A Roundtable Discussion of Emerging Concepts and Themes Toward a Research Agenda

The mobile or remote work trends that have generated transformations in the global economy have also created major shifts in conventional workscapes and lifescapes. The forces of globalization and the ever-increasing functionalities of information and communication technologies now affect virtually every human being, in every region, in every country regardless of the state of development. As capital moves outward from established centers of economic and political power, and as work becomes untethered from places of production, is redistributed, outsourced, in-sourced, and off-shored it becomes increasingly invisible. New marketscapes and econoscapes have altered the rhythm of the global economy that now, like a giant beast, inhales and exhales through integrated supply chains, financial channels and consumerism in all of its forms. Technologies have increasingly divorced task from place and have made possible the de-territorialization of work with social and cultural consequences. It is not just knowledge work that has become elusive but the work that produces the items we use day-to-day has also become mobile, unbounded and independent of particular localities.

The goal of this roundtable is to discuss, debate, and reflect upon the far-reaching and often invisible effects these trends have on workers’ lives, lifestyles, and life options and to envision future trends that can guide the work of ethnographic practice and research. Meerwarth, Gluesing and Jordan all have been researching and living mobile work and lives over the past several years, have presented conference papers on the topic at both AAA and SfAA over the past three years, and are editing a bulletin for NAPA that is expected to come to press at the end of 2008. We believe that there is much about the process of working and living in a mobile age that is invisible and will only emerge with the closer and more thoughtful scrutiny of ethnographers. Our expectation is that some themes and new insights will emerge as provocative and useful and that workshop participants will take these with them to apply in their own understanding of and research on work and lives.

The format of the workshop will be loosely structured to facilitate as much open conversation and debate about mobile work and mobile lives as possible, so that themes and issues will emerge to spark research ideas that can be developed in academic, corporate, or other organizational settings. Our objective is to focus attention on the topic at the personal, corporate, national, and global level to help create deeper knowledge of the systemic and cultural effects of mobility on work and life through full-group discussion and small-group focused roundtable work. Registered participants will be asked to complete two pre-work activities before the conference:

• Activity One: Optional -- Read one selected article that highlights the concepts, issues and challenges of mobile work and its societal and personal implications.
• Activity Two: Required -- Take a web-based survey (using Zoomerang) about the concepts, questions, or research challenges participants would like to see addressed in the workshop.