Mimi Sheller is Visiting Associate Professor at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Mobilities Research at Lancaster University, England. She is the author of Democracy After Slavery (2000) and Consuming the Caribbean (2003), and co-editor of Uprootings/Regroundings (2003) and Tourism Mobilitites (2004). She is also co-editor of the new Routledge journal Mobilities. John Urry is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Mobilities Research, Lancaster University. Recent books include Sociology beyond Societies (2000), The Tourist Gaze (1990/2002), Global Complexity (2003), Tourism Mobilities (co-edited; 2004), Automobilities (coedited; 2005). He is also co-editor of the new Routledge journal Mobilities.