ABSTRACT
The pages that follow are the result of at least eight years of thinking about and researching mobility. It is true that most, if not all, of the data collected, produced and analysed here has been taken from the various fieldworks conducted during my stay as a PhD student at Royal Holloway, London, but the level of analysis, the theoretical yields and the conclusions have expanded over the course of time. Indeed, it was only until recently – and several years after my doctorate diploma came through – that I could digest what this research was ultimately about: European mobility is not a synonym for mobility in Europe. This aphorism, even though perhaps short of dazzling, took several years to manifest itself. Now, I cannot even start to consider this research without it, so obvious has it become. It reflects the various years of research, the different fieldworks I committed my ethnographic-self to and the theoretical levels of analysis that outpoured from these. Sometimes, the research must rest, so as to become. This is what happened. After wrapping up my PhD, I went on to further study other aspects and dimensions of mobility – plunged myself into the realms of mobilities futures, decarbonisation and policy-making – and it was only then that I had the capacity to return to my fieldwork diaries with a fresh set of eyes. New, and obvious, conclusions showed themselves then. Only then.
