Mobility, fixity, agency: Australia’s working holiday programme
Mobility, fixity, agency: Australia’s working holiday programme
Recent writings on transnational corporeal mobility have been dominated by at least two concerns: mobility as ever-expanding or even complete; and mobility as determined by economic restructuring. In this paper, I confront such writings with empirical material from primarily qualitative research into Australia’s working holiday programme, which was established in 1975 to allow British citizens between the ages of 18 and 26 to work and holiday in Australia for a period of up to 12 months. And I confront such writings with M. P. Smith’s (2001) agency-oriented approach to transnational urbanism, which I extend with two arguments. Firstly, since agency is not a simple possession of intent or motivated human beings, the achievement of mobility rests on both human actors and non-human actants. Secondly, since mobility is not simply increasing, the achievement of mobility rests alongside what we might call relative contingent fixity.
mobility, fixity, agency, Australia, working holiday
411-420
Clarke, Nick
4ed65752-5210-4f9e-aeff-9188520510e8
September 2004
Clarke, Nick
4ed65752-5210-4f9e-aeff-9188520510e8
Clarke, Nick
(2004)
Mobility, fixity, agency: Australia’s working holiday programme.
Population, Space and Place, 10 (5), .
(doi:10.1002/psp.347).
Abstract
Recent writings on transnational corporeal mobility have been dominated by at least two concerns: mobility as ever-expanding or even complete; and mobility as determined by economic restructuring. In this paper, I confront such writings with empirical material from primarily qualitative research into Australia’s working holiday programme, which was established in 1975 to allow British citizens between the ages of 18 and 26 to work and holiday in Australia for a period of up to 12 months. And I confront such writings with M. P. Smith’s (2001) agency-oriented approach to transnational urbanism, which I extend with two arguments. Firstly, since agency is not a simple possession of intent or motivated human beings, the achievement of mobility rests on both human actors and non-human actants. Secondly, since mobility is not simply increasing, the achievement of mobility rests alongside what we might call relative contingent fixity.
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mobility_fixity_agency_FAVPPR.pdf
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Submitted date: 21 October 2002
Published date: September 2004
Keywords:
mobility, fixity, agency, Australia, working holiday
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Local EPrints ID: 38383
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/38383
ISSN: 1544-8444
PURE UUID: 03c3c4a9-0843-4641-aa6d-570c8fe0f1b0
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Date deposited: 08 Jun 2006
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 03:46
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