Mobility as "arts of dwelling": conceptual investigations

Mathis Stock (1)

1 IUKB - Equipe de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur le Tourisme

Dwelling (wohnen, habiter) and mobility are linked through the individual manners of practising places. For the individuals in (post/late-)modern societies, mobility implies the practice of an increasing number of places - more or less familiar/strange ones -, actualized through different intentionalities in different situations. This unprecedented situation raises the need of conceptual tools allowing to grasp the different ways individuals cope with space. These “arts of dwelling” are conceptualized here. First, by establishing the conceptual bases of dwelling as practices of places, where the theoretical shift from dwelling as being-on-Earth towards dwelling as coping with space is undertaken. This allows thinking the places as well as the movement, and I will insist upon the notion of experience and the symbolic charge of movement. Secondly, by showing how mobility takes a more and more important part of contemporary arts of dwelling. Finally, by raising the question of how mobile dwelling implies the deployment of geographical competences. These conceptual investigations shall contribute to a more adequate understanding of the very differentiated ways of the individuals' coping with space and to give a conceptual framework for mobility studies.

Mots clés: Theory; Mobility; Dwelling; Practice

Domaines: Géographie

Mathis Stock. Mobility as "arts of dwelling": conceptual investigations. 2007. ⟨halshs-00366452⟩