Imagination and mobility in the city: Porosity of borders and human development in divided urban environments

Abstract

We focus on the notion of borders to explore how mobility and immobility in the city affect the relationship between human development and urban culture. We define borders as a relational space made of territoriality, representations and different possibilities of mobility and immobility. Drawing on research in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, we suggest a systematic approach to the analysis of borders and identify the socio-institutional, spatial and symbolic elements that make them more or less porous and thus more or less amenable to human mobility. We highlight the association between porosity in city borders and human development and illustrate the model contrasting two favela communities in Rio de Janeiro. We show that participation in the socio-cultural environment by favela grassroots organisations increases the porosity of internal city borders and contributes to the development of self, communities and the city. To focus on borders, their different elements and levels of porosity means to address simultaneously the psychosocial and cultural layers of urban spaces and the novel ways through which grassroots social actors develop themselves through participation and semiotic reconstruction of the socio-cultural environment.

Exploring the interplay between (im)mobility and imagination

“…Mobility, when not physically occurring, can be ultimately imagined. Tania Zittoun (Zittoun, 2020), Alexandra D'Onofrio and Johaness Sjoberg (D'Onofrio & Sjoberg, 2020), and Jovchelovitch et al (2020) in their studies show this very creative character of imagination, and how imaginative power can support and enable mobility also in cases in which mobility is not actually happening or when borders (or symbolic boundaries) seem difficult to cross. They make the case of various experiences where people or communities imagine moving, returning or alternative lives as migrants.…”

160 Years of Borders Evolution in Dunkirk: Petroleum, Permeability, and Porosity

“…Public and private authorities mostly ignored the pollution and its potential effects on health and the environment before the international rise of the environmental concern in the 1970s (Brimblecombe, 1999;Mosley, 2014), while even silencing public debates around the question (Le Roux, 2015). Jovchelovitch et al (2020) have already exemplified the current challenges around the definition and explanation of borders and porosity in urban environments. Borders can be both tangible, with concrete walls dividing spaces and restricting movements, and intangible, through cultural or historical processes meant to segregate and configure a territory.…”

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

“…Whereas many have written about the link between mobility and its (attributed) transformative qualities, Cangia`'s contribution shows 'the transformation of the experience of im/mobility and trajectories of imagination, as they change through time' (2020). Sandra Jovchelovitch and her colleagues (2020) explore spatial movements across urban borders, which they see as 'a relational space comprising different possibilities of mobility and immobility' (Jovchelovitch et al, 2020). Stressing how territories, and the borders that separate them, are relationally constituted, is an important point to make.…”

“…Sandra Jovchelovitch and her colleagues (2020) explore spatial movements across urban borders, which they see as ‘a relational space comprising different possibilities of mobility and immobility’ (Jovchelovitch et al., 2020). Stressing how territories, and the borders that separate them, are relationally constituted, is an important point to make.…”

“…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.…”