Translated from…
This book is a Korean translation of the book, Transit Life: How commuting is transforming our cities by David Bissell (The MIT Press, 2018).
통근하는 삶, a Korean translation of the book, Transit Life: How commuting is transforming our cities by David Bissell (The MIT Press, 2018), is published as a part of the INTERCONNECT BOOK SERIES, one of the book series by the Academy of Mobility Humanities, which selects and translates some of the seminal books originally written in non-Korean languages in order to introduce to interested audiences and researcher communities in Korea the significant trends and developments in mobility studies along with the mobility humanities abroad.
Commuting is one of the most mundane forms of everyday mobility that we usually spend much of time and yet are often overlooked. The book, 통근하는 삶 (Transit Life) is written by David Bissell, Associate Professor in the School of Geography in the University of Melbourne and an advisory board member of AMHN (Asia Mobility Humanities Network). It reveals the material aspects of our daily journey that transforms life in our cities drawing on years-long in-depth field works including interviews with everyday commuters, journalists, policymakers, and others in Sydney, Australia. In this book, the author shows various aspects of commuting: not only habitual and stressful but also empowering and even creative dispositions of commuting, while aptly relying on various ideas and theories on movement, mobility, technology, performance, and place. The book is full of rich ideas and genuine observations on everyday experiences of commuting, which may make readers nod and change the ways of thinking about commuting as well.
From the editorial reviews on the original book
I read Transit Life, fittingly, while commuting in and out of a new city for the first time. The book is a guide to these taken-for-granted journeys, the infrastructures that make them possible, and the people that live them. It crackles and pops with insights of stories and encounters that will help us see commuting anew. It places practical reflection on the brushes, glances, gestures, and skills we experience and develop in our routes and routines in and out of cities. Accessible, perceptive, passionate, and often revelatory; it is a book about life on the move like no other.
– Peter Adey, Professor of Human Geography, Royal Holloway University of London; author of Mobility, 2nd edition
– Peter Adey, Professor of Human Geography, Royal Holloway University of London; author of Mobility, 2nd edition
Like John Urry’s Mobilities a decade ago, Transit Life convinces the reader that transport is fascinating and at the core of debates in the social sciences and humanities.
– Robyn Dowling, Professor of Urbanism, The University of Sydney
– Robyn Dowling, Professor of Urbanism, The University of Sydney
David Bissell’s Transit Life offers a deep dive into the experiences of daily commuters and the rhythmic patterns of movement that make up our cities. Immersing himself in the troubled traffic that courses through Sydney, Australia, Bissell finds vibrant, diverse, intense human feelings about the commute, far richer and more surprising than statistics can provide. Despite its endless frustrations and disappointments, commuting emerges as a skilled practice that also brings moments of connection, camaraderie, and occasional enjoyment. He shows how commuting subtly transforms us and how we transform the places through which we pass. Transit Life exemplifies a new kind of mobility thinking, commuting us toward more rewarding forms of social inquiry.
– Mimi Sheller, Director, Center for Mobilities Research and Policy; Professor of Sociology, Drexel University; author of Aluminum Dreams
– Mimi Sheller, Director, Center for Mobilities Research and Policy; Professor of Sociology, Drexel University; author of Aluminum Dreams