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research article

Motility: Mobility as capital

Kaufmann, Vincent  
•
Bergman, Manfred M.
•
Joye, Dominique
2004
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research

Social and territorial structures form intricate relations that transcend a social stratification or spatial focus. Territorial features and geographic displacements are structuring principles for society, as societal features and social change effect the structure and use of territory. Based on our examination of the conceptual and theoretical links between spatial and social mobility, we propose a concept that represents a new form of inequality. Termed 'motility', this construct describes the potential and actual capacity of goods, information or people to be mobile both geographically and socially. Three major features of motility - access, competence and appropriation - are introduced. In this article, we focus on conceptual and theoretical contributions of motility. In addition, we suggest a number of possible empirical investigations. Motility presents us with an innovative perspective on societal changes without prematurely committing researchers to work within structuralist or postmodern perspectives. More generally, we propose to revisit the fluidification debate in the social sciences with a battery of questions that do not begin and end with whether or not society is in flux. Instead, we introduce a field of research that takes advantage of the insights from competing paradigms in order to reveal the social dynamics and consequences of displacements in geographic and social space.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1111/j.0309-1317.2004.00549.x
Web of Science ID

WOS:000225814100001

Author(s)
Kaufmann, Vincent  
Bergman, Manfred M.
Joye, Dominique
Date Issued

2004

Published in
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research
Volume

28

Issue

4

Start page

745

End page

756

Note

Kaufmann, VEcole Polytech Fed Lausanne, Lab Sociol Urbaine, Batiment Polyvalent, CH-1015 Lausanne, SwitzerlandEcole Polytech Fed Lausanne, Lab Sociol Urbaine, CH-1015 Lausanne, SwitzerlandUniv Essex, Dept Sociol, Colchester CO4 3SQ, Essex, EnglandServ Suisse Informat & Archivage Donnees Sci Soca, CH-2000 Neuchatel, Switzerland

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
LASUR  
Available on Infoscience
May 7, 2007
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/6716
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