Exploring the interplay between (im)mobility and imagination

Abstract

NCCR on the moveThis special issue explores the interplay between imagination and human mobility. It presents theoretical, empirical and methodological explorations on how imagination and mobility shape each other. It asks questions such as: how is imagination triggered or blocked by people's experience of mobility? How does the creative process of imagining alternative worlds and lives in turn affect people's capacity and (im)possibilities to move? This editorial, in particular, highlights the contributions of the various articles and addresses a series of emerging ways of studying the interplay between mobility and imagination. It presents the specific ways through which the various articles of this issue offer important explorations on the imagined and potential character of mobility, and on the always changing and shifting nature of imagination on the move.Mobility is a crucial aspect of human life. As more than mere physical movement, mobility relates to the act of moving (Cresswell, 2006;Kaufmann, 2002) entangled with power, norms and meaning (Frello, 2008), and involving social, material, temporal and symbolic components that make movement (im)possible. The capacity and potential to move can be located 'in the dreaming of, planning for, or fear of mobility' (Leivestad, 2016, p. 143), in our fantasying on where, when and how we move. The field of possibilities to move physically can be infused with the act of imagining origins, traversals and destinations, with the aspiration for other lives and future selves. Or a person's imagination can be triggered, blocked or changed across time by the actual experience of (im)mobility. For one can move all around the word, and still have a limited imaginative experience; or conversely, one may be placebound, be stuck in an endless present and have the feeling that life

On imagination and imaginaries, mobility and immobility: Seeing the forest for the trees

“…The editors of this special issue define imagination as 'an ever-changing embodied and creative activity both embedded in and shaping the social and cultural world around' (Cangia`& Zittoun, 2020). In other words, the focus is very much on the uniquely human mental capacity and practice to imagine or to enter into the imagination of others.…”

“…The editors of this special issue critique that scholars have maintained 'a rather static perspective on imaginaries' (Cangia`& Zittoun, 2020). The identified unchanging quality of imaginaries is naturally related to their contents.…”

“…Imaginaries of such movements play out in uneven and even contradictory ways. The editors of this special issue are very right in pointing out that imagination can 'slow down, accelerate or even immobilize the rhythm and possibilities of mobility' (Cangia`& Zittoun, 2020).…”

“…Both concepts have rich and complex genealogies—in Michel Foucault’s sense of connections between history, discourse, bodies and power. Reading the various contributions that make up the issue (Cangià, 2020; Cangià & Zittoun, 2020; D’Onofrio & Sjöberg, 2020; Jovchelovitch, Priego-Hernandez, Dedios, & Nogueira, 2020; Veale & Andres, 2020; Womersley, 2020; Zittoun, 2020), it becomes immediately clear that the respective authors are familiar with different bits and pieces of those genealogies. They do not necessarily share the same understanding and definition of both key concepts while, for the sake of simplicity, we are not even considering translation issues between languages and academic disciplines.…”

Psychology: a Discipline in Need of Reflective Foundations

“…The future trajectory of our single mother of two who struggles to see herself as a 'good mother' during the period of crisis, unfolds in the future in relation to new experiences and opportunities and cannot be predicted or known with certainty based on the experiences that she herself and other women like her have had in the past. Humans are future-oriented beings who have an important resourceimaginationat their disposal (Cangià and Zittoun 2020). They construct scenarios for their conduct and images about themselves in the future and start to then act in the name of these scenarios and images in order to turn what was imagined into reality or to avoid that which was imagined.…”