Mobilocality

Abstract

ABSTRACTBased on the ethnographic research and in-depth interviews in Flushing, Queens, New York City, this paper proposes the concept of mobilocality. Mobilocality provides a conceptual framework to examine the urban ethnic communities through the lens of mobility from a multi-scalar perspective. Mobilocality is formed by the paradox of transnational mobility and local immobility that are simultaneously embedded in everyday life of (im)migrants. It is through mobilocality where individual is ethnic, ethnic is transnational, transnational is urban. This article also suggests a placed and contextual understanding of mobility by illustrating the interrelationships among the four spatialities: mobility, place, scale and distance. The making of mobilocality is an outcome of the dialectal process among these spatialities, which involves not only spatial-temporal dimensions, but also social and cultural context. Transnationalism is far from a celebration of cosmopolitanism and diversity. Rather, it is a divergent process that generates heterogeneity and boundaries, a product of time-space distortion instead of time-space compression.