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Paula Bialski

Thesis Working Title

Being Intimately Mobile

Research Interests

What Makes Me Tick

Both corporeal and virtual mobility as well as the vast, networked complexity of our global society is increasing the chance-encounters and informal ties we are creating and recreating within our daily, urban lives.

As research within the area of mobility studies suggests, more analysis should focus on "those processes by which co-presence and intimacy are on occasions brought about, and the social ties involved when people are not involved in daily interactions with each other but with whom a sense of connection is sensed and sustained" (Larsen et al., 2006). Experiencing this 'sense of connection' between strangers when mobile is what I call Intimate Tourism, or Intimate Mobility - when people move with the desire to experience a new space and interact with the people inhabiting those spaces (see Intimate Tourism, 2008).

After four years of closely studying an online social networking site called Couchsurfing.com (a hospitality network enabling users to travel to foreign places while residing in the home of other members of the network), as well as a variety of Online Hitchhiking Websites (OHW), I came to the conclusion that the sociality of many living mainly in the global north is affected by the increase in physical mobility as well as the proliferation of various technologies.

I see this shift in interaction from two angles - that the act of mobility changes the nature of interpersonal interaction, and that in some cases (as my example of Couchsurfers and OHW users show) certain individuals become mobile in order to change their patterns of interaction, in order to gain something that their local environment does not seem to provide.

My research approach is eclectic - mixing social network analysis, ethnomethodology, as well as symbolic interactionism. I firmly believe that sociology should be public (Burawoy 2005) and recently began merging sociological methods with performance art, which helps create new grounds for representational research in the social sciences.

And if you've made it down this far on my summary, you might like to email me for some full papers on these, or similar subjects. Strangers are welcome.

Books and Book Chapters

• (forthcoming) Bialski, Paula. Intimate Tourism: Enquete dans un reseau d'hospitalite. (Limoges: Solilange, 2008).
• (forthcoming) (with Batorski, D.) Familiar Strangers: Social navigation in an online-offline virtual community. Chapter for Social Computing and Virtual Communities, edited by Jim Ang and Panayiotis Zaphiris, 2009.

Academic Papers and Conferences Attended

• (with Batorski, D.) Trustworthiness in Networks, UK Social Networks Conference, University of Greenwich, July 18-20,2008
• Intimate Tourism: The process of verbal exchange in intimate spaces through the online hospitality network. Social Aspects of the Internet Conference, Warsaw, Poland. December, 2006.
• (with Batorski, D.) Trust Networks: Analyzing the Structure and Function of Trust. International Network of Social Network Analysis SUNBELT conference, Corfu, Greece. May, 2007. (INSNA 2007 Conference Poster).
• Intimate Tourism: Intensity, meaning, and offline friendship within the online hospitality network. General Online Research conference, Leipzig, Germany. February, 2007.
• Intimate Tourism: Changing the relationship between the tourist and the other through the online hospitality network. The 6th International Symposium on Aspects of Tourism: "Gazing, Glancing, Glimpsing: Tourists and Tourism in a Visual World. Eastbourne, England. June, 2007.
• No More Cold Researchers: Engagement and bias as characteristics of the modern interdisciplinary minds. Work in Progress: Research Spaces, Research Journeys, University of Warwick, December, 2007.

Education History

· Doctoral candidate in Sociology, Lancaster University (Present - 2010)

· Associate Teacher Programme, CELT, Lancaster University (May, 2008)

· Masters degree in Sociology, University of Warsaw, Poland (June 2007)

· Bachelor of Arts, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. (September, 2004)

Current Teaching

(February - June, 2009) Lecturer - Mobility, Interaction and Social Change, Department of Sociology, University of Warsaw

(October - December, 2008) Tutor - SOC 340 Newspapers, Journalism and Society, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University

Other ResearchAmong my own PhD research, I am currently working as a research assistant for Dr. Nick Gill at the Department of Geography. The project, supported by the Nuffield Foundation, focuses on the experiences of Polish migrants in the Lancashire area. Our particular interest is in the integration of Polish migrants into the local community, and the role that different organizations in the area play in promoting their integration. We hope to understand the dynamics of the migrant network, especially focusing on the waning centrality of the Polish Catholic Church in England.

Other Interests and Hobbies

What Makes Me Tock

I'm often teased as being the ultimate multi-tasker. I somehow get my PhD done in between sewing ribbons onto my own clothes, blogging, playing music, and bread-making. I was born in Canada and grew up between Warsaw, Poland, and North Bay, Ontario but I can also be found shamelessly puchasing cheap airline tickets to visit family or friends in Barcelona and Vienna. I am currently back in Warsaw, researching, writing my dissertation, and playing in my band.

Associated research centres: Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe)

Keywords: Friendship, Globalisation & mobility, Intimacy

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