Much of the literature on social exclusion ignores its 'spatial' or 'mobility' related aspects. This paper seeks to rectify this by examining the mobile processes and infrastructures of travel and transport that engender and reinforce social exclusion in contemporary societies. To the extent to which this issue is addressed, it is mainly organized around the notion of 'access' to activities, values and goods. This paper examines this discourse in some detail. It is argued that there are many dimensions of such access, that improving access is a complex matter because of the range of human activities that might need to be 'accessed', that in order to know what is to be accessed the changing nature of travel and communications requires examination, and that some dimensions of access are only revealed through changes in the infrastructure that 'uncover' previously hidden social exclusions. Claims about access and socio-spatial exclusion routinely make assumptions about what it is to participate effectively in society. We turn this question around, also asking how mobilities of different forms constitute societal values and sets of relations, participation in which may become important for social inclusion. This paper draws upon an extensive range of library, desk and field research to deal with crucial issues relating to the nature of a fair, just and mobile society.

Social exclusion, mobility and access.

The `time squeeze', notions of `rush' and `harried' are popular concerns in contemporary society. This article reports on interviews with 20 suburban households who all suggested that people feel increasingly harried. Respondents were quick to suggest a set of generic narratives to explain the causes of `harriedness', notably that people `work more' and `consume more' - the same explanation offered by prominent academic analyses. However, such explanations did not tally with their `experiences' of harriedness. It is argued that `harriedness' was generated by a felt need to allocate and schedule practices within designated time frames (which created hot spots). This was `necessary' in order to coordinate practices within social networks and to `free-up' other time frames (cold spots) for interaction with significant others. On the one hand, this suggests a rationalized conception of time as subject to personal control. On the other, such individual responses (to schedule and allocate) to the perceived `tim...

‘Squeezing Time’: Allocating Practices, Coordinating Networks and Scheduling Society

Given the varied claims made about the new economy and its implications for the organization of work and life, this article critically evaluates some conceptualizations of the new economy and then explores how the new media sector has materialized and been experienced by people working in Brighton and Hove, a new media hub. New technologies and patterns of working allow the temporal and spatial boundaries of paid work to be extended, potentially allowing more people, especially those with caring responsibilities, to become involved, possibly leading to a reduction in gender inequality. This article, based on 55 in-depth interviews with new media owners, managers and some employees in small and micro enterprises, evaluates this claim. Reference is made to the gender-differentiated patterns of ownership and earnings; flexible working patterns, long hours and homeworking and considers whether these working patterns are compatible with a work‐life balance. The results indicate that while new media creates new opportunities for people to combine interesting paid work with caring responsibilities, a marked gender imbalance remains.

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The New Economy and the Work–Life Balance: Conceptual Explorations and a Case Study of New Media

There is a tension in time studies between measuring and accounting for the changing distribution of units of time across social activities, and explaining temporal experiences. By analysing in-depth interviews with 27 people, this article employs a theory of practice to explore the relationship between respondents’ ‘non-work’ practices and five dimensions of time. It hypothesizes that practices which demand a fixed location within daily schedules anchor temporal organization, around which are sequenced sets of interrelated practices. A third category of practices fills the gaps that emerge within temporal sequences.The most significant socio-demographic constraints (gender, age, life-course and education) that shaped how respondents engaged and experienced practices in relation to the five dimensions of time are then considered. It is argued that the relationship between different types of social practices, five dimensions of time and sociodemographic constraints presents a conceptual framework for the s...

Analysing the Temporal Organization of Daily Life: Social Constraints, Practices and their Allocation

This paper argues that the emergence of convenience food reflects the re‐ordering of the time‐space relations of everyday life in contemporary society. It is suggested that the notion of convenience food is highly contested. Britons are ambivalent about serving and eating convenience food. However, many people are constrained to eat what they call convenience foods as a provisional response to intransigent problems of scheduling everyday life. A distinction is drawn between modern and hypermodern forms of convenience, the first directed towards labour‐saving or time compression, the second to time‐shifting. It is maintained that convenience food is as much a hypermodern response to de‐routinisation as it is a modern search for the reduction of toil. Convenience food is required because people are too often in the wrong place; the impulse to time‐shifting arises from the compulsion to plan ever more complex time‐space paths in everyday life. The problem of timing supersedes the problem of shortage of time. Some of the more general social implications of such a claim are explored.

Convenience food: space and timing

Advocates of the flexibilization of working time argue that many people are already accustomed to working evenings, nights and weekends, and that flexibilization will improve people's control over ...

Koen Breedveld

Papers

The Double Myth of Flexibilization: Trends in Scattered Work Hours, and Differences in Time-Sovereignty