Funder

Australian Research Council DP160103771

Project duration

2016-2021

Team

David Bissell
Andrew Gorman-Murray
Elizabeth Straughan

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Mobile working practices – where people are working away from their homes for days, or even weeks, at a time – are an increasingly essential but under-explored part of Australia’s economy. However, the social impacts on personal and family wellbeing are not well understood. 

This project investigated the changes wrought by different sorts of mobile work on household life in Australia, with specific attention to personal and family wellbeing. We undertook qualitative research with stakeholders and households to identify the kinds of multifaceted support that might be required for this practice to flourish without negative impacts. 

Academic outputs

Straughan, E., Bissell, D. and Gorman-Murray, A. (2020) ‘Friends disconnected: how mobile work transforms friendships through absence and presence’, Area, accepted, July 2020. 

Bissell, D., Straughan, E. and Gorman-Murray, A. (2020) ‘Losing touch with people and place: labor mobilities, desensitized bodies, disconnected lives’, Annals of the American Association of Geographers, online early. 

Straughan, E., Bissell, D. and Gorman-Murray, A. (2020) ‘The politics of stuckness: waiting lives in mobile worlds’, Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 38(4), 636-655. 

Bissell, D. (2020) ‘Mobilities and Place’, in Edensor, T., Kalandides, A. and Kothari, U. (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Place. London: Routledge. 

Straughan, E., Bissell, D. and Gorman-Murray, A. (2020) ‘Exhausting rhythms: the intimate geopolitics of resource extraction’, Cultural Geographies, 27(2), 201-216. 

Bissell, D. and Gorman-Murray, A. (2019) ‘Disoriented geographies: undoing relations, encountering limits,’ Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 44(4), 707-720.  

Gorman-Murray, A. and Bissell, D. (2018) ‘Mobile work, multilocal dwelling and spaces of wellbeing,’ Health and Place, 51, 232-238.

Bissell, D. (2018) ‘Proximity from a distance: mobility, landscape and the intimacies of life on screen’, in Kesselring, S., Jensen, O. and Sheller, M. Mobilities and Complexities: Reflections on post-carbon social science. London: Routledge. 

Bissell, D., Vannini, P. and Jensen, O.B. (2017) ‘Intensities of mobility: kinetic energy, commotion, and qualities of supercommuting’ Mobilities 12(6), 795-812.

Conference papers

Bissell, D. Straughan, E. and Gorman-Murray, A. ‘Desensitised endings: losing touch’, presented at RGS-IBG Annual Conference, London, August 2019.

Bissell, D. and Gorman-Murray, A. ‘Disoriented geographies: undoing relations, encountering limits’, presented at American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Washington DC, April 2019. 

Straughan, E., Bissell, D. and Gorman-Murray, A. ‘Floating in absence: experiences of waiting in proximity to mobile working practice’, (with Elizabeth Straughan and Andrew Gorman-Murray) presented at American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Washington DC, April 2019. 

Bissell, D. and Gorman-Murray, A. ‘Disoriented geographies’. Seminar presentation, Department of Geography and Earth Science, Aberystwyth University, October 2018. 

Bissell, D. and Gorman-Murray, A. ‘Managing Intimacies at a Distance’, presented at Intimacies at a Distance symposium, La Trobe University, November 2017. 

Bissell, D. ‘Inhabiting mobile lives’, presented at American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Boston, April 2017. 

Bissell, D. ‘Entubulated proximity: virtual infrastructures for mobile dwelling’. Invited presentation at Loose Connections: Modes of Un-relating, Hamburg, January 2017. 

Gorman-Murray, A. Mobile work, multilocality and spaces of wellbeing, presented at American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting, Boston, April 2017.

Bissell, D. and Gorman-Murray, A. Managing Intimacies at a Distance, presented at Intimacies at a Distance symposium, La Trobe University, November 2017.

Gorman-Murray, A. ‘On the edge? Women 'working away' from home in Australia’, presented at NZGS-IAG Joint Conference, Auckland, July 2018. 

Events

Co-organised 3x sessions on ‘Floating Life’ at Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Washington DC, April 2019.

Co-organised 4x sessions on ‘Mobile Dwelling’ at Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, Boston, April 2017.