Shaun Moores

Media, Place and Mobility

Preface and Acknowledgements The Situational Geography of Social Life When Space Feels Thoroughly Familiar Forms of Dwelling in a World of Flux Conclusion: Non-Media-Centric Media Studies Bibliography Index

Identity remix Tradition and translation in the lives of young Pakistani Scots

This article reports on ethnographic research into processes of cultural continuity and change amongst a group of second-generation Pakistani Scots in Edinburgh. Using the metaphor of remix music, the authors explore constructions of identity in the context of new global and local transformations. Field observations and interviews with young people provide a foundation for analysing the negotiation of tradition, and key themes include the gendered dynamics of lived experience, shifting attitudes to marriage and the consumption of mediated symbolic goods. The authors conclude by conceptualizing the field of study, following Avtar Brah, as a specific diaspora space.

‘I didn’t realize how attached I am’: On the environmental experiences of trans-European migrants

This article presents findings from a qualitative research project on the environmental experiences of trans-European migrants, drawing on conversational interviews with young people who have moved to Britain over recent years from the new European Union Member States in Eastern Europe. It explores these migrants’ practical and emotional relationships with physical (and media) environments, also drawing on the literature of phenomenological geography, in which there is a helpful concern with environmental experiences and associated senses of place. Such experiences and perceptions are not usually objects of reflection in day-to-day social circumstances, precisely because of their routine, familiar and taken-for-granted character. However, transnational migration can bring a profound disturbance of lifeworlds, throwing senses of place into sharp relief. Therefore, a major theme of this article is the close connection between matters of migration and those of place-making in daily living.

Non-media-centric media studies: A cross- generational conversation

On the face of it, the notion of non-media-centric media studies appears to be a contradiction in terms. Surely those who are working in media studies will put media at the centre of their investigations and explanations of social life? In the following conversation, three advocates of a non-media-centric approach discuss their ways into the field of media studies at different points in its development, and together they explore their overlapping empirical research interests as well as their theoretical, methodological and pedagogical concerns. Topics that feature in this exchange include the linked mobilities of information, people and commodities, the articulation of material and virtual geographies, and the meaningfulness of everyday, embodied practices. Out of the dialogue emerges a renewed call for media studies that acknowledge the particularities of media, but which are about more than simply studying media and which seek to recover the field’s early spirit of interdisciplinary adventure.

Digital orientations: “Ways of the hand” and practical knowing in media uses and other manual activities

This article is concerned with a particular aspect of the relationship between media and mobility. The author draws attention to what he calls the “doubly digital” quality of contemporary media—pointing to the intimate connection between movements through media settings (such as online environments) and movements of the fingers or digits on keyboards, keypads, touch-screens, and so on. His main interest is in mobile, generative ways of the hand that is at home with communication technologies, and in opening up an investigation of media uses as manual activities. In exploring these mobile, generative ways, he also reflects on a range of other manual activities that are apparently unrelated to media use—venturing into the disciplines of philosophy, sociology, and anthropology to discuss phenomenological perspectives on practices of typing, organ and piano playing, and plank sawing. Out of his exploration emerges a focus on embodied, sensuous, practical knowing, and on matters of orientation and habitation (with the author advocating a distinctive nonrepresentational, non-media-centric approach for future studies of media use in everyday life).

We Find Our Way About: Everyday Media Use and ‘Inhabitant Knowledge’

Abstract In this article, the author proposes that media uses in everyday living can helpfully be understood as practices of wayfaring. Whereas meaningful relations between media and their audiences or users have typically been conceptualised as matters of representation and interpretation, he focuses on matters of movement and dwelling or of orientation and habitation, opening up the possibility of a non-representational approach for media studies. His starting point is a passing remark in Scannell’s phenomenology of radio and television, and a discussion of that remark leads him to a sympathetic yet critical engagement with Ingold’s work on wayfaring and inhabitant knowledge. Along the way, consideration is given to Tuan’s notes on paths and place-making, and to Merleau-Ponty’s writing on incarnate subjectivity and the acquisition of habit.

Communications/media/geographies

Although there are human geographers who have previously written on matters of media and communication, and those in media and communication studies who have previously written on geographical issues, this is the first book-length dialogue in which experienced theorists and researchers from these different fields address each other directly and engage in conversation across traditional academic boundaries. The result is a compelling discussion, with the authors setting out statements of their positions before responding to the arguments made by others. One significant aspect of this discussion is a spirited debate about the sort of interdisciplinary area that might emerge as a focus for future work. Does the already-established idea of communication geography offer the best way forward? If so, what would applied or critical forms of communication geography be concerned to do? Could communication geography benefit from the sorts of conjunctural analysis that have been developed in contemporary cultural studies? Might a further way forward be to imagine an interdisciplinary field of everyday-life studies, which would draw critically on non-representational theories of practice and movement?