ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes that mobility studies could begin to account for other examples and imaginations of mobility that are considered to be literally, and often figuratively, without weight. Mobilities were not frothy, superfluous movements, skimming across the surface of society and space, but were rather embroiled in social structures, limited by capital, time, poverty or affluence, deep-rooted relations and familial, work or other commitments. John Urry and many others were particularly keen to reject the putative nomadic celebration of mobility that expressed romanticised notions of free-flight, as if mobility were simply an escape from relations and structures of power. In his later work, Urry’s examination of climate change, oil, off-shoring and new systems of production in the form of 3D printing saw mobilities as more sticky and viscous than the fluidic metaphors others have been fond of. Indeed, Anthony Elliot has characterised Z. Bauman’s work as having a concern with ‘light mobilities’.
