A virada das mobilidades: fluxos, fixos e fricções

Abstract

At least since the 2000s, we have witnessed the effort to understand, in multiple disciplinary fields and from different empirical realities, the complexity of the interdependent movement of people and capitals, images and goods. But when static categories and sedentary methodologies are denied, how can we avoid the substitution of what is proper to the Nation-State with the conceptual imprecision of “liquids” or with the romanticization of nomadism? How can regulatory practices and inequalities be incorporated into the discussion of mobility? What, in short, would be the theoretical status of mobility – and immobility – in social theory? This article describes some of the analytical solutions proposed by the “mobility turn”, taking the contributions of its main reference, the British sociologist John Urry, as its guiding principle.

Keywords

• epistemology of the social sciences
• epistemic change
• social theory