Faculty of Social Sciences
Department of Geography
Staff Profile
Ms Ariel Terranova Webb
a.terranova-webb@open.ac.uk
Research Student
Geography
Qualifications
BA/ Ohio Wesleyan University/ Environmental Studies & Geography (2001)
MA/ University of Kentucky/Human Geography (2006)
Research Interests
Mobility is of increasing interest in Geography. I am interested in mobility from a mobile perspective. I am interested in how mobility is done. This led me to the 'mudshows' of America. A 'mudshow' is a travelling tented circus that performs in a new town daily for 8-10 months of the year. I work with Kelly Miller Circus out of Hugo, Oklahoma. For my PhD, I joined the show and participated in the daily life and work of circus, from driving and living in a motorhome, to setting up and tearing down the tent, to working behind and in the ring.
My research interests cluster around lived mobilities, performance, and memory. Specific to my PhD is the investigation of what I term 'stable mobility.' Through the circus, I understand this as a situation in which there is constant movement of people, animals, materials, performance and memory. But that is only a part of the story. The story of stable mobility shows the practices of mobility as vital to the stability of the community. It also shows the importance of improvisation in ‘getting down the road.' It is a story of contradiction and cliché highlighting the importance of performance and memory in this specific form of mobility, the circus.
Stemming from my ethnographic fieldwork with the Kelly Miller Circus, I have an increasing interest in creative and mobile research methods and the performance of research. This particular project presents a challenge to what is considered 'data' and how to present such data in a way that reflects or compliments the research.
Recent Conference Presentations
Moving through Memory: notes from a circus lot, RGS/IBG annual conference, Manchester, August 2009
Staging Mobility: understanding mobility as stability. AAG annual conference, Las Vegas, March 2009
A three-ring ethnography of mobility: notes from a caravan. RGS/IBG annual conference, London, August 2008
Recent Publications
2009, Book Review, Peter Merriman, A Cultural-Historical Geography of England’s M1 Motorway, Social & Cultural Geography, Vol. 10, No. 7