What do road infrastructures media networks ferry boats cell phones automobiles and
airplanes have in common? As attempts to come to terms with the virtual and material distance
separating people objects and information they are all technologies of mobility which deeply
shape our ways of life informing ideas demanding new skills and practices facilitating or
impeding relationships and restricting or enabling access to crucial resources. Mobility
studies concentrate on the intersecting movements of bodies objects capital and signs across
time-space dissecting how practices experiences representations and political dynamics
shape new networks and lifeworlds. This book aims to reflect on the simultaneously
technological and cultural (hence technocultural) processes underpinning many of these forms
of mobility concentrating in particular in the North Central and South American social
context. Whereas in Europe the study of mobilities has begun to take a strong hold in academic
units professional research networks and recognized publication outlets the study of
mobilities is still in its adolescence in the Americas. Yet in contrast mobility is very much
part of the core of the social imaginary geo-politics and cultural life of the Americas.
Indeed to be «on the move» is among the most quintessential characteristics of what it means
to be a citizen of the Americas. This book is the first to reflect on these dynamics within
this large geo-cultural context.
