Drift : illicit mobility and uncertain knowledge / Jeff Ferrell.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Drift dialectics -- Drift contexts -- Drift politics -- Hobo history -- Catching out -- Freedom in the form of a boxcar -- Beneath the slab -- Drift method -- Ghost images and gorgeous mistakes.

"In Drift, Jeff Ferrell shows how dislocation and disorientation can become phenomena in their own right. Examining the history of drifting, Ferrell situates the contemporary global phenomenon of drift within today's economic, social, and cultural dynamics. He then highlights a distinctly North American form of drift--that of the train-hopping hobo--by tracing the hobo's political history and by sharing his own immersion in the world of contemporary train-hoppers. Along the way, Ferrell sheds light on the ephemeral intensity of drifting communities and explores the contested politics of drift--the legal and political strategies designed to control drifters in the interest of economic development, the irony by which these strategies spawn further social and spatial exclusion, and the ways in which drifters and those who embrace drift create their own slippery strategies of resistance. With an eye toward the truth, Ferrell keenly argues that the lessons of drift can provide us with new models for knowing and engaging with the world around us."--Provided by publisher.