Abstract
Addressing interrelations and boundaries between differently situated human bodies, this chapter brings out the spatial and material dimensions in María Lugones’ conceptual framework of world-travelling through a discussion of the narrative of Lukas Moodysson’s film Mammoth (2009). Adding to Lugones’ framework, the author introduces the concept of world-backpacking in order to capture how embodied subjects relate to each other in an increasingly globalized world characterized by gendered and racialized inequalities as well as ignorance and simplification of such inequalities. The chapter demonstrates that the striving of the characters in the film to transgress boundaries through physical movement and bodily bonds does not in most cases mean that they are engaged in what Lugones calls “world-travelling” since they do not travel to each other’s worlds in the spirit of “loving perception.” The economically and culturally privileged main characters try (in some ways) to change the world into a better place and to bridge the global and economic divides, but instead, their bodies wind up exploiting and violating other less privileged bodies as well as our planet and its resources. The notion of world-backpacking, introduced in the chapter, is intended to describe the processes by which privileged Westerners believe themselves to perceive the non-privileged other in loving ways and to create intimacy and bonds with her, but instead fails to perceive from the perspective and specific world of the other.
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Notes
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- 2.
Some have argued that the globalization process has brought with it a different and more dispersed and boundaryless kind of power, which is not connected to the sovereignty of nation-states (Hardt and Negri 2000). The term globalization has particularly been associated with economic development, and proponents argue that globalization has led to increased economic wealth and democracy for many people, including previously unprivileged groups. Critics are skeptical of the radical potential and democratizing effects of globalization and emphasize the need to see globalization in light of previous history, the history of colonialism, in order to bring light to the inequities that still exist in the world. For a more detailed overview, see, for instance, Loomba (2005), 213–228.
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See Nilsson (2014) for a discussion of these inequalities and Björklund et al. (forthcoming) for a discussion of how they are situated in the lived body.
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I will discuss Leo’s relationship to Cookie, in which case new terminology is needed. The movie does not depict his relation to Gloria, in which he might be as much of an arrogant perceiver as his wife.
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See also Shannon Sullivan (2004) who has discussed the dangers of what she calls white world-travelling—the world-travelling of white people to nonwhite worlds. Sullivan encourages white people to world-travel, but she is wary of the risk that white people intrude on or invade the Black or Latino world when they try to world-travel.
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Björklund, J. (2016). Arrogant Perceptors, World-Travelers, and World-Backpackers: Rethinking María Lugones’ Theoretical Framework Through Lukas Moodysson’s Mammoth . In: Käll, L. (eds) Bodies, Boundaries and Vulnerabilities. Crossroads of Knowledge. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22494-7_3
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