TY - JOUR
T1 - Dreaming in the shadow of history: Micro-mobilities and belonging in Lucknow
AU - Susewind, Raphael
N1 - Funding Information:
I am indebted to Aasim, Ahmad and Ayaz for sharing their lives and allowing me to write about them. I also thank Parul Bhandari, Shelley Feldman, Eva Gerharz, Bani Gill and Sanderien Verstappen for their input on earlier drafts and deeply appreciate the constructive, in-depth engagement of CSA?s two anonymous reviewers.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Spatial mobility is often considered on large geographical scales: people move from distant villages to global cities, they migrate from one country to the next, or even to a whole new continent. Such large-scale migration comes with shifts in economic position, social status and cultural exposure, shifts that condition new figurations of belonging - or so the argument goes. In contrast, I ethnographically follow the looping movements of three young men in Lucknow who aspire to migrate but remain stuck, who find a whole new world by crossing the river, whose small steps reflect big dreams. As the world grapples with ‘lockdowns’ and ‘stuckedness’ in the Covid-19 pandemic, I sketch their aspirations, mental maps and the material restraints that condition their trajectories. Through them, I demonstrate how looping micro-mobilities - cruising through the night, dancing on stage, riding one's bike - can be as effective in fostering new figurations of belonging as the grand movements emphasized in literature on migration. I further explore which spaces enable and contain such micro-mobilities, rediscovering the potency of urban settings to make people feel at home and out of place in small but important ways.
AB - Spatial mobility is often considered on large geographical scales: people move from distant villages to global cities, they migrate from one country to the next, or even to a whole new continent. Such large-scale migration comes with shifts in economic position, social status and cultural exposure, shifts that condition new figurations of belonging - or so the argument goes. In contrast, I ethnographically follow the looping movements of three young men in Lucknow who aspire to migrate but remain stuck, who find a whole new world by crossing the river, whose small steps reflect big dreams. As the world grapples with ‘lockdowns’ and ‘stuckedness’ in the Covid-19 pandemic, I sketch their aspirations, mental maps and the material restraints that condition their trajectories. Through them, I demonstrate how looping micro-mobilities - cruising through the night, dancing on stage, riding one's bike - can be as effective in fostering new figurations of belonging as the grand movements emphasized in literature on migration. I further explore which spaces enable and contain such micro-mobilities, rediscovering the potency of urban settings to make people feel at home and out of place in small but important ways.
KW - Micro-mobility
KW - Masculinity
KW - Youth
KW - Belonging
KW - Muslimness
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85118366368&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/09584935.2021.1995329
DO - 10.1080/09584935.2021.1995329
M3 - Article
SN - 0958-4935
VL - 29
SP - 500
EP - 513
JO - Contemporary South Asia
JF - Contemporary South Asia
IS - 4
ER -