ABSTRACT
The word ‘mobility’ is an attribute of people, goods and information which are in a dynamic state. Thus, the term mobility can denote a marketable commodity, e.g. the products of airlines or travel agencies, but it can also be a subject for statistical analysis, e.g. the total number of kilometres travelled in country, or refer to a policy domain, e.g. transport policies. The word ‘travel’ has a different set of meanings. It refers not just to a dynamic state, but to a meaningful activity that has a long cultural and social history. It not only engenders a movement in space and time, but also assumes the subjectivity of experiences as well as the intersubjectivity of texts and discourses. The main aim of this book is to analyse systematically practices of travel. In this practice-oriented approach, travel is not reduced to getting from A to B as quickly and as smoothly as possible – the underlying assumption in mainstream transportation research vocabularies on mobility – but instead, travel is treated as an integrated part of everyday life, a ‘normal’ practice.
