Mobility, digital media, and museums

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Mobility, digital media, and museums

Norwegian museums in the face of COVID-19 pandemic crisis

Yang Xu

Master’s Thesis in Screen Cultures Department of Media and Communication

Faculty of Humanities University of Oslo

15 June 2021

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Supervisor: Professor Gunnar Liestøl (Autumn 2020 – Spring 2021)

Mobility, digital media, and museums: Norwegian museums in the face of COVID-19 pandemic crisis

Yang Xu

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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has unprecedentedly affected the Norwegian museum sector due to the disruptions and restrictions of public mobility marked by the lockdowns since March 2020. Due to the mobility restrictions, Norwegian museums have utilized digital media as the primary way of providing museum experiences and conducting public outreach amidst the closure. This study looks into the topics of ‘mobility,’ ‘digital media’

and ‘museums’ by providing an in-depth view of Norwegian museums in the face of the pandemic crisis in three main aspects: the impacts of mobility restrictions on museums, museum’s digital responses, and the future of museum in the post-pandemic society. Semi- structured interviews were conducted with sixteen museum professionals representing different Norwegian museums in different types and geographic locations. A thematic analysis of

interviews yields interviewed museum professionals’ own depictions and opinions of Norwegian museums during the crisis: 1) The lockdowns since March 2020 have generated great impact on most of Norwegian museums’ capabilities of accepting visitors due to the closure, but different views of the impact have been identified as local measures were introduced. 2) Under the closure, most Norwegian museums have gradually developed digital strategies dedicated to the delivery of an online museum experience. However challenges and resistances persist regarding the relevance of content, the resources needed, and a more inclusive mindset towards the digital.

3) The pandemic crisis is perceived as a ‘wake-up call’ for Norwegian museums to be more mindful of digital museum offers. Despite the speculation of ‘digital fatigue’ which may result in the resurgence of physical museum activities, issues and dilemmas regarding resources,

monetizations, and potential inertia within the institution need to be resolved in the long run.

This study provides valuable insights and deep understanding of the Norwegian museum sector in the face of the pandemic crisis, while also contributing to existing literature and future research on relevant topics.

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Acknowledgement:

The year of 2019-2020 was a tunnel full of darkness, tears, and sorrow, but if you always have hopes, you see the light in the end of it.

First of all, I would like to thank my two supervisors:

Professor Gunnar Liestøl, who became the highlight of my study since 2019 when I took his course in mobile media design, helped determine my research direction in digital media and museums. During his supervision he offered me great help, guidance, and inspiration through my entire thesis writing processes. It was a great pleasure to become his student.

Also Associate Professor Taina Bucher, who guided me through the initial ideation process of my research and offered me valuable tips and advice for my critical thinking.

Second, I would like to thank all lecturers of the Screen Cultures program in the department who helped me to construct a solid knowledge base through the lectures and inspire my research ideas. And to all student advisors in the department who solved every issue (big or small) of my study along this journey.

Third, I would like to thank my friend Chad Hoffman who offered me great help in proofreading my thesis, which is a very time-consuming work. I really appreciate his kind help.

Fourth, my dearest best friend in life (as he will probably insult me if I don’t give him these pronouns), Cale (YuXing) Tian, whom I have known for 20 years since primary school. He presented the greatest tolerance to my everyday phone calls about stress, anxiety and loneliness with his tremendous emotional support across the Atlantic Ocean; and offered me the stage for my cheesy (but iconic and professional and vivacious and electric) karaoke performance over FaceTime, every single night.

Finally, to my family: My father, you have always been a beacon of my life guiding me through the darkness. Your kindness, perseverance, and courage will forever be a role-model in my life.

To my sister: your optimism, fearlessness, and humor gave me great support over the years. And my new-born nephew, who was born in the most difficult time of the pandemic when the

lockdown started, I hope you grow up in love, grace, and kindness to embrace the most beautiful time in your upcoming life.

20th May 2020, Room 415 IMK, UiO Oslo, Norway

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The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has severely affected human mobility in global societies. Since early 2019, global governments have enacted measures to tackle the spreading of the virus. Reducing public mobility and closing non-essential businesses were one of the main approaches to safeguard public health with promising results (Nouvellet et al., 2021). In one EU report assessing the effect of community mobility confinement policies, researchers identified that partial and full lockdowns have had a strong impact on the public’s presence in open public spaces (Lapatinas, 2020). One major consequence of these measures was the closure of retail stores, local business, public services and cultural institutions. In Norway, mobility disruptions and restrictions have manifested in infection-preventive measures (’Smittevern’) for reducing the virus spread by limiting the public’s personal mobility. The measures contained the ban of large gatherings including large social and cultural activities, closure of cultural institutions such as cinema and museums, as well as recommendations of home office/schooling and avoiding unnecessary travel (Norwegian Institute of Public Health). Consequently, public mobility has drastically reduced since the enactment of the measures since March, 2020. According to Google Community mobility report (version made in March 14, 2021), until March 14th 2021, the mobility trends for ‘retail and recreation (including places like restaurants, cafes, shopping center, theme parks, museums, libraries and movie theaters)’ has reduced by 35% nationally compared to the baseline (the median value for the period during Jan 3— Feb 6, 2020) (Google LLC, 2021).

1.1.2 Mobility disruptions/restrictions and museum: a closed door to the public

The museum sector world-wide has experienced a severe hit by the COVID-19 outbreaks. One of the biggest impacts on the museums was the closure of museums to the general public. According to the UNESCO report published in the Spring 2020, more than 85,000 of museums worldwide closed their doors during the crisis. Many museums have

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experienced major economic problems due to the loss of income from cultural tourism

(UNESCO, 2020). In Norway, museums have experienced temporary closures since 12th March when the first national lockdown was announced. During the summer season of 2020, museums were allowed to reopen their doors as the infection measures eased. Despite the reopening of museum doors, the Norwegian museum sector was still facing the massive loss of visitors and revenue. In the report “Museums and COVID-19,” published by Norwegian Museum

Association in 2021, the number of visitors declined by 53.15% from 2019 to 2020 (Norges Museumsforbund, 2021b). In the Menon’s report “A half year with corona-crisis in the cultural sector: experiences and future perspectives,” published in October 2020, the income loss for the Norwegian museum sector due the pandemic crisis was estimated for 25% (Menon Economics, 2020). Throughout the year of 2020, the Norwegian Ministry of Culture and Art Council Norway has released a series of compensatory programs for Norwegian museums to get through the pandemic crisis (Art Council Norway). However, uncertainties and concerns persist for the future of Norwegian museum sector as the pandemic situation remains unclear (Norges Museumsforbund, 2021b).

1.1.3 Digital responses of museums to the pandemic crisis

Despite the difficult situations, global museums have initiated digital responses to the pandemic crisis, utilizing digital media as the major way of conducting public outreaches. Over the year of 2020, there was a surge in digital activities and initiatives such as virtual tours, social media posts, webinars and online meetings among global museums under closure due to the restrictions (ICOM, 2020a, 2020b). In Norway, museum institutions have sought for diverse approaches in making digital responses to the pandemic crisis. Some museums have promoted their ready-at-hand digitized resources through social network platforms, while others have focused on building a close engagement with their target audiences on social media platforms through live-stream, webinars, and various types of online events (Burke, Jørgensen, &

Jørgensen, 2020). Meanwhile, the global media industries have also experienced a reshuffling with the rise of remote-meeting/conferencing, over-the-top (OTT) media streaming service, and social media. The consumption of digital media has significantly increased during the pandemic

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crisis due to the mobility-restrictive measures, which resulted in increased time of staying at home and home-officing (Gupta & Singharia, 2021; Nielsen, 2020; Westcott, Arbanas, Downs,

& Arkenberg, 2021). According to Norwegian Media Barometer 2020, the consumption of videos and film media has increased 8% from 2019 to 2020, with 83% of the population in Norway consuming streaming services (Statistics Norway, 2021). The changing environment in digital media left museums a new assignment to not only effectively transform and mobilize the museum experiences and cultural information from ‘physical’ to ‘online’, but also conduct effective audience engagement with those digital initiatives.

1.1.4 Challenges, uncertainties, and the future for the museum sector.

At the same time, museums were also facing complex challenges in making digital responses to the pandemic crisis, both internally and externally. The ICOM report pointed out that although museums world-wide have demonstrated the reactivity and creativity during the closures, some structural weaknesses still exist regarding the maturity of digital content production. This, coupled with the difficulty in allocating available economic and human

resources, poses an urgent need for awareness of the importance of digital media (ICOM, 2020a, 2020b). In Norway, the pandemic and its impact also dragged museums into a series of

uncertainties for the future development and plannings. The Norwegian Museum Association report pointed out that the massive decline in visitors among Norwegian museums led to

uncertainties for both museums’ economic situations and the volume of museum activity planned for the coming years. As a crucial component and key player in the cultural sector of Norway, museums are facing the challenges of conducting flexible, yet creative planning of activities, outreaches and cultural offers that are suitable for the public under the mobility-restrictive policies, as well as to achieve a better financial predictability within the institutions (Norges Museumsforbund, 2021b: 8).

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1.2 Statement of problems and research questions

”An individual’s engagement with this expanding mobile world is not simply about the ‘use’ of particular forms of movement. Rather, the rise of an intensively mobile society reshapes the self — its everyday activities, interpersonal relations with others, as well as connections with the wider world” (Elliott & Urry, 2010: 3).

Mobilities research, digital media, and museum studies

One of the main objectives for this study is to bridge mobilities research with the topic of digital media and museums. Mobility is an important topic to everyone’s life, ranging from one’s physical capability of ‘moving’ or going to the nearby groceries, to the world’s transport systems that transport goods and people across the globe. There are also information systems that are powered by networked optic-fiber submarine cables, satellites, and base stations that

facilitate the movement of information. We certainly perceive mobility through our various senses, such as the body’s reactions to physical exercise, the speed of automobiles, and the quality of Internet connection. Under the current circumstances, where mobility is almost inescapable in one’s lifespan, digital media has become an important subject that functions almost as a ‘sidecar’ of the topics of human mobility. The impacts of digital media and information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been well-studied in the scholarly fields. Media scholar Henry Jenkins, in his book ‘Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide (2006),’ has coined three concepts that can accurately describe what today’s digital media culture: first, media convergence describes the ‘technological, industrial, cultural, and social changes’ of digital media that manifest in ‘the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they wanted’ (Jenkins, 2006a, 2006b). Second, digital media also facilitates a participatory culture that ‘not every member must contribute, but all must believe they are free to contribute when ready and that what they contribute will be appropriately valued (Jenkins & Purushotma, 2009:7). Third, digital media also facilitates a collective intelligence: a collective process of knowledge and meaning-

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makings in which everyone put the pieces of knowledge together and ‘pool’ the resources and skills (Jenkins, 2006b). Museums are an interesting subject when talking about ‘mobility’ and

‘digital media’. Historically, novel media technologies and museums have always been in a harness since the early twentieth century as a means of public outreach, cultural dissemination, and audience engagement. As a physical place, the museum affords movements of people such as the wandering of visitors in the exhibition spaces. As an institution, the museum has

undergone movements of society, politics, and cultural change. Nevertheless, not all these movements were naturally adopted by museums historically. The relationship between museums and digital media is complicated, along with the movement of ideas, values, and opinions

regarding museum’s core missions, practices, and distinct roles in the cultural field and society.

Therefore it is worthy to investigate how the interplay between mobility, digital media and museums, collectively construct what a museum is for today.

Norwegian museums under the lockdowns

The COVID-19 pandemic crisis has offered a valuable scenario for the three subjects of this study. For ‘mobility,’ the global pandemic has initiated a wide confinement of public mobility with a series of mobility-restrictive measures enacted by global governments. A large body of research has been tackling the subject of mobility since 2019 in relation to the impacts of mobility restrictions to the effectiveness of infection prevention, as well as to the retail, tourism, and transport industries. However, a few studies have explored the topic of mobility in the cultural sector, especially on the impacts of mobility restrictions to the museum sector. How digital media and its embedded mobility have become the ‘new’ method, resource, and power for museums to leverage for their core practices, as well as the frictions, challenges, and resistances regarding these practices during this period of time. Therefore, the second purpose of this study is to raise these inquiries by focusing on the Norwegian museum sector.

A qualitative approach to gather opinions

To get an in-depth view and deep understanding of Norwegian museums in the face of the pandemic crisis, a qualitative method is an ideal approach for this study. Not only does the qualitative approach enable the researcher to generate rich, content-based data, it also demands

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an iterative process for the researcher to pay attention to nuances and details in the data.

Conducting interviews with people in the field will be the third purpose for this study. This study aims to gather opinions, views, and perspectives through in-depth interviews with museum professionals, as this type of method may fall into the ‘elite interview’ category (although the notion of ‘elite’ is less pronounced in the place where this study took place due to the egalitarian milieu in Norwegian society). The benefit of interviewing museum professionals is not only that museum professionals are active players in the cultural field, they are also ‘insiders’ of the museum sector which can offer insights for this study through their sharing of unique experiences. Moreover, museum professionals, especially museum directors, may also be

‘gatekeepers’ of other valuable resources and information such as internal reports and recommendation of other relevant individuals who may contribute to the data for this study (Jupp, 2006).

Conclusively, three main research questions for this study are framed as below:

– In what ways has the Covid-19 pandemic crisis and its mobility

disruptions/restrictions/confinement policies in Norway impacted on Norwegian museums?

– How Norwegian museums responded to the pandemic crisis by utilizing digital media?

– How can we better understand the implications of Norwegian museums’ digital

responses during the crisis for the future of museums and its relations to digital media and technology?

1.3 Outline of the thesis

This thesis commences with a ‘theories’ chapter which consists of an overview of theories of mobilities and their intersections with the field of digital media, and museum studies.

The objective for the ‘theories and literature review’ chapter is to lay the foundation for this study with theoretical support in how the term ‘mobility’ has been understood and explored across different disciplines, and how mobilities research may relate to the field of museums, digital media, and communication. Sections in this chapter explore the history of ideas in

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geography and transport studies, sociology, media studies, and museum studies, with the notion of ‘mobility’ as a thread that goes through the entire chapter.

For the next chapter, “Methodology,” I will explain methods that apply to this study.

This study adopts a qualitative approach where I have conducted in-depth, semi-structured, elite interviews with sixteen museum professionals from sixteen Norwegian museum institutions across the country with a primary goal of gathering views, opinions, and perspectives of museums in the pandemic, digital responses, and museums’ futures. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and classified into three topics/themes which are in alignment with the research questions. An assessment of research design, data collection, and the soundness of qualitative data collected for this study will be provided in this chapter.

The chapter ‘data analysis’ consists of a thematic analysis of the data gathered from the interviews. The analysis consists of three topics that provide in-depth views regarding impacts of the pandemic crisis on Norwegian museums, museums’ digital responses to the lockdown and closure, museum professionals’ perspectives of the future of museum developments, as well as issues, dilemmas and conflicts that emerged from the interviews. The analysis aims to provide a deep understanding of the museum's perceptions of the pandemic crisis, national lockdown and its aftermath, as well as digital media and technology.

The final chapter, ‘discussion and summary of the results,’ consists of a summary of the main results distilled from the data analysis and interpretations of the results. It aims to return to the research questions raised in the beginning of the study with rich, multifaceted, and qualitative answers concluded from the entire research process. In addition, this chapter also provides discourse on the significance of the study which might contribute to the relevant fields, the persistent limitations of the study, and recommendations for future research.

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1.4 Ethical considerations

This research study followed the “Ethical guidelines for research ethics in the social sciences, humanities, law and theology ¹ ” established by The Norwegian National Research Ethics Committees The project was assessed by The Norwegian Centre for Research Data AS (NSD) regarding the processing of personal data, and a permission was obtained in accordance with data protection legislation. The recruitment of interview participants was primarily through email invitations and personal recommendations (snowballing). Informed consents was obtained from the participants before the data collection process. The researcher used methods to

safeguard the data privacy of the participants by replacing participant’s name and contact details with a code. The list of names, contact details and respective codes were stored separately from the rest of the collected data on a research server. Any summary of interview content, or direct quotations from the interview were anonymized so that the participants cannot be identified. All the data collected (list of contacts, interview recordings and transcriptions) were planned to be deleted at the end of the research project.

1 Detailed ethical guidelines refer to https://www.forskningsetikk.no/en/guidelines/social- sciences-humanities-law-and-theology/guidelines-for-research-ethics-in-the-social-sciences- humanities-law-and-theology/

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2. Theories: Looking into mobilities, digital media, and museum

This chapter provides an overview of mobilities research and its theoretical backgrounds in the field of sociology, media studies, and museum studies. The objective of this chapter is to bridge the concepts of mobilities with the topics of digital media and museums so as to enhance the understanding of the topics of museums and digital media from a mobility perspective. The first section (2.1) consists of a background of the theories of human mobility and mobilities research that originated in geographic studies and sociology throughout the twentieth century, where the notion of human mobility experienced two major shifts centered on the rise and fall of the intellectual movement ‘quantitative revolution’ within human geography. Towards the turn of the twenty-first century, theories of mobilities experienced an expansion in sociological research by a number of precursors, which laid the foundation of the mobilities research. The second section (2.2) introduces the kernel of mobilities research which is surrounded by John Urry and Mimi Sheller’s major academic contributions in the “new mobilities paradigm (2006)”.

The new mobilities paradigm serves as theoretical underpinnings for ubiquitous mobilities of humans, objects, information, and capitals that are applicable to multiple disciplines in humanities and social sciences (Norum, 2020). Several core theoretical bases of mobilities research will be listed in this section. The third section (2.3) investigates museums and their practices with (digital) media technology. It starts with a background of how the concept of mobility has been coalesced into the discourse of digital media and communication. Then it follows with a historical discussion of how museums have undergone the transformation towards an open and educational institution, and the development of museum practices in novel media technology since the twentieth century. The last section (2.5) provides a summary of the major theoretical underpinnings for this study.

2.1 Theories of human mobility and the development of mobilities research: A background

The most comprehensive explanation of the term ‘mobility’ has frequently appeared in the field of humanities and social science. In human geography, mobility has two main uses:

first, to describe “the movement of people, ideas or goods across territory”; second, mostly

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referring to ‘social mobility’ by describing “change in social status” (Gregory, 2017: 467) Human mobility involves changes in scales both spatially (space) and temporally (time). The change in scales can be as large as a ‘migration,’ which refers to an individual’s change in

residential location domestically or internationally; or as trivial as a trip for grocery shopping and daily commuting. Mobility also involves different means of transportation which incur some form of costs (time, energy, or money) and benefits (health, independence, and life quality).

Mobility is often associated with the notion of ‘accessibility’, which refers to “the ease with which people can reach desired activity site”(ibid: 2). For many geographers and social

scientists, both mobility and accessibility are widely treated as an important indicator of ‘quality of life’ and therefore become highly-researched topics in urban studies and development.

The heyday of mobilities research can be traced back in the field of ‘transport geography’ in the 1960s and 1970s, where scholarships sought for the roles and impacts of transportation in human societies. Transport geography, as a sub-field of the human geography studies, represents the study of the spatial aspects of transportation and its networks, as well as the role and impact of transportation that manifests in different aspects of the societies (facilities, institutions, policies, and operations) in both domestic and international contexts (Shaw &

Docherty, 2017:26). Transport geography received its highest reputation in the middle of the twentieth century, marked by the wave of ‘quantitative revolution’: an intellectual movement in the field of geography that attempted to adopt quantitative scientific disciplines and

methodologies into theorization and practices (Gregory, 2017: 611; Mayhew, 2009). In this movement, many researchers have delved into building new theoretical models of mobility.

Shaw and Docherty (2017) concluded that many works of human mobility during the

‘quantitative revolution’ movement were rooted in the positivist hypothesis of “rational mobile man” that rooted in the nineteenth century’s neoclassical economics. A ‘rational mobile man’

portrayed an ideal rationalist who will maximize his mobility in decision-making by minimizing the ‘distance’ and the transportation costs needed (Calhoun, 2002; Shaw & Docherty, 2017:26).

Many economists (such as Alfred Weber and Walter Christaller) had theorized models to achieve

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the goal of transport efficiency, which laid the groundwork for subsequent geographers’

explorations in human mobility (Capello, 2014; Gregory, 2017: 76).

During the quantitative revolution, many geographers had been pursuing the topic of

‘friction of distance’ which refers to any factors (or noises) that are potentially against the transport between places (Gregory, 2017: 264). In 1960s, American geographer Donald G.

Janelle raised the ‘time-space convergence theory’ as a response to ‘friction of distance’

(originally appearing in his 1966’s dissertation). He argued that the ‘friction of distance’ between two places had already reduced (in other words, two places are approaching one another) due to the increased speed in the fast-development of transportation technology over decades (see figure 1) (Janelle, 1968: 6). The time-space convergence was also attributed as a crucial component in the process of spatial reorganization: a process “by which places adapt both the locational structure and the characteristics of their social, economic, and political activities to changes in time-space connectivity (the time required to travel between desired origins and destinations)”

(Janelle, 1969: 348). In such process, time-space convergence was a ‘significant motivating factor’ in ‘reshaping the relationships between places and in altering socioeconomic landscapes at local through global scales’ (Janelle, 1969: 348). Perhaps the most illuminating part of Janelle’s dissertation for this study was the role of ‘technological innovations’ in Janelle’s theoretical model of transportation and human mobility. Media and communication technology, though less mentioned in his early work, was later recognized as ‘space-adjusting technologies’

and became a crucial subject in transport geography and mobilities research in the 1980s (Janelle

& Gillespie, 2004).

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Figure 2.1: Janelle's discovery in the time-space convergence: In Janelle's PhD thesis published in 1966, he showcased the time-space convergence theory by demonstrating the change in travel time from Edinburgh to London from 1658-1966. In this graph, the horizontal axis stands for the

time proceeds (with 50 year intervals) and the vertical axis stands for the number of minutes needed for the travel. Janelle concludes that Edinburgh and London have been approaching each other as the travel time between two places has drastically reduced in 116 years. Reprinted from

Janelle, D. G. (1966). "Spatial reorganization and time-space convergence" (PhD thesis), p. 91.

Michigan State University.

The quantitative revolution was undoubtedly the hallmark in the theoretical development of human mobility. Many works emerged during this intellectual movement that have received reputations which still last until today. Nevertheless, the quantitative revolution started to receive scrutiny by many researchers starting in the 1970s due to its overarching, underlying

‘positivism’, which assumed that the order of society is identical to the world of science (Peet, 2006: 23). Many studies during the quantitative revolution were guided by positivist thinking and pursued this scientific approach which was precise, rigorous and robust in explaining geographic enquiry (Aitken & Valentine, 2006). However, critiques questioned this philosophical

underpinning by claiming that social reality cannot be solely explained and measured by seemingly ‘objective’ and ‘mechanical’ methods; a ‘subjective’ approach to the human societal matters is needed to broaden our understandings of geographical enquiries (Shaw & Docherty,

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2014). American geographer David Harvey was one of the central figures in the debate. In his 1973’s book “Social Justice and The City”, he criticized the ‘quantitative revolution’ due to the lack of societal relevance, he wrote:

“How and why would we bring about a revolution in geographic thought?

The quantitative revolution has run its course, and diminishing marginal returns are apparently setting in; yet another piece of factorial ecology, yet another attempt to measure the distance-decay effect, yet another attempt to identify the range of a good, serve to tell us less and less about anything of great relevance … There is an ecological problem, an urban problem, an international trade problem, and yet we seem incapable of saying anything of depth or profoundly about any of them. When we do say something, it appears trite and rather ludicrous. In short, our paradigm is not coping well. It is ripe for overthrow. ” (Harvey, 1973: 128, 129).

Harvey’s critique pointed to a need for addressing more social problems other than conceptual and theoretical problems in the scholarly field. From the 1970s onwards, the study of human mobility experienced a ‘humanistic shift’ as researchers began to consider mobilities as human- centered subject with significance for human experience (P. Adey, Bissell, Hannam, Merriman,

& Sheller, 2017). The term ‘mobility’ was given completely different explanations in the

emerging field of humanistic geography that focused on locales and places where people inhabit, have experiences, and find/interpret/understand meanings (Peet, 2006: 48). From a humanistic geography’s perspective, human mobility both sustains and is sustained by human action and awareness; and also constitute our understandings of human-environment relationship both on an individual and group level (Seamon & Larsen). The pioneer of humanistic geography, Yi-Fu Tuan, in his book ‘Space and Place (1977)’ provided an humanistic explanation of human mobility and senses of place:

In modern society the relation between mobility and a sense of place can be very complicated. Most people achieve a fairly stable position in society by the time they are thirty to forty years old. They settle into a routine of home, office or factory,

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and holiday resort. These are distinctive places. There is no confusing the rather tedious work in the office with watching television at home; and the two-week holiday by the sea is a long-contemplated event. As the years pass the plans of personal significant remain the same; the family goes to Brighton each summer. In time the sense of place extends beyond individual localities to a region defined by these localities. The region, subtended by home, office, and resort, becomes itself a place although it lacks a visible boundary (Tuan, 1977: 180).

In Tuan’s discourses, human mobility was given a broader sense than just physical movements and transportations from scientific and empirical perspectives; it entails an existential and

phenomenological sense of movement that is manifested in one’s life experiences and the society and cultural meanings he/she lives in.

The rise of the humanistic approach in geography studies induced many sociologists to future explore the concept of ‘mobility’. For a long time, the concept of ‘mobility’ in the

discipline of sociology has been associated with the term ‘social mobility’, which concerns “both to individual movement up or down the scale of socio-economic classes and to the collective positional movement of social groups or classes” (Sheller, 2017b: 46). Social mobility in

sociology was largely focused on the ‘positional movement’ in a given social system; the ‘spatial mobility’ that entails the movement of an individual between different spaces and locations, did not receive too much attention in classical sociological thoughts. During the millennium, the notion of ‘mobility’ began to thrive among a group of sociologists as a key term in the

discussions of postmodernism, cultural theories, and globalization (Sheller, 2017a: 626). Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman was one of the precursors in theorizing mobility in this matter. In his 1998’s book “Globalization: the human consequences”, he highlighted mobility ‘climbs to the rank of the uppermost among the coveted values , and the freedom to move, perpetually a scarce and unequally distributed commodity, fast becomes the main stratifying factor of our late- modern or postmodern times’ (Bauman, 1998a: 2).

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Mobility, for Bauman, is a crucial element in sculpting new ‘sociality’ since the 1970s where he named the period as ‘liquid modernity,’ marked by information revolution and

deregulations of global capital markets (Bauman, 2000; Caletrío, 2017; Versluysen, 1988). The new ‘sociality’ is marked by social stratifications in which people who master ‘mobility’ and

‘speed’ will climb up in social hierarchies. However, such sociality has made ‘mobility’ a relational term which caused a polarizing effect in human life and experience. In order to progress one’s movement in a social ladder, chasing for ‘mobility’ and ‘speed’ means new connections of people while disconnecting with others (Caletrío, 2017). Furthermore, Bauman viewed that globalization and mobility is a ‘double-edged sword’ which cuts both ways. The

‘first world’ which have accumulated the wealth and power are maximally benefited from the globalization as their people have gained the freedom to ‘move’, choose their own life itineraries, and grasp the opportunities every time they move; whereas the ‘second world’ that are less- developed faces the ‘localization’, where they either lack of the opportunities or freedom to move, bound in a certain place for a long period of time; or they are forced to move out of their habitats (Bauman, 1998a:88; 1998b; Caletrío, 2017). Bauman described this polarized mobility in globalization with the metaphor of ‘tourist’ and the ‘vagabond’. For ‘tourists’, they “stay or move at their hearts’ desire”, and they travel because they want to. For “vagabonds”, they “know that they won’t stay in a place for long, however strongly they wish to, since nowhere they stop are they likely to be welcome”, they travel because “they have no other bearable

choice”(Bauman, 1998a:92, 93).

Around the same time, British sociologist John Urry in his book “Sociology beyond societies (2000)” and article “Mobile Sociology (2010)” developed some preliminary ideas for researching various types of mobilities in sociological disciplines. He pointed out two issues that existed in sociological thinking. First was the ‘sedentarism’ found in many sociological thoughts that treated human experience as ‘bounded’ in a series of places, borders, regions, and nations (Urry, 2007: 31). In a sedentarist view, humans naturally and habitually inhabit a place where they feel protected and cared. People sustain their spaces through establishing relationships (moving) with things and locales nearby or remote, and people themselves are also part of the

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space they are about to enter. Therefore one ‘moves’ between spaces is the way of sustaining the space he/she inhabits (Heidegger & Krell, 1993; Urry, 2007). Urry argued that the sedentarist views in sociology failed to register the complexity of ’social space’ in modern societies. The emergence of automobiles and other transportation technologies, for example, enabled the transforming of time-space relationship especially among urban inhabitants (Sheller & Urry, 2006: 209). The enhanced ‘traveling’ experience with higher speed has reconfigured the conception of space, inhabitance, and interpersonal relationships. Automobiles and other

enhanced transport mobilities have generated impacts on not only the convergence of time-space, but also influence the “formation of gendered subjectivities, familial and social networks,

spatially segregated urban neighborhoods, national images and aspirations to modernity, and global relations ranging from transnational migration to terrorism and oil wars” (Sheller, 2004;

Sheller & Urry, 2006: 209).

Another critique was that the ‘static’ sociological research has been focusing on the

‘deterritorialization’ in the process of globalization. Derived from French philosopher Deleuze and Guattari’s works in critical theory, the notion of deterritorialization and its associated metaphor ‘nomadism’ denoted an utopian sense of ‘state of being’ in which one moves/changes its habitat unfettered by the boundaries, borders, systems and organizations (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987: 380, 381). The notion of ‘deterritorialization’ and ‘nomadism’ have significantly

influenced scholarly discourses of ‘globalization’ in the turn of the twenty first century. Basch et al (1994), for instance, advocated the idealistic political formation of ‘deterritorialized nation- state’: a scenario of socio-political formation that breaks down the conventional conceptions of

‘citizenship’ and ‘home country/land’, and allows boundary-less transnational social networks, economic alliances and political ideologies (Basch, Schiller, & Szanton Blanc, 1994). Ó Tuathail (1999) proposed the idea that deterritorialization serves ‘both inevitable and positive

developments in contemporary capitalist society’ and creates ‘a world political map that is paradoxically more integrated and connected yet also more divided and dislocated’ (Tuathail, 1999: 142, 143). For Urry, many ideas of ‘globalization’ had put too much focus on the notion of

’territory’ itself as the ‘container for societies’ and seeking for solutions and predictions of what

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this ‘container’ will/should become (the end-result). The ‘movement’ which happened/happening in the society and its development had been largely ignored. Researches on ‘mobilities’, as Urry addressed, need not to treat mobilities as ‘a supposed form of freedom or liberation from space and place’, but to ‘celebrate the opposite of sedentarism’ (Sheller & Urry, 2006, p. 210). As an outcome, Urry and Sheller proposed a new paradigm in their 2006 essay “The new mobilities paradigm (2006) ²”, which suggests a set of questions, theories, and methodologies rather than a totalizing or reductive description of the contemporary world” (ibid). In the next section, I will discuss the main takes from Urry and Sheller’s mobilities paradigm.

2.2 The (new) mobilities paradigm

Generally speaking, the (new) mobilities paradigm raised by sociologists John Urry and Mimi Sheller in 2006 is understood and accepted as a class/set/pattern/model/way of theories, methods, hypotheses, thinkings, and mindsets encircled by the subject of ‘mobilities’ (Randell, 2020; Sheller & Urry, 2006). The paradigm attempts to treat the notion of ‘mobility’ as a useful handbook in explaining phenomena in humanities and social science by recognizing ‘mobilities’

as generic, universal, and ubiquitous movements both in material world and societies. In John Urry’s book “Mobilities (2007)”, he attributed ‘mobilities’ to “various kinds and temporalities of physical movements” and “the movement of images and information on multiple media, as well as virtual movement as communications are affected one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to- many through networked and embedded computers” (Urry, 2007: 8). Mobilities research examines both those physical movements and virtual movements that pertain to transporting people, messages, and information, as well as the movements that cause changes in social relationships, inclusion/exclusion, power and status (ibid, 9). In the following text, I will introduce the main arguments that are discussed in the mobilities paradigm with Urry’s book

“Mobilities (2007)” as the major source.

2 The mobilities paradigm generally refers to Urry and Sheller’s 2006 article “The New Mobilities Paradigm”, where Urry and Sheller adopted philosopher Thomas Kuhn’s framework of ‘paradigm’ (Randell, 2020). The word ‘new’ was merely a designation.

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2.2.1. Connections/distances and presence/absence

The (new) mobilities paradigm views that “all social relationships should be seen as involving diverse ‘connections’ that are more or less ‘at a distance’, more or less fast, more or less intense, and more or less involving physical movement” (ibid, 46). Today’s information and communication technologies (ICTs) help to compensate for geographical distance as they enable instant connections among individuals. Moreover, ICTs also enable ‘social presence’ in which one can perceive the presence of others in the communication (Calefato & Lanubile, 2010; Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976). However, the ‘distance’ persists in all kinds of social relationships and will not simply be eliminated by the ICTs (and sometimes even ICTs potentially enlarge the distance, see Turkle, 2011) (Turkle, 2011). The notion of ‘connection’ and ‘distance’ also

involve ‘presence’ and ‘absence’. The paradigm views ‘presence’ and ‘absence’ as two relational properties, that social life comes with ‘continual processes of shifting between being present with others and being distant from others’ (Urry, 2007: 47). The presence and absence are not

necessarily ‘physical’ but can also appear to be ‘imagined’ through objects, people, and information (Elliott & Urry, 2010: 15). One can be physically absent from others while still being ‘imaginatively present’ with them, and vice versa. Mobilities are intertwined with the matter of ‘connection’, ‘distance’, ‘presence’, and ‘absence’ through various different processes in societies.

2.2.2. Mobility as ‘hybrid assemblage’

Physical travel involves bodies and corporeal movement, and such movement

encounters the physical world in a multi-sensory way as they move. Objects and technologies extend bodies’ kinesthetic sense of movement, and enlarge human capacity of reaching to the external world (Urry, 2007: 48). Those achievements are manifested in the creation of ‘hybrid assemblages (humans, technologies, objects, cultures, and information)’ which stabilize mobility.

One example of the expression of ‘hybrid assemblage’ can be found in Urry’s discussion in

‘auto-mobility’ in his 2006 essay ‘Inhabiting the Car,’ where he argued that the ‘car-driver’ is a hybrid assemblage because it is “not simply of autonomous humans but simultaneously of machines, roads, buildings, signs, and entire cultures of mobility’ (Urry, 2006: 18). Apart from

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automobiles, ‘mobile phones/smartphones’ can also be treated as a hybrid assemblage, as smartphones and devices are increasingly integrated to different aspects of one’s life. Nogueira and Moraes (2020) analyzed advertising discourse of smartphones in Brazil and argued that today’s smartphones are also a hybrid assemblage that have vastly transcended their intrinsic use for virtual/imaginative mobility and became ‘prosthetics’ in their relationship with humans (Nogueira & Moraes, 2020: 130-145). In 2021, consumer electronic giant Samsung invited famous Norwegian soccer player Erling Braut Haaland as the ambassador of a new smartphone launch in Nordic region. In the product discourse, the relationship between the smartphone and individuals has transcended from the device’s intrinsic purposes of use into a hybrid assemblage of meanings: a mixture of professionalism, perseverance, and fandom. The image of Haaland holding the smartphone speaks to the discourse that “the success required hard work and a lot of training, both on and off the field, and a constant belief that the dream would actually come true,” matching Haaland’s professional records and benchmark performance of the mobile device (Samsung Electronics Norway, 2021). Today’s culture of mobility is highly malleable and imposed a variety of meanings and values.

Figure 2.2: Product announcement from Samsung Electronics Norway Co., Ltd. The company has collaborated with the Norwegian football player Erling Barut Haaland, who became the 'ambassador' of Samsung's latest smartphone. In this announcement, the tech specifications of the

smartphone are overshadowed by other messages such as branding, characteristics of the

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product’s spokesperson, and symbols that the product wants to convey. Screenshot taken from Samsung's official website and English translations produced by Google Translate.

One effect of these hybrid of assemblages, as Urry indicated, is the change in the nature of human vision (Urry, 2006: 48). For this point, Urry in the book used his findings of the ‘tourist gaze’, where he argued how the act of ‘sightseeing’ is socially constructed in relation with the eighteenth century’s picturesque (Smith, Macleod, & Hart Robertson, 2010; Urry, 1990).

However, I would like to refer to media historian Jonathan Crary’s works in human vision. In Crary’s book “Techniques and the observer (1992)”, he argued for a ‘paradigm shift’ of human visual perceptions in the early nineteenth century marked by the emergence of stereoscopes and other optical toys, which was long before the emergence of cinema. For a long time, human vision was dominated by the model of camera obscura where human vision was rational, objective, mechanical, and directly reflecting the truth and reality (see figure 2.3) (Crary, 1990:

39, 40).

Figure 2.3: Illustration of camera obscura in Kircher's Ars Magnas Lucis Et Umbrae (1645). In this picture, a typical camera obscura settlement is portrayed: a darkroom with a hole (point D) on the wall which lets the light pass through. Views from the exterior are projected on the wall

inside of the room (point A). Retrieved and reprinted from Wikimedia Commons.

This model, according to Crary, experienced the ‘rupture’ as the emergence of stereoscopes (as well as other optical toys such as zoetropes, thaumatropes, and dioramas) enabled human visual perception itself to be perceived internally instead of a mechanical reproduction of the external

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world. This ‘subjective vision’, as Crary argued, represented a radical change in which “ideas of things and events in the world were never copies of external reality but rather the outcome of an interactional process within the subject” (ibid, p. 100). Moreover, such radical ‘rupture’ in human visual perception also stemmed from the hybrid assemblage of scientific, economic, cultural, political, and social movements and transformations since the seventeenth century (ibid, p. 8). The significance of this change was to free human vision (as Crary described it as ‘the observer’), signs, and images from the dominance of camera obscura model, as he described:

If the camera obscura, as a concept, subsisted as an objective ground of visual truth, a variety of discourses and practices — in philosophy, science, and in procedures of social normalization — tend to abolish the foundations of that ground in the early nineteenth century. In a sense, what occurs is a new valuation of visual experience: it is given an unprecedented mobility and exchangeability, abstracted from any founding site or referent (ibid, p. 14).

Figure 2.4: A stereograph in 1898. The stereoscopy contains two images that trigger the binocular vision of human eyes to create depth perception. In practice, the viewer places the stereograph on a device that enhances the stereoscopic effect (figure 2.5). The stereography is

one example that demonstrates the 'rupture' in the history of human visual perception, where human vision from the 17th century started to become manipulative and subjective. Retrieved

and reprinted from Layer (2011), "Stereoscopy: where did it come from? where will it lead?", originally published in EXPOSURE: 17:3 Fall 1979, p. 34-48.

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Figure 2.5: A typical stereoscope device. Retrieved and reprinted from Wikimedia Commons.

What Crary illuminated was that this new ‘mobile, exchangeable’ visual experience emerged in the nineteenth century and demanded a new kind of 'observer-consumer’ relationship. That is, visual experience needs to be ‘abstract-able’ in which visual elements can be manipulated and mobilized. Such new demand did not come out of nowhere, but was deeply rooted in the ‘hybrid assemblage’ in the process of modernization where ‘new modes of circulation, communication, production, consumption and rationalization’ emerged (ibid, 2 ,14). The new observer-consumer relationship is also found in tourism businesses where man-made cultural attractions and natural landscapes have an effect on the nature of human vision. Inspired by Foucault and Lacan’s notion of ‘gaze’, Urry in his 1990’s work raised the concept of ‘tourist gaze’ that refers to the specific way in which tourists see places and people while traveling. Tourists’ favorite

‘sightseeing’ is to look at the sight. However the site is selected, constructed, and managed by the tourism and its industry behind. The tourist gaze, as Urry argued, is essentially a visual appeal for picturesque views that are socially constructed. Tourist attractions, like the Eiffel Tower, have an iconic image from distinct angles of view, which attract tourists to visit and gaze on them (Smith et al., 2010; Urry, 1990).

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2.2.3. Mobility system(s)

Another crucial concept in the mobilities paradigm is the notion of ‘mobility system’.

The idea of ‘system’ in the mobility paradigm stems from materialist thinking that has been lacking in sociological research. Social researchers have long treated the ’social realm’

separately from the realm of objects, especially material objects. Material objects act as a crucial part of social life and they move with people, without people, together with people, indicate the movement of people, or possess the potential of people’s movement. Therefore there is the need to incorporate the study of material objects into the study of mobility, social life, and practices (Urry, 2007: 50). To achieve this, a relevant focus is to look into the ‘affordance’ of those objects. Famously introduced by American psychologist James Gibson, the word ‘affordance’

refers to the relationship between the environment and its inhabitants that the environment offers both possibilities and constraints to animals (Bucher & Helmond, 2018; Gibson, 1979).

Considering that certain objects afford possibilities and resistances to human mobility, Urry further mentioned the notion of ‘mobility system’.

The idea of ‘system’ stems from the premise that all social lives involve humans and objects, and their various different kinds of relationship and connection. A mobility system

“distributes people, activities and objects in and through time-space” and facilitates “the metabolic relationship of human societies with nature” (Urry, 2007: 51). It is important to note that, although we naturally consider mobility systems as transportation systems, mobility systems are not limited to those. Networked computer/Internet and mobile telephony are two latest mobility systems established alongside the transportation system (ibid, 52). As mobile technology develops, these two systems are fused together as mobile computing and

smartphones become mundane (which I am inclined to refer to as ‘digital system’). Today’s mobility systems are sophisticated, complex, interdependent, and intersected with each other.

Mobilities within contemporary mobility systems have largely exceeded the context of ‘physical travels and movements’ as new modes of communication and social/cultural/economic practices emerged in the digital age. Digital/virtual mobility open up new arrays of inquiries regarding space, navigation, telepresence and so on.

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Movement within mobility systems is not chaotic. They are organized as circulations of people, objects, and information. These circulations are guided by ‘structured routeways’ which imply different modes of circulation that are local, national, or international. The routeways also generate the potential for movement (‘motility’) within a society. Such potential has the

polarizing effect in a way that it enhances circulation for societies with the large capacity of handling movements, whereas in societies which are underdeveloped it worsens the circulation (the burden of mobility). The potential of movement also entails obligations in which moving is deemed to happen (ibid, 51).

Contemporary mobility systems entail different types of challenges. First, mobility systems have the tendency to cause inequalities and issues of accessibility between well- developed places and underdeveloped places. Second, mobility systems also raise political concerns about the ‘freedom of moving’; that is, the freedom of both being able to move and being able to stay still in a voluntary way is a source of power that reflects the advantage and independence both economically and culturally (ibid, 52). Third, contemporary mobility systems depend on new technologies and such dependence require technical knowledge and expertise to support both physical mobility and the systems behind them since one small breakdown may initiate a chain-effect of disruptions. Fourth, users are not only depending on mobility systems but also potentially alienated from those systems due to the lack of understanding and

competence (ibid, 53). Fifth, we left traces as users in mobility systems (especially in digital systems). Concerns for data privacy and security have become increasingly prominent as information is highly digitized and networked. Tracking traces of people’s online/offline movement powered by digital technology within mobility systems has become more extensive, pervasive and hidden (ibid, 49). Big data and machine learning (AI) utilize those ‘traces’ in which humans and the ‘self’ are ‘reconfigured’ as bits of information to be mobilized (ibid, 53).

2.2.4 Places, performances, and meetings

In mobility systems, physical travel and movement involves places. Places are

“produced economically, politically, and culturally through the multiple mobilities of people, capital, objects, signs and information” (ibid, 269). Places also entail various kinds of

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‘performances’. Although in Urry’s text the notion of ‘performance’ was inclined to signify

‘tourist performance’ while traveling, here I would like to apply Goffman’s notion of

‘performance,’ which appeared in his famous work ’The presentation of self in everyday life (1956)’, where he used the metaphor ‘performance’ to refer to “all the activity of an individual which occurs during period marked by his continuous presence before a particular set of observers and which has some influence on the observers” (Goffman, 1956: 13). Places and performances are bound to each other in a dynamic and interdependent relationship in which none of them are fixed and static. Without performances, a place will turn itself into something else (Bærenholdt, : 150; Urry, 2007: 269). Different from Goffman’s dramaturgy, where performances involve ‘actors’ and ‘settings’, in Urry’s text, performance(s) in a place entail the

‘hosts’ and the ‘guests’, which led to a core concept ‘host-guest relationships’: Hosts are

individuals or groups of people who exert various degrees and types of ‘hospitality’, whereas the guests are individuals or groups who accept the hospitality (Selwyn, 2016). Finally, places are

‘aggregators’ in producing performances. Places are not standalone, but associated with different networks connecting the hosts, guests, information, and objects. Therefore performances are produced as places which brought all elements together in certain locales at certain times (contingency) (Bærenholdt, : 150).

One type of performance afforded by ‘place’ is ‘meeting’. ‘Meeting’ in Urry’s text serves multiple meanings: It refers to formalized meetings that are regulated by agenda, timetable, and structure; and informal meetings where specific times and places are negotiated (Urry, 2007: 232). Meeting facilitates intermittent movements and co-presence that are

dependent on different processes (five processes were identified in Urry’s book ‘Mobilities (2007)’) where people need to physically travel to a place and become ‘present’ with others (ibid, 233). What is central to physical movements and physical presence for meeting is the various forms of social obligations (both formal and informal), social norms (habitual social practices), material objects, places, experiences, and networks (ibid, 234). In a meeting where co-presence happens, that is, two or more people are together ‘present’ in a specific place at a specific time; face-to-face interaction/conversation/talk serves as a fundamental component. Urry

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emphasized that face-to-face communication is “the richest, multi-channel medium because it engages all the senses” (ibid, 238). Technologies may/cannot necessarily “sustain periods of absence that can get too long and the weak ties can gradually decay (although those distant others may still be ‘known of’)” (ibid, 239). During the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, the lockdown and mobility disruptions/restrictions have largely affected and even altered the

meeting, co-presence, and social obligations/norms behind them. Apart from the widely accepted

‘home-officing,’ where meetings and co-presence at work are largely replaced by video-

conferencing platforms, it was surprising to see that those social situations which were unlikely to allow physical absence due to the normative social obligations, are shaken by the pandemic situation. Two examples here are doctor’s appointments and court hearings. Physical

presence/co-presence is traditionally involved in both social occasions as either a legal obligation (for court hearing), or a normative expectation (to see a doctor typically involves physical

meetings). However, amidst the pandemic, both social situations can be (partly) substituted virtually by video calls.

The absence of co-presence, although necessary and viable both due to the virus

infection control and the spread of digital communication we adapt into, but all in all we cannot and will not escape from the ‘material worlds’ that connect us as members of networks. Urry postulated that if the ‘material connections’ persist, then the mobility would be burdened by the motility ³ and become higher later with more obligations to make physical travels/visitings (Urry, 2007: 239).

3 Potential for movement, Urry adopted Kaufmann’s definition of this potential as “the way in which an individual appropriates what is possible in the domain of ability and puts this potential to use for his or her activities” (Kaufmann, 2002: 37; Urry, 2007: 38)

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Figure 2.6: An example of doctor consultation on video chat promoted during the lockdown.

Screenshot taken from Dr.Dropin's website, translated by Google Translate.

Figure 2.7: Zoom court hearing from Kansas Supreme Court, United States, during the pandemic. Reprinted from Torman (2019), Zoom Blog.

2.2.5 Immobilities

When speaking about ‘mobility’, it’s also necessary to incorporate ‘immobility’ into the discussion. There are also various types of ‘immobility’ within the mobility systems. Firstly, mobility and immobility are both relational and experiential. Geographer Peter Adey explained the relativity and subjectivity of movements, and argued that “there is not an innate or

essentialist meaning to movement. Mobility instead gains meaning through its embeddedness within societies, culture, politics, histories”. For a person who is moving, he/she may

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experience/feel not moving as well. Therefore we need to incorporate the ‘relatedness’ mindset when considering mobility and immobility (P. Adey, 2006:83). Mobility systems are depending on a series of ‘immobile systems’ to facilitate different types of mobility experiences. Platforms such as stations, airports, hubs, and Internet servers act as ‘structuring agents’ for mobility experience. Another was the infrastructural systems such as railways, roads, and fiber-optic cables; these immobile systems act as the ‘backbones’ for mobility systems to function normally.

Mobile machines such as mobile phones, automobiles, airplanes and networked computers with internet connections require immobile facilities to be placed, landed, or parked. Machines with extensive mobility (such as an airplane which could transport people continentally) also need immobile facilities to be supported (airport its satellite city) (Urry, 2007: 54).

2.2.6 Mobilities paradigm as a meta concept

Urry and Sheller’s mobilities paradigm has opened a door for researchers to further explore the ubiquitous mobility across different disciplines. Merriman et, al (2013) has indicated that mobilities research is an emerging field with a cross-disciplinary nature:

The rapid expansion of academic research on mobilities is evident in disciplines such as geography, sociology, performance studies, media studies, history, and literary studies, but how inter- or multi-disciplinary are the research programs, questions, and dialogues being explored? Are scholars from these

different disciplines engaging in meaningful two-way dialogues with each other, and are they developing shared research agendas? (Merriman et al., 2013: 147, 148)

Many researchers have dove into the topic of “mobility” with new perspectives and discussions, which later was labeled as the ‘mobilities turn’ (Hannam, Sheller, & Urry, 2006). In human geography, geographers Cresswell and Merrimam (2011) suggested that mobilities shall be examined through the practices, and these ‘mobility embodied’ practices ‘are central to how we experience the world’ (Cresswell & Merriman, 2016, p. 5). Practices in different mobilities also constitute an important part in one’s life experience. Humans are “mobile subjects” who live a

“mobile life,” which encompasses everyday practices which anticipate the movement (Elliott &

Mobility, digital media, and museums