ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the relation of mobilities-centered theoretical approaches to complexity theory, transition theory, and social practice theory. It argues that the mobilities paradigm offers some of the missing theoretical and methodological approaches for crossing micro and macro scales of bodily, urban, transnational, and planetary mobilities that are at the heart of mitigating climate change and advancing post-carbon energy transitions. The chapter reviews many activities connecting together the diverse sites in the field of mobilities research – the events, the people, the networks, the publications, the centers. The British interpretation of French poststructuralism, postmodernism, and the “cultural turn” differed significantly from that in the US insofar as it infused it with both Marxist political economy and elements of cultural studies. American sociology is extremely nationally focused, empiricist, positivist, self-reproducing, and at times utilitarian.
