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Whilst historians and historical geographers have offered much to scholarship concerning military geographies, rarely have military mobilities been at the forefront of these enquiries. Where scholars have considered the movements that underscore military activities (within and beyond the theatre of war) movement is frequently taken to be the straightforward motion of people, equipment, vehicles and so on, from point A to B. This paper opens the special issue on ‘Military mobilities in an age of global war, 1870–1945’ by outlining the role that scholarship on mobility can play in understanding military operations and activities. It focuses on a number of military mobilities, examining how different technologies, knowledges, infrastructures and mobile embodied practices have been vital to military operations. Centred around four themes – military ‘moorings’ and ‘hubs’; military movement spaces; the work of military geographers on movement; and the movement of military bodies – this paper demonstrates how mobilities literature and historical geographies may intersect and inform one another. The paper closes by introducing the four papers which focus on the increasing mechanisation and mobilisation of military forces between 1870 and 1945.

Mobility and movement are central to military actions and military life, and yet despite an increasing concern with military geographies and the geographies of mobility, little consideration has been given by scholars to the political geographies of military mobilities and movements, past or present. In these interventions, we examine how these different bodies of work might intersect, focusing on social media, methods for tracing military mobilities, the role of military technologies in facilitating everyday mobilities, and the more-than-human dimensions of military mobilities.

Assuming that the more a restaurant’s manager know the preferences of his/her clients, the greater the chance to maximise the experience of the customers and therefore the revenue of the restaurant. However, very little is known about the attributes that influence menu-item choice of such customers in a restaurant context and consequently, on the relative importance attached to specific attributes shaping the overall appeal of a menu-item. Despite the familiarity that consumers have with making menu-item choices, there exists a significant paucity of academic research exploring the relative importance of attributes that influence menu-item selection in a restaurant context. This research aims to respond to the following question: what are the attributes that influence menu-item choice in a casual and fine-dining restaurants context? To explore further the reasons that influence menu-item choice, the authors also investigate the extent the customers’ level of food involvement and the social context have an impact on the attributes influencing menu-item choice in these two restaurants’ contexts. This study utilises the Best-Worst method to examine consumer-based preference in relation to the relative importance of attributes that influence the menu-item choice of casual and fine-dining restaurant patrons. Respondents should have patronised a casual or fine-dining restaurant within the last 4 weeks and 6 months respectively and were randomly allocated the task to respond the questions either with a casual-dining context in mind or with a fine-dining context in mind. Consumer attribute-based preferences are also examined in relation to an individual’s level of food involvement and effect of social context, giving the authors the opportunity to split the entire sample into sub groups. The overarching objective is to draw comparisons in order to determine whether the attributes that influence menu-item choice differ between segments of consumers. Quantitative data was collected from 1208 respondents in Australia representative of casual and fine-dining restaurant patrons. Results of the study indicate that “the combination of ingredients” is the most influential attribute on patrons’ menu-item selection at casual and fine-dining restaurants, with a probability of 100% for that attribute to be chosen as the most important one when selecting a dish. Conversely, the “avoidance of certain foods” and “the core ingredient of the dish is sustainably produced” are the least important attributes influencing the menu-item selection of restaurant patrons, with a probability of 30 and 38% for these attributes to be chosen as the most important one when selecting a dish. Interestingly, the ranking and relative importance of menu-item attributes significantly differed between segments of consumers with a high and low level of food involvement. The “the combination of ingredients” remains the most important reason for people highly involved in food. Whereas “a sufficient portion size that will satisfy my appetite” and “a dish that I have tried before and know that I will like the taste” have probabilities of 100 and 94.5% to be chosen as the most important attribute when selecting a dish for people with low food involvement.