Intimate Mobilities: Moving out, Moving in and Moving on

Abstract

As I have outlined in the previous chapter, a key idea of the mobilities turn is not just to approach mobility as being the act of moving from A to B but also to consider how connections and relationships are created and sustained through mobility. The significance of mobility is apparent if we consider how, colloquially, the main stages and events of relationship formation are identified with movement such as ‘going out’, ‘moving in’ or ‘moving on’. Mobility and intimacy are interdependent, as a change in one nearly always involves a change in the other. A working assumption about mobility and intimacy could be that the two are counter-opposed: we have to work to maintain intimacy despite mobility, as intimacy is dependent on corporeal co-presence that is diluted through mobility. Yet this assumption takes a rather fixed interpretation of mobility and intimacy; for example, mobility might force couples apart but it can also bring them back together. This suggests an alternative conceptualisation — that intimacy is formed, maintained and renewed by mobility and movement. Rather than treating mobility as an outcome of relationship flux, mobility can be seen to create opportunities for making new connections and relationships; put rather crudely, if we all stayed put then we would have very limited social circles and a restricted pool of potential partners. However, the opposite causality between mobility and relationships also holds: mobility can drive people apart and can be a causal factor in relationship breakdown.