Mobility and Possibility
This first chapter serves as an introduction to the two main topics of mobility and possibility and their relation. It reviews, briefly, the literature on mobilities and connects it to the one on human possibility. It makes the overall argument that mobil
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Mobility and Possibility
Abstract This first chapter serves as an introduction to the two main topics of mobility and possibility and their relation. It reviews, briefly, the literature on mobilities and connects it to the one on human possibility. It makes the overall argument that mobility begets possibility and discusses the structure of the book in light of it. Keywords Mobility · Possibility · New mobilities · Migration · Creativity
As a master student in London, I had the unique opportunity to join an international study of children’s representations of the public sphere.1 At the time, I remember being intrigued by how one could ‘access’ such representations especially since, in many cultures around the globe, the participation of children in the public sphere is either reduced or discouraged. The project was based on a triangulation of children’s drawings and stories about the world they live in and the way they experience it. When I had joined this research, data had already been collected from Germany, Mexico and Brazil. As a Romanian, I enthusiastically accepted to collect new drawings and stories from back home. I expected children not to 1 For details and outcomes see Jovchelovitch et al. (2013).
© The Author(s) 2020 V. P. Gl˘aveanu, Mobilities and Human Possibility, Palgrave Studies in Creativity and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52082-3_1
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engage with too much of the public world given a generalised distrust in others and fear about the dangers lurking outside the house, the gloomy legacy of decades of communism followed by years of hardships during the transition period. What my research found was quite surprising.2 Romanian children aged 7 and 10 did depict in their drawings a lot of the world outside of their homes, even at the younger age. They portrayed the street, buildings, the park, banks, flowers, benches, garbage bins, the school, even ice cream trucks that don’t really exist in Romania but must have been seen in movies or books. This was unexpected because, in the other three countries, 7-year-olds especially focused on the family home, on parents, pets and the self. The self wasn’t present as much in drawings from back home, suggesting perhaps a lack of intersubjective bonds with and within public spaces. The outside world was there to be observed, walked through, shown to others, but not really interacted with—at least in pictorial depictions. One of the most interesting findings came, however, from children placed in institutions of care. Each country included in the public sphere project didn’t treat culture, rightfully, as a homogenous environment. In fact, every country holds a myriad of cultural settings, each one with its own specificity and contribution to overall patterns. This is how, for example, it would have been misleading to assume that all Romanian children live similar lives or have the same experiences growing up. We had to pay attention to those factors that might impact their understanding and exploration of the outside world. Gr
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