ABSTRACT
This chapter calls for mobility to be given a more central place in historical studies. Whereas historical sciences have long concentrated on stable and firmly established spaces, mobility must be understood as historically and geographically specific formations of movement. By example of the Freedom Riders in the U.S.A., Australia and Palestine, the chapter outlines an approach for understanding how this social movement negotiated the right to mobility in each specific location while at the same time focusing on the transnational strategies of this social movement. It calls for a differentiated approach to mobility by looking at the politics of mobility, the representations of mobility, the mediation of mobility, and the mobile practices. The chapter suggests that if the concept of mobility is to be a useful lens of analysis, it also requires a recalibration that is theoretically sensitive to the question of practices, embodiment, and emotions. Thus, on the one hand, the analysis relates to regulatory power and technologies used by state and non-state actors in order to retain (white) privilege over issues of mobility during the period preceding and accompanying the Freedom Rides. On the other hand, it argues along the lines of “mobility as resistance” by showing the experiences and strategies used to transgress written and unwritten laws and normative standards during the different eras.
