Traction

On Wednesday it snowed. During my jog I encountered an icy hill, but I just sucked it up and kept going despite less traction. This is pretty much what PhD land has been like this week. I turned the ringer off on my phone, and just pushed through my seminar presentation on Mobilities, which became all encompassing and somewhat problematic.

When I originally took it on as my human geography theme, I did so because I understood it could easily relate to my work in natural resources, as it would explain much about the transportation sector which I have done some work on in the past. However, it unraveled into post-structuralist brain equivalent of a ballerina trying to make sense of belly dancing. This is borrowing a metaphor from my belly dance instructor who has been explaining that belly dance has no names for movements as well as physical stances that don’t conform to formal training, which makes it a really hard art form for formally trained dancers, who expect form and structure, to enjoy. Anyways, it was hard for my logic and rigor wired brain to get through what turned out to be a paradigm based on a book that read like stream of consciousness writing.

Urry based his mobilities theory on eight key theories related to movement (Simmel drawing from Heidegger, complexity, sedentarism, fluidity and nomadism, materials, migrations and diasporas, pleasures, motility) and five key types of mobility (corporeal, physical movement of objects, imaginative, virtual, communicative). He pulled all of these together by drawing on complexity theory as metaphor (borrowed from the famous Nigel Thrift), and then wrote a long history of all of our key types of mobility defined as series or nexus systems. All with the objective of showing the necessity of understanding space and place as relational through the complex interactions of the mentioned concepts and systems. Pretty much ignoring the key theories and hoping I would not get asked anything about them, I pulled together a presentation trying to describe how this attempted paradigm relates to key areas in human geography (remember, it’s all about place and space). I designed a slide showing a conceptual diagram as an attempt to translate Urry’s writing into a more digestible format. My diagram attempted to map out how all of the key elements relate, and showed some of Urry’s examples of relationships between mobilities systems, social, economic and political issues and, relating it all back to geography, how these effect a relational view of space and place. I commented that even when used as metaphor, complexity theory is not really properly utilized in this paradigm, and my initial reaction is that motility theory shows complexity’s key concept of emergence better than the new mobility paradigm.

None of that made *any* sense to you, did it? It still doesn’t make any sense to me, which is why it felt like it felt like a slippery slope. I have to say this was one of the few moments when I have walked into a presentation feeling *completely* unprepared, and unsure of whether I missed the mark completely or not. And yet my professor told me that my conceptual diagram actually captured the whole book (all 300+ pages) quite nicely, and pointed out that the book had no diagrams (that’s right folks, none). He asked me to come up with what a concrete example of an automobile nexus system (Urry’s prediction for automobile futures) would be. Luckily that was the *only* question I had thought of beforehand, and he was pleased with my answer of car shares. He also pointed out that Urry was probably aiming for a post-structuralist conceptual framework, which may be why he did not outline very much in terms of methodological considerations. Which makes me wonder how hardcore post-structuralism has to be—does it mean that the author cannot provide logical threads throughout their writing? I don’t think I will delve into anymore to figure that one out.

After the presentation one master’s student asked me if I can help him with complexity theory as it relates to governance, and another said I related it to the class well, and a third said I should send my conceptual diagram to Urry. So I suppose I did hit the mark somewhat, and people felt that they had learned something from what I had to say. One of my PhD cohorts asked me if I felt like I had just completely wasted my time or if I was found it useful to do something that doesn’t completely relate to my comprehensive exam preparation. I’m not sure about that one. I learned more about complexity theory, and how social science has borrowed it from the math and science domain, and how I can critique its use from that perspective. Maybe it was a useful exercise as a way for me to make sense of the science/social science divide and miscommunication between the two, since my work tends to bridge the gap.

Some thoughts I didn’t present. I was surprised Urry did not read Ivan Illich’s work on transportation. Also, too many uncritical pop culture references on complexity were referenced, which is problematic for theory by legitimizing work that is not rigorous enough for academia, and giving it weight over other sources (and this may be another entry at some point). Combined with what I considered a metaphor that was not clearly presented, at the moment I don’t see enough connection between complexity theory and the mobilities paradigm. I think they could be combined more elegantly.

Finally, in case you are curious, Urry presents two automobility and fuel dependence futures as his conclusion: either conflict and global collapse leading to tribal trading, or a digital panopticon to save the earth from global climate change, full of carbon quotas etc. Heartwarming and fuzzy feelings.