Spaces of Paused Mobility: A Sensory Geography of Waiting Rooms
Lead Research Organisation:
Durham University
Department Name: Geography
Abstract
In a consumer society where wants and needs may be instantly fulfilled, waiting for anything seems increasingly like an anachronism. And yet whether in relation to flows of people or things, or the work of bureaucracies, spaces of waiting proliferate and are integral to how our society of connections and circulations functions. This study seeks to understand how the under explored process of waiting can be mapped and understood as a distinct sensory experience within a society that increasingly deems the act of waiting as outmoded. Using sensory recording methods, it will generate new data about the process of waiting as a bodily, sensory and affective encounter with three distinct spaces of waiting - a crown court, a cosmetic surgery centre, and a driving test centre. Through observation and participant interviews, the study will investigate how the dynamics of power and powerlessness organize and vary across these different spaces of waiting and how these notions inform sensory responses to the sites. The study will seek to expand current understanding of non-representational theories by demonstrating how installation artworks can be used as method for data gathering, as well as tool for dissemination and occasion for encounter and discussion.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
Ben Anderson (Primary Supervisor) | |
Victoria Jones (Student) |
Publications
Jones V
(2020)
Timescapes of waiting: spaces of stasis, delay and deferral edited by Christoph Singer, Robert Wirth and Olaf Berwald, Leiden, Netherlands, Brill | Rodopi, 2019, 238 pp., €94.00/$113.00 (ebook), ISBN: 978-90-04-40712-1; €94.00/$113.00 (hardback), ISBN: 978-90-04-40695-7
in Social & Cultural Geography
Jones V
(2022)
Feeling in Suspension: Waiting in COVID-19 Shopping Queues
in GeoHumanities
Studentship Projects
Project Reference | Relationship | Related To | Start | End | Student Name |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
ES/P000762/1 | 30/09/2017 | 29/09/2027 | |||
2075887 | Studentship | ES/P000762/1 | 30/09/2018 | 29/06/2022 | Victoria Jones |