumer.ch
P REFACE
Yearbooks or equivalent regular research surveys are standard elements in several academic subjects. Among the signs that a lively field of mobility history is forming is this initiative by the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility (T 2 M) to publish an annual overview of the state of the art. The contributions in this first edition testify that research in past transport and mobility is flourishing around the globe. The researchers have diverse academic backgrounds, ages and nationalities. Many contributors to this first collection are younger scholars. That so many authors, especially of the brief essays, were willing to write overviews on countries, continents or topics to a tight deadline also testifies to the vitality of the mobility history ‘project’, as it is called in one of the contributions.
The basic guideline for all the (double-blind) peer-reviewed submissions in this Edition is that they have the promise to become well-regarded entry points into a particular field of mobility history. Indeed, by opting for a multiple-cycle peer reviewing procedure, our ambition was and is to make this a high-quality publication, rather than to strive for an encyclopaedic approach. In other words: the volume is intended as a contribution to ongoing debate about the very identity and demarcations of the field. We are interested in the main trends for the entire field of mobility history and for its multiple subfields. We hope that the way these trends are unearthed and identified will provoke debate about the direction the field should be following, and even lay down some pointers.
This launch edition comprises four lengthy survey articles and twenty shorter commentaries. In his paper on design, David Gartman argues that in the past American automobiles have constituted cultural fetishes representing individual freedom, but that current contradictions are undermining this automotive fetishism and providing possibilities for a new car culture. Gartman was T 2 M keynote speaker at the association’s fifth jubilee conference in Helmond, the Netherlands, where he emphasized the need to give more attention to the mobile artefact itself and its technology and design. Using US examples especially, Tom McCarthy discusses written environmental histories with a mobility slant, and vice versa, and suggests research opportunities in aviation, automobility and tourism. A keynote speaker at T 2 M’s sixth conference in Ottawa, Canada, McCarthy has begun to redress the field’s shortage of expertise in environmental history. The relationship between history and the social sciences is the subject of a third paper. In an article about the history of the concept of mobility in the social sciences, Vincent Kaufmann shows the need for a broad approach to mobility and considers the concept of motility in this context. We are especially pleased that Kaufmann was willing to contribute as we see the marriage of mobility history and current mobility analysis as a stepping stone to a new mobility history. A collectively written overview of the state of the art traverses three modes of transport. Gijs Mom, Colin Divall and Peter Lyth show that studies of land transport, in Europe, the US and beyond, proliferated during the last decade, but that the founding of T 2 M in 2003 and the affiliation of The Journal of Transport History to it promoted a largely European mobility history dominated by road mobility and road construction history.
The state-of-the-art Section can be read as a general introduction to the shorter pieces in the second part of the Yearbook that discuss the last five years of mobility history in relation to particular countries and continents, from China to Switzerland and Latin America, and topics, from gender and race to public transport. The contributors use diverse sources and methodologies to shed light on comparative mobilities, their instutionalisation and their framings.
The format of this collection is open to change as research evolves and as future invitations and submissions dictate. The next edition, for example, may include a section on classic studies in mobility history. The editors will consider all submissions and suggestions and establish it as a key record of mobility history research.
For their editorial assistance, we wish to thank Clay McShane of Northeastern University and Peter Norton of the University of Virginia, especially the latter for his elaborate desk editing at the very last moment and under a lot of stress. Sonja Beekers and student-assistants Thomas Thunnissen and Jorrit Bakker (all at Eindhoven University of Technology) were instrumental in organizing the editorial process and desk-editing the final manuscript, respectively. We also thank Alain Cortat of Alphil for his cooperation and Laurent Tissot for his help in the editing process.
We also would like to thank the referees without whom this fully peer-reviewed publication would not have been possible. In alphabetical order (and noting that two referees preferred to stay anonymous) we would like to express our gratitude to the following colleagues:

Georgine Clarsen
University of Wollongong, Australia
Hans-Liudger Dienel
Berlin University of Technology, Germany
Colin Divall
Institute of Railway Studies Transport History, York, UK
Jochen Eisenbrand
Vitra Design Museum, Germany
Étienne Faugier
Universities of Lumière Lyon 2 and Laval, France, Canada
Valentina Fava
Foundation for the History of Technology, the Netherlands
Michael R. Fein
Johnson Wales University, USA
Jan-Bart Gewald
Leiden University, the Netherlands
Cédric Humair
University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Emiliya Karaboeva
Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
Nanny Kim
Heidelberg University, Germany
Steve Koerner
Independent Scholar, Victoria, B.C., Canada
Bernd Kreuzer
Johannes-Kepler Universität Linz, Austria
Nicolas P. Maffei
Norwich University College of the Arts, UK
Clay McShane
Northeastern University, USA
Peter Merriman
Aberystwyth University, UK
Liz Millward
University of Manitoba, Canada
Raymond A. Mohl
University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA
Massimo Moraglio
Turin University, Italy
Peter D. Norton
University of Virginia, USA
Arnaud Passalacqua
University Paris VII, France
Bruce Pietrykowski
University of Michigan ‑ Dearborn, USA
Timo de Rijk
Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands
Matthew Roth
University of Southern California, USA
Frank Schipper
Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
Johan Schot
Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands
Cotten Seiler
Dickinson College, USA
Lewis Siegelbaum
Michigan State University, USA
Elitza Stanoeva
Humboldt University, Germany
Lucy Taksa
University of New South Wales, Australia
Laurent Tissot
University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Yaprak Tütün
Binghamton University, USA
Rudi Volti
Pitzer College (emeritus), USA
Maggie Walsh
University of Nottingham (emeritus), UK
Donald Weber
Amsab-Institute of Social History, Belgium
Garth Wilson
Canada Science and Technology Museum, Canada

The editors,
Gijs Mom
Gordon Pirie
Laurent Tissot
I T HE STATE OF THE ART
T OWARDS A PARADIGM SHIFT ? A DECADE OF TRANSPORT AND MOBILITY HISTORY
Gijs Mom
Eindhoven University of Technology
Colin Divall
Institute of Railway Studies & Transport History, York
Peter Lyth
Nottingham University Business School
 
I NTRODUCTION
In 2005 the programme committee of the annual conference of the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility (T 2 M) rejected a proposal for a paper on lighthouses on the grounds that it was not very well related to transport history. Leading officers of a fledgling society (founded in 2003) dedicated to the history of transport, traffic and mobility were apparently confused about the very definition of their field of scholarship. After all, presentations about road traffic lights and other submissions on mobility infrastructure had been readily accepted during the previous conferences. 1
Far from claiming to solve the problem of the definition of T 2 M’s field, this contribution tries to provide a solid basis for a debate on the field’s borders, and the possib