Kathleen Stewart – författare

A Space on the Side of the Road vividly evokes an "other" America that survives precariously among the ruins of the West Virginia coal camps and "hollers." To Kathleen Stewart, this particular "other" exists as an excluded subtext to the American narrative of capitalism, modernization, materialism, and democracy. In towns like Amigo, Red Jacket, Helen, Odd, Viper, Decoy, and Twilight, men and women "just settin''" track a dense social imaginary through stories of traumas, apparitions, encounters, and eccentricities. Stewart explores how this rhythmic, dramatic, and complicated storytelling imbues everyday life in the hills and forms a cultural poetics. Alternating her own ruminations on language, culture, and politics with continuous accounts of "just talk," Stewart propels us into the intensity of this nervous, surreal "space on the side of the road." It is a space that gives us a glimpse into a breach in American society itself, where graveyards of junked cars and piles of other trashed objects endure along with the memories that haunt those who have been left behind by "progress." Like James Agee''s portrayal of the poverty-stricken tenant farmers of the Depression South in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, this book uses both language and photographs to help readers encounter a fragmented and betrayed community, one "occupied" by schoolteachers, doctors, social workers, and other professionals representing an "official" America. Holding at bay any attempts at definitive, social scientific analysis, Stewart has concocted a new sort of ethnographic writing that conveys the immediacy, density, texture, and materiality of the coal camps. A Space on the Side of the Road finally bridges the gap between anthropology and cultural studies and provides us with a brilliant and challenging experiment in thinking and writing about "America."

Stewart refrains from positing an overarching system—whether it’s called globalization or neoliberalism or capitalism—to describe the ways that economic, political, and social forces shape individual lives. Instead, she begins with the disparate, fragmented, and seemingly inconsequential experiences of everyday life to bring attention to the ordinary as an integral site of cultural politics. Ordinary affect, she insists, is registered in its particularities, yet it connects people and creates common experiences that shape public feeling. Through this anecdotal history—one that poetically ponders the extremes of the ordinary and portrays the dense network of social and personal connections that constitute a life—Stewart asserts the necessity of attending to the fleeting and changeable aspects of existence in order to recognize the complex personal and social dynamics of the political world.

This comprehensive handbook covers human mobility within urban contexts, integrating academic theories with pragmatic insights and offering a detailed analysis of the diverse facets of human mobility and its substantial impact on the urban landscape, economy, and societal structures. It explains key fundamental concepts, methods, and models, presenting an in-depth exploration of predictive analytics, clustering patterns, advanced trajectory embedding techniques, artificial intelligence, machine learning, geographic information systems (GIS), Internet of Things (IoT), and smart city innovations. The authors include many case studies and examples of urban mobility in practice, making the content relatable and practical for educators, students, researchers, and practitioners.

Features

Urban Human Mobility: Practices, Analytics, and Strategies for Smart Cities is for professionals, academics, and upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of urban planning/design, GIScience, data mining, and social sciences.

This comprehensive handbook covers human mobility within urban contexts, integrating academic theories with pragmatic insights and offering a detailed analysis of the diverse facets of human mobility and its substantial impact on the urban landscape, economy, and societal structures. It explains key fundamental concepts, methods, and models, presenting an in-depth exploration of predictive analytics, clustering patterns, advanced trajectory embedding techniques, artificial intelligence, machine learning, geographic information systems (GIS), Internet of Things (IoT), and smart city innovations. The authors include many case studies and examples of urban mobility in practice, making the content relatable and practical for educators, students, researchers, and practitioners.

Features

Urban Human Mobility: Practices, Analytics, and Strategies for Smart Cities is for professionals, academics, and upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in the fields of urban planning/design, GIScience, data mining, and social sciences.