Edited by Timothy Shortell, Ph.D., and Evrick Brown, Ph.D.
Department of Sociology, Brooklyn College CUNY
Deadline: 1 April, 2012
Local politicians, protesters, busy commuters, tourists, flâneurs, urban
ethnographers. These social actors and many more work the city streets as an
essential part of their quotidian routines. Everyday mobility on the streets
and public spaces of urban neighborhoods is such an ubiquitous part of urban
life and culture that it is often overlooked. Though sociologists have long
noted that dynamism is an essential part of the urban way of life, walking
as a significant social activity and crucial research method has not
received the scholarly attention it deserves. This volume will consider
walking in the city from a variety of perspectives, in a variety of places,
with a variety of methods. Contributors will address the nature of quotidian
mobility in contemporary global cities, how it relates to other significant
social institutions and practices, as well as a method for studying urban
life.
Among the questions this volume seeks to address:
* What does walking reveal about the spatial distribution of urban cultural
activities?
* How does quotidian mobility reinforce and challenge stratification and
segregation?
* How does walking as an everyday practice relate to more spectacular forms
of walking, such as protest marches, which have lately occupied urban
spaces?
* What does walking reveal about normative forms of social interaction in
urban public space?
* Are there distinctive social types that occupy public space in
contemporary cities through walking? If so, what are they and what is their
significance?
* What is the relationship between quotidian mobility and power?
* How is urban walking a gendered or racialized activity?
* How does quotidian mobility relate to global population flows?
* How is quotidian mobility being incorporated in the New Urbanism model of
city planners and what does it reveal concerning the politics of space? How
is visual design conceptualized in this method to foster pedestrian friendly
environments?
* How do individuals in ethnically diverse pedestrian friendly cities
negotiate the stranger phenomenon in public space in comparison to those
characterized by motorized urban sprawl?
* What is the role of walking in urban research methods?
* What can theorizing about quotidian mobility contribute to contemporary
urban theory?
The editors seek chapters of 8,000-10,000 words addressing questions such as
these. We welcome contributions from a variety of social science
disciplines, theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches, and
focuses on a variety of urban locations.
Send abstracts (200-400 words) to shortell@brooklyn.cuny.edu and
ebrown@brooklyn.cuny.edu by April 1, 2012.
Timothy Shortell, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Director of the MA program in Sociology
Department of Sociology
Brooklyn College, CUNY
http://www.brooklyn.edu/pub/Faculty_Details5.jsp?faculty=551