Conference programme - Session 1

John Urry

‘Mobile methods and the 'empirical'
What are the mobile methods that are appropriate for examining social-material relations that in diverse and complex ways are at least intermittently 'moving' and hard to 'fix'? How much do methods have to simulate the material being analysed? How do we imagine future empirical worlds likely to entail new and unpredictable mobile configurations?

Biography
John Urry has been Head of the Sociology Department (1983-9), Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences (1989-1994) and the University's Dean of Research (1994-1998) at Lancaster University. Also he was Chair of HEFCE's Research Assessment Exercise Sociology Panel (1996 and 2001).

His research in the 1980s and 1990s last twenty years has focused on five main areas. First, there was the urban and regional research mainly associated with the Lancaster Regionalism Group. Collaborative research resulted in Localities, Class and Gender (1985) and Restructuring. Place, Class and Gender (1990) Two particular themes have been pursued: the relationship between society and space (as in the Social Relations and Spatial Structures, co-edited with Derek Gregory, 1985); and the possibilities of developing local economic policies (as in Place, Policy and Politics, 1990).

There are various research projects and publications relating to the changing nature of mobility. Publications include: Sociology Beyond Societies: (2000), a special issue of Theory, Culture and Society, (Aug 2004 on Automobilities coedited with Mike Feathersone, Nigel Thrift); Mobile Technologies of the City (2006; coedited with Mimi Sheller). John Urry also directs the Centre for Mobilities Research. Finally, John Urry has been exploring some implications of complexity theory for the social sciences. Publications here include Global Complexity (2003), and Complexity, a special double issue of Theory, Culture and Society (2005).

He is also one of the founding editors of the new journal Mobilities, and has been the editor of the International Library of Sociology since 1990 (Routledge).