might be the division of public and private space—a form of geographical
imagination that capitalist and patriarchal relations are based on. Yet it
is possible to think of a world without distinctions between public and
private space. Indeed, signifi cant strands of Marxism, feminism, and anarchism
have all done this. Th e division of public and private space, in other
words, is a social construct—a product of history.
Th ere are other elements of the geographical imagination, however, that
it is not possible to abolish, even theoretically. One of these is mobility.
Mobility is a fact of life. To be human, indeed, to be animal, is to have some
kind of capacity for mobility. We experience the world as we move through
it. Mobility is a capacity of all but the most severely disabled bodies. Unlike
the division between public and private space, mobility has been with us
since day one. Ubiquity, though, sometimes seems like banality. Perhaps
its universal nature makes it seem uninteresting, but its universality is
precisely what also makes it a powerful part of ideologies of one kind or
another in specifi c times and places. Mobility, in human life, is not a local
or specifi c condition.