Britain’s Changing Roadscapes: Mobility, Place, Attachment, Loss

Description

The book addresses long-standing geographical debates on place, place-attachment and kin/aesthetics as well as the unique spatial-temporal properties of ‘journeying’. Drawing upon the author’s road diaries and photographic archive dating back to the 1990s, the analysis centres on a route that runs from Scotland to Cornwall and which incorporates motorways, A-roads and unclassified country lanes.... Read more

The book addresses long-standing geographical debates on place, place-attachment and kin/aesthetics as well as the unique spatial-temporal properties of ‘journeying’. Drawing upon the author’s road diaries and photographic archive dating back to the 1990s, the analysis centres on a route that runs from Scotland to Cornwall and which incorporates motorways, A-roads and unclassified country lanes. In addition to seeking to capture material evidence of change across a wide variety of road features and driving events - many of them transient, incidental and mundane - the book is also concerned with how change makes its presence known to the observer. This includes the question of how, and why, road-users sometimes develop powerful attachments for particular routes and roadside landmarks. To this end, the analysis is in conversation with recent debates in contemporary archaeology, the aesthetics of the everyday and geographical research on dis/orientation, as well as Henri Bergson’s foundational work on the phenomenology of perception and memory. And yet, it is the restless, teeming life of the British roads featured in the case studies - the A30, the A82, the M5, the M6, the M74 and Cornwall’s narrow, winding lanes - that makes this book memorable, especially given that, post-millennium, many of the changes to which it bears witness are epic in consequence. Congestion, electrification, automation, the arrival of SMART motorways and extreme weather events arising from climate change all feature here, alongside the disappearance of the roadside cafes, filling stations, phone boxes, lay-bys and snack bars associated with twentieth-century motoring.

This interdisciplinary exploration of Britain’s changing roads and roadscapes will appeal to academics and students working in, and across, the fields of social and cultural geography, mobilities studies, cultural history, literary and cultural theory and contemporary archaeology. Its autoethnographic case studies, historical route descriptions, photographic archive and general accessibility mean that it may also be of interest to road enthusiasts and the general reader.

Read less

Author(s)

Biography

Lynne Pearce is a Professor of Literary and Cultural Theory in the School of Arts at Lancaster University and Co-Director (Humanities) of CeMoRe (Lancaster’s Centre for Mobilities Research).

Her recent publications include Drivetime (2016) and Mobility, Memory and the Lifecourse (2019).

Critics' Reviews

"Crafting a far-reaching yet deeply personal account of Britain’s changing roadscapes, this book is ground-breaking and engaging. Intersecting autoethnography with photographic, literary, policy and architectural analysis, it details the ways in which roadscapes are made through the imbrications of journeys past, present and future; embodying change from the geo-political to the minutiae of perception. It is a welcome addition to the transdisciplinary field of mobilities, with broad appeal to researchers across a range of disciplines."

- Lesley Murray, Professor of Spatial Sociology, University of Brighton, UK, and co-author of Storying the Immobilities of Gender Violence in the UK and Mexico.

“Meticulously researched, lyrically written, and gloriously illustrated, Britain’s Changing Roadscapes is an ode to the transient places that etch themselves into who we are. Pearce brilliantly threads the experiential textures of road journeys with the shifting cultural, social, political, and economic landscapes of Britain, inviting us to attune to the wonder and poignancy of life on the road. A must-read for anyone fascinated by the journeys we make by car.”

- Professor David Bissell, The University of Melbourne. Author of Transit Life: How commuting is transforming our cities.

Britain’s Changing Roadscapes Mobility, Place, Attachment, Loss

Description

Table of Contents

Author(s)

Biography

Critics' Reviews

SOCIAL NETWORKS

Secure Shopping Payment Options