Anti-mobile placemaking in a mobile world: rethinking the entanglements of place, im/mobility and belonging

Abstract

In this article I revisit debates about the socio-cultural importance of place and permanence in a hypermobile world order. I zoom in on everyday practices in a small municipality located in the Austrian Nock mountains region which is at once characterized by a history of cross-border mobilities and pronounced support for nativist ideas and parties. I shed light on the experiences and perspectives of village inhabitants who detest liberal ideals about cosmopolitan forms of belonging, instead insisting on tropes of indigeneity and place attachment (Heimatverbundenheit). I argue that rather than writing such sentiments off as backward, traditionalist ways of relating to the world, social scientists need to pay attention to them. They make visible a deepening chasm between scholarly imaginaries about mobile, cosmopolitan identities and people’s lived experiences in an increasingly fragmented global political arena. Taking the lived antagonisms of a hypermobile world order seriously, I aim critically to examine ideas of movement, place and cosmopolitanism pervading modern thought.