Peter Merriman – författare

Over the past twenty years there has been something of a ‘mobilities turn’ across many disciplines in the social sciences. This book charts the increasing influence this turn is having on scholars in the arts and humanities, tracing the importance of questions and feelings of movement to scholars and arts practitioners across fields such as literary studies, historical geography, history, poetry and film. The book outlines what a mobilities turn might look like in the arts and humanities, tracing a genealogy of humanities engagements with themes of movement and mobility, and examining the different methods and textual sources humanities scholars have deployed. The book is uniquely positioned to speak to two audiences: mobilities scholars in the social sciences interested in learning more about how literary and cultural texts may be incorporated into their research, and researchers in the humanities who have only recently discovered that their thematic, or conceptual interest, in movement and mobility speaks directly to theories and philosophies that have circulated in the social sciences. This diverse and stimulating collection demonstrates the potential for future intellectual dialogues and creative collaborations around the theme of mobility. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Mobilities journal.

Over the past ten to fifteen years there has emerged an increasing concern with mobility in the social sciences and humanities. In Mobility, Space and Culture, Peter Merriman provides an important and timely contribution to the mobilities turn in the social sciences, encouraging academics to rethink the relationship between movement, embodied practices, space and place.The book takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing upon theoretical and empirical work from across the social sciences and humanities to provide a critical evaluation of the relationship between 'mobility' and 'place'/'site', reformulating places as in process, open, and dynamic spatial formations. Merriman draws upon post-structuralist writings on space, practice and society to demonstrate how movement is not simply practised or experienced in relation to space and time, but gives rise to rhythms, forces, atmospheres, affects and materialities which are often more crucial to embodied apprehensions of events than sensibilities of spatiality and temporality. He draws upon detailed empirical research on experiences of, and social reactions to, driving in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain to trace how the motor-car became associated with sensations of movement-space and enmeshed with debates about embodiment, health, visuality, gender and politics.The book will be essential reading for undergraduates and postgraduates studying mobility in sociology, geography, cultural studies, politics, transport studies, and history.

Space is the first accessible text which provides a comprehensive examination of approaches that have crossed between such diverse fields as philosophy, physics, architecture, sociology, anthropology, and geography.The text examines the influence of geometry, arithmetic, natural philosophy, empiricism, and positivism to the development of spatial thinking, as well as focusing on the contributions of phenomenologists, existentialists, psychologists, Marxists, and post-structuralists to how we occupy, live, structure, and perform spaces and practices of spacing. The book emphasises the multiple and partial construction of spaces through the embodied practices of diverse subjects, highlighting the contributions of feminists, queer theorists, anthropologists, sociologists, and post-colonial scholars to academic debates. In contrast to contemporary studies which draw a clear line between scientific and particularly quantitative approaches to space and spatiality and more ‘lived’ human enactments and performances, this book highlights the continual influence of different mathematical and philosophical understandings of space and spatiality on everyday western spatial imaginations and registers in the twenty-first century.Space is possibly the key concept underpinning research in geography, as well as being of central importance to scholars and practitioners working across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences.

Space is the first accessible text which provides a comprehensive examination of approaches that have crossed between such diverse fields as philosophy, physics, architecture, sociology, anthropology, and geography.The text examines the influence of geometry, arithmetic, natural philosophy, empiricism, and positivism to the development of spatial thinking, as well as focusing on the contributions of phenomenologists, existentialists, psychologists, Marxists, and post-structuralists to how we occupy, live, structure, and perform spaces and practices of spacing. The book emphasises the multiple and partial construction of spaces through the embodied practices of diverse subjects, highlighting the contributions of feminists, queer theorists, anthropologists, sociologists, and post-colonial scholars to academic debates. In contrast to contemporary studies which draw a clear line between scientific and particularly quantitative approaches to space and spatiality and more ‘lived’ human enactments and performances, this book highlights the continual influence of different mathematical and philosophical understandings of space and spatiality on everyday western spatial imaginations and registers in the twenty-first century.Space is possibly the key concept underpinning research in geography, as well as being of central importance to scholars and practitioners working across the arts, humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences.

The 21st century seems to be on the move, perhaps even more so than the last. With cheap travel, and more than two billion cars projected worldwide for 2030. And yet, all this mobility is happening incredibly unevenly, at different paces and intensities, with varying impacts and consequences to the extent that life on the move might be actually quite difficult to sustain environmentally, socially and ethically. As a result 'mobility' has become a keyword of the social sciences; delineating a new domain of concepts, approaches, methodologies and techniques which seek to understand the character and quality of these trends.This Handbook explores and critically evaluates the debates, approaches, controversies and methodologies, inherent to this rapidly expanding discipline. It brings together leading specialists from range of backgrounds and geographical regions to provide an authoritative and comprehensive overview of this field, conveying cutting edge research in an accessible way whilst giving detailed grounding in the evolution of past debates on mobilities. It illustrates disciplinary trends and pathways, from migration studies and transport history to communications research, featuring methodological innovations and developments and conceptual histories - from feminist theory to tourist studies. It explores the dominant figures of mobility, from children to soldiers and the mobility impaired; the disparate materialities of mobility such as flows of water and waste to the vectors of viruses; key infrastructures such as logistics systems to the informal services of megacity slums, and the important mobility events around which our world turns; from going on vacation to the commute, to the catastrophic disruption of mobility systems.The text is forward-thinking, projecting the future of mobilities as they might be lived, transformed and studied, and possibly, brought to an end. International in focus, the book transcends disciplinary and national boundaries to explore mobilities as they are understood from different perspectives, different fields, countries and standpoints.This is an invaluable resource for all those with an interest in mobility across disciplinary boundaries and areas of study.

While often eluding the attention of the everyman, ‘space’ has been a longstanding concern of geographers (and of great interest to scholars from many other parts of the academy). ‘Space’ has been variously treated as absolute, relative, and relational; as a container or backdrop; as a social, aesthetic, and material construct or production; as marked by geographies of power and social difference; as an experiential or perceptual realm; as represented and not representable; as topographical and topological; and as fixed and in constant flux.Now, this new title from Routledge’s Critical Concepts in Geography series provides the first authoritative reference work to enable users to make sense of space and spatiality in geography, and in related disciplines. Edited by Peter Merriman, a prominent cultural geographer and author of Mobility, Space and Culture (Routledge 2012), Space is a four-volume collection of classic and cutting-edge contributions.The gathered works in Volume I explicate the philosophical and scientific foundations of contemporary thinking about space and spatiality, while the second volume examines the production of social, economic, and political spaces—tracing, for example, the emergence of social space in sociology and geography; Marxist writings on the socio-political production of capitalist spaces; studies of the spatialities of power; and different approaches to the emergence and constitution of spatial structures, networks, and relations. Volume III brings together important pieces on inhabitation, dwelling, and spaces of embodiment, identity, and difference.The final volume in the collection focuses on the vibrant and dynamic spatialities of the world, including poststructuralist examinations of how space is practised, performed, and in process; literature on the vibrant materiality, hybridity, and technological production of spaces; and a selection of major works which explore the cultural representation and articulation of spaces.With comprehensive introductions which situate the assembled materials in their historical and intellectual context, Space is an essential reference work for scholars and students concerned with the intersection of theories of space and place with questions of culture, politics, society, economics, power, identity, difference, and materiality.

Over the past ten to fifteen years there has emerged an increasing concern with mobility in the social sciences and humanities. In Mobility, Space and Culture, Peter Merriman provides an important and timely contribution to the mobilities turn in the social sciences, encouraging academics to rethink the relationship between movement, embodied practices, space and place.The book takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing upon theoretical and empirical work from across the social sciences and humanities to provide a critical evaluation of the relationship between 'mobility' and 'place'/'site', reformulating places as in process, open, and dynamic spatial formations. Merriman draws upon post-structuralist writings on space, practice and society to demonstrate how movement is not simply practised or experienced in relation to space and time, but gives rise to rhythms, forces, atmospheres, affects and materialities which are often more crucial to embodied apprehensions of events than sensibilities of spatiality and temporality. He draws upon detailed empirical research on experiences of, and social reactions to, driving in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain to trace how the motor-car became associated with sensations of movement-space and enmeshed with debates about embodiment, health, visuality, gender and politics.The book will be essential reading for undergraduates and postgraduates studying mobility in sociology, geography, cultural studies, politics, transport studies, and history.

Over the past fifteen years or so, there has been a widespread and increasing fascination with the theme of mobility across the social sciences and humanities. Of course, geographers have always had an interest in mobility, but as yet they have not viewed this in the same 'mobility turn' as in other disciplines where it has been used to critique the standard approaches to the subjects. This text brings together leading academics to provide a revitalised 'geography of mobilities' informed by this wider 'mobility turn'. It makes connections between the seemingly disparate sub-disciplinary worlds of migration, transport and tourism, suggesting that each has much to learn from each other through the ontological and epistemological concern for mobility.

Over the past twenty years there has been something of a ‘mobilities turn’ across many disciplines in the social sciences. This book charts the increasing influence this turn is having on scholars in the arts and humanities, tracing the importance of questions and feelings of movement to scholars and arts practitioners across fields such as literary studies, historical geography, history, poetry and film. The book outlines what a mobilities turn might look like in the arts and humanities, tracing a genealogy of humanities engagements with themes of movement and mobility, and examining the different methods and textual sources humanities scholars have deployed. The book is uniquely positioned to speak to two audiences: mobilities scholars in the social sciences interested in learning more about how literary and cultural texts may be incorporated into their research, and researchers in the humanities who have only recently discovered that their thematic, or conceptual interest, in movement and mobility speaks directly to theories and philosophies that have circulated in the social sciences. This diverse and stimulating collection demonstrates the potential for future intellectual dialogues and creative collaborations around the theme of mobility. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Mobilities journal.

This handbook provides cutting-edge insights into the dynamic and cross-cutting field of cultural geography, arguing that this vibrant field can provide important perspectives on the most significant academic, political and creative conversations of our times.Written by leading and emerging scholars from around the world, the 51 chapters focus on the connecting threads and imperatives which underpin work in cultural geography and allied disciplines, outlining many of the different approaches, theoretical traditions, and trajectories which push the boundaries of contemporary thinking. This innovative handbook is structured around four core sections, foregrounding a series of contemporary concerns and critical moments, lively entanglements, creative cultural practices and spaces, and imperatives which have preoccupied scholars and creative practitioners.It acts as an essential guide for researchers, undergraduate students and postgraduate students in human geography and related fields, as well as activists and creative practitioners who practise cultural geography in a myriad of different ways.Chapter 48 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 International license.

This book examines different aspects of public transport design and its relationship to passenger experiences, reflecting the growing concern with approaching mobility through the lens of the arts and humanities and social sciences.The chapters in this book explore how transport environments, mobility infrastructures, and embodied movement practices have been shaped and 'designed' by a whole host of experts, professionals and political actors for different ends. Examples focus on a range of transport modes in different parts of the world, including buses in urban Chile, underground metro railways in China and the UK, and railways in Sweden and Japan. The book examines the role of architecture and design features in shaping, affording and hindering passenger flows, behaviour and experience, resulting in infrastructures which may include or exclude certain groups of passengers in different ways.This book will be of interest to scholars and students in geography, urban planning, architecture, design studies, sociology, and mobility studies. It will also appeal to practitioners in transport planning, urban design, and public policy who are concerned with creating more inclusive and effective mobility infrastructures.The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Mobilities.

The 21st century seems to be on the move, perhaps even more so than the last. With cheap travel, and more than two billion cars projected worldwide for 2030. And yet, all this mobility is happening incredibly unevenly, at different paces and intensities, with varying impacts and consequences to the extent that life on the move might be actually quite difficult to sustain environmentally, socially and ethically. As a result 'mobility' has become a keyword of the social sciences; delineating a new domain of concepts, approaches, methodologies and techniques which seek to understand the character and quality of these trends.This Handbook explores and critically evaluates the debates, approaches, controversies and methodologies, inherent to this rapidly expanding discipline. It brings together leading specialists from range of backgrounds and geographical regions to provide an authoritative and comprehensive overview of this field, conveying cutting edge research in an accessible way whilst giving detailed grounding in the evolution of past debates on mobilities. It illustrates disciplinary trends and pathways, from migration studies and transport history to communications research, featuring methodological innovations and developments and conceptual histories - from feminist theory to tourist studies. It explores the dominant figures of mobility, from children to soldiers and the mobility impaired; the disparate materialities of mobility such as flows of water and waste to the vectors of viruses; key infrastructures such as logistics systems to the informal services of megacity slums, and the important mobility events around which our world turns; from going on vacation to the commute, to the catastrophic disruption of mobility systems.The text is forward-thinking, projecting the future of mobilities as they might be lived, transformed and studied, and possibly, brought to an end. International in focus, the book transcends disciplinary and national boundaries to explore mobilities as they are understood from different perspectives, different fields, countries and standpoints.This is an invaluable resource for all those with an interest in mobility across disciplinary boundaries and areas of study.

Peter Merriman traces the social and cultural histories and geographies of driving spaces through an examination of the design, construction and use of England’s M1 motorway in the 1950s and 1960s. A first-of-its-kind academic study examining the production and consumption of the landscapes and spaces of a British motorwayAn interdisciplinary approach, engaging with theoretical and empirical work from sociology, history, cultural studies, anthropology and geographyContains 38 high quality illustrationsBased on extensive, original archive work

Peter Merriman traces the social and cultural histories and geographies of driving spaces through an examination of the design, construction and use of England’s M1 motorway in the 1950s and 1960s. A first-of-its-kind academic study examining the production and consumption of the landscapes and spaces of a British motorwayAn interdisciplinary approach, engaging with theoretical and empirical work from sociology, history, cultural studies, anthropology and geographyContains 38 high quality illustrationsBased on extensive, original archive work

Over the past fifteen years or so, there has been a widespread and increasing fascination with the theme of mobility across the social sciences and humanities. Of course, geographers have always had an interest in mobility, but as yet they have not viewed this in the same 'mobility turn' as in other disciplines where it has been used to critique the standard approaches to the subjects. This text brings together leading academics to provide a revitalised 'geography of mobilities' informed by this wider 'mobility turn'. It makes connections between the seemingly disparate sub-disciplinary worlds of migration, transport and tourism, suggesting that each has much to learn from each other through the ontological and epistemological concern for mobility.