In Pursuit of a Good Life: Understanding Spatial Mobility After Border Changes – the Cases of Crimea and the India-Bangladesh Enclaves

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper aims to theorize and illustrate the geographic movements after border changes in sensitive spaces. This research casts sensitive spaces and stresses the pursuit of a good life building on geographical imagination as the primary purpose of spatial mobility. This paper goes beyond the prevailing idea of geographical imagination that supposes a mental-material binary and offers a ternary approach to geographical imagination, arguing for a social-mental-material triad. This research states that following border changes in sensitive spaces, spatial mobility and immobility can be better understood through this geographical imagination ternary approach: to go or to stay are local people’s workable choices for an imagined good life. A cross-case analysis of Crimea and the India-Bangladesh enclaves confirms the validity of the good life perspective.