Actualité de Valérie Gelézeau: panel & paper at the Global Humanity Mobilities Conference (Seoul, Konkuk Univ)

On December 6, 2025, this panel presented five papers from various disciplines and fields (anthropology, geography, history and Asian Studies), all of which addressed “the significance of mobility infrastructures” (Urry 2007) by focusing on walking as an object and/or a method of studies, to renew the analysis of mobilities and space (as a social fact implying power relations – H. Lefebvre), which are challenged in contemporary societies by an ubiquitous urban world, a post-COVID era, and the irruption of artificial intelligence in daily or scientific environments.
Focused on walking, soft infrastructures, and slow motion, the panel explores one regime of knowledge – namely, the “haptic” regime of knowledge (Anne Volvey 2012, 2014; Mark Paterson) – which has been put aside, while other regimes, such as the “scopic” regime (focused on observation) and the “linguistic” regime (qualitative surveys relying on interview or archives), have been more dominant. The haptic regime engages the body itself as both an object and a method, and suggests that the researcher himself is, as J. Jackson argues, “a fieldnote”. This perspective draws after Tim Ingold’s proposition that “walking along” makes people knowledgeable (2010). Finally, this posture is inspired by recent trends in social sciences, promoting research-action, where the previous frontiers between objects and methods are reconsidered, such as in Bruno Latour’s work.
Based on these inspirations, this panel explores how walking as both an object and method of research sheds light on the articulation between soft infrastructures, and slow mobilities, and provide a more expansive notion of mobility infrastructures : the soft infrastructure and slow motion on the DMZ Peace Trail to reconsider the post-traumatic space of the Korean Border (Valérie Gelézeau), the trails and digital space as the soft infrastructures for leisure and slow mobilities in South Korean mountains (Youna Son), the relationships between walking, human labor, infrastructure and control systems during South Korean urbanization (Jo Minji), the “infrastructuralisation” of mobility imagination of digital nomads (Lee Daeun), the virtual infrastructures of walking journeys in the internet sphere (Margot Kunz).

List of papers
– Valérie GELÉZEAU (EHESS, France): Soft Infrastructure and Slow Motion on the DMZ Peace Trail: Walking Along to Analyze Post-Traumatic Space in the South Korean Border Zone.
– Youna SON (EHESS): From Trail to Digital Space: Blogging Practices and the Cultural Geography of Hiking in South Korea
– JO Minji (Catholic University of Korea): Human Labor for Mobility: The Politics of Walking in South Korean Urbanization
– LEE Daeun (National University of Singapore): Moving Through Digital Nomad Circuits: the “Infrastructuralisation” of Aspiration for Mobility in Asia.
– Margot KUNZ (IFG French Institute of Geopolitics): ‘Walk in Seoul’ YouTube Videos: A Virtual Infrastructure for Slow Mobility and the Rise of Hybrid Geographies