Not yet translated in Brazil, the book "The ambiguous mobility - Space, time and power on the top of contemporary society," by the Italian sociologist Laura Gherardi, is the result of a theoretical and methodological effort towards understanding the meanings of mobility in contemporary society. Based on over 50 interviews with executives, global professors and world-renowned artists, held in the cities of Paris, London and Milan, the book proposes an analysis of mobility in terms of a new social ethic in the so-called "late capitalism". In order to overcome the antinomy of classical analyzes derived from Marxist or Weberian tradition, Gherardi explores the possibilities of studying social differentiations within the current configuration of capitalism, based on the analysis of the relationship between power and pace. The central argument of the author points towards a redefinition of the concept of 'mobility': initially set as a critical repertoire by anti-capitalist movements, mobility becomes a central element in the cosmology of values of late capitalism and "per project" capitalism. Thus co-opted by the forces which it once sought to destroy, the disciplined, organized and controlled mobility becomes integrated to a social ethic of the "new spirit of capitalism" and ambiguously affects the daily lives of individuals who live this experience in a dubious way, sometimes as a resource, sometimes as an imperative in the context of a connections driven world.
Mobility; Advanced capitalismo; Pragmatic sociology; Laura Gherardi