Networking communities: mobility, nationalism and the historical geographies of connective infrastructures

In this research review and scoping exercise we will provide a detailed synthetic review of how transport infrastructures have been seen to help and hinder the cohesion of local, regional, national and trans-national communities in different geographical, historical and cultural contexts. The project will focus on how the presence or absence of routes, infrastructures and flows has been seen to affect the connectivity of communities, strengthen or weaken social, cultural, political, economic, spatial and temporal ties, and enable or constrain alternative connective relations. The project will assess research undertaken on the role of infrastructures in nation-state formation, transnational enterprises (e.g. European routes), imperial configurations, and practices of dissent and protest against these. The project will also comprise of a scoping study for a follow-on project on the role of transport infrastructures in uniting and dividing communities within a particular sub-state national territory: Wales. This will look at the perceived role of transport infrastructures in either strengthening Welsh national cohesiveness or in weakening its internal ties through closer links (conceived at the British national scale) with adjacent regions of England. As part of the research review a workshop will be organised with eleven world-leading experts working on themes of mobility, transport history and the networking of communities.

In addition to the academic beneficiaries, our research review of literatures on transport infrastructures, networking and communities, and our scoping exercise on Welsh /British transport infrastructures, is likely to be of interest to a wide-range of non-academic groups, and our communications plans are intended to target three sets of beneficiaries.

Firstly, we will communicate our research findings to policy-makers working in government and political parties. Towards the end of the research project we will produce a policy summary statement which we will circulate to civil servants at the UK Department for Transport, Welsh Assembly Government Transport Department, members of the House of Commons Transport Select Committee, the transport and planning departments of Welsh county councils, and national political parties (Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, Green Party, Scottish National Party).

Secondly, the findings of the research and scoping review will be communicated to a wide range of non-governmental organisations working on themes of transport, mobility, community and sustainability through a policy summary statement that is likely to be of interest to groups who are working towards more inclusive national, regional and local transport policies, including the Community Transport Association, Sustrans, the Campaign for Better Transport, and Welsh national organisations such as Menter a Busnes. The PI is a member of the Transport Network of the Welsh Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods, and he will use this network to communicate findings to nonacademic groups who have representation in the network, including the Community Transport Association, Sustrans Cymru, Passenger Focus and the Welsh Assembly Government.

Thirdly, the project findings will be summarised in a press released which will be targeted at the national and local media (particularly the Welsh media, and Welsh language media). In doing this we will utilise the expertise of Aberystwyth University's press office and draw upon our own experiences of communicating our previous research findings through television, radio and popular magazines.