Afterword - Asian mobilities/Asian frictions?

摘要

The papers in this collection take work in the mobilities turn to new places. We read of the high rollers and workers who mingle in casinos in Singapore that form specific, and somewhat airport-like, mobility regimes of movements being prioritized or prevented. We learn how this new space (similar but not identical to spaces in Macau or Las Vegas) codifies a range of mobile logics and practices in an "experimental knowledge assemblage." We encounter the way taxi services in Mumbai looked to Singapore for ideas about how to modernize their service - attempting to map the flows of Singapore on to the topologies of Mumbai. We see how the specificity of Mumbai provides friction to the flow of ideas between major Asian cities. On the border between Pakistan and Iran, we learn of another site at which smoothness meets friction as commodities and migrants meet the reality of territorial governance at its margins - a site where the interaction of mobilities and boundary maintenance helps to define the existence of the nation-state. Out of all forms of smooth mobility space - airspace seems the smoothest and most unmarked by the specificities of place. It is an internationally produced and regulated space that allows for the (mostly) smooth passage of passengers and freight. But even airspace is marked by its encounter with a place such as Singapore, often considered marginal in a global arena. Here, we learn how airspace is peopled in uniquely Singaporean ways through emotional and embodied labor.