Concept: Mobility

Definition: the ability to move freely from one place to another, or between different levels of society

Related Terms: movement, social mobility, mobile media, mobile lifestyles

Description: Mobility is a term of deep semantic import, conveying far more than a simple movement from point A to point B.  Its historical origins go back to classical Greek times and uses of the term conveyed both positive and negative connotations. For instance, mobilitas referred to the athletic qualities of speed, agility, and vivacity,  but could take on the opposing meanings of levity, inconsistency, fickleness. This tension continues in various forms into the present; while mobility is highly prized as an attribute of advanced societies, mobility as displacement incurs embarrassment, censure, and ridicule, both on the part of those who have to move from their homes forcibly or voluntarily, and on the part of the receiving society. In much of popular literary and visual culture, mobility is positioned against idealizations of home. Women are particularly shown in relation to domestic spaces conveying stability, so that mobile women (such as in the 1965 film by Russ Meyer, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!) are perceived as dangerous and unstable.¹

For a variety of reasons such as globalization, war, climate change, and economic hardship, mobility has emerged as a quintessential term to describe the demographic, social, and technological shifts of the twenty-first century. Not surprisingly, extensive work in rethinking mobility across several disciplines such as geography, philosophy, postcolonial studies, transport studies, and the arts.

and humanities has been evident in recent years. What has emerged from these discussions are conceptions of mobility as material culture and cultural practices, as spaces in which mobility takes place as well as spaces through which people and artifacts move. In art history, kinaesthetics is a way to study  “how movement is enacted, felt, perceived, expressed, metered, choreographed, appreciated and desired.”²

The global spread of the internet and smartphones has taken mobility of images, ideas, and people to a whole new level. “Mobile media” is itself an area of study, given the widespread implications of this technology for work, education, communication and identity formation, and the socialization of the young. As mobility becomes more and more intertwined with our being and our perception, it is likely to challenge long-standing notions of self and subjectivity.  

S.C. 2024

Notes: 

¹ Davidson, Ian C. “Mobilities of Form.” Mobilities, 2017. Vol. 12, No. 4, 548–558.

² Merriman, Peter and Lynne Pearce. “Mobility and the Humanities.” Mobilities. 2017. Vol. 12, No. 4, 493–508.

Further Readings:

Cabalquinto, Earvin Charles B. (Im)mobile Homes: Family Life at a Distance in the Age of Mobile Media. Oxford University Press, 2022.

Divall, Colin. ed. Cultural Histories of Sociabilities, Spaces and Mobilities. Brookfield, VT: Pickering & Chatto, 2015.

Liu, Piper Liping and Tien Ee Dominic Yeo. “Weak ties matter: Social network dynamics of mobile media multiplexity and their impact on the social support and psychological well-being experienced by migrant workers.” Mobile Media & Communication, 2022-01, Vol.10 (1), p.76-96.