ABSTRACT
In June 2003 I was sitting on some steps in a public square in Paris. I had just disembarked a Eurostar train in Gare du Nord and was making my way to Paris St Lazare to catch a train to Normandy. I like to walk in cities and the reveries that can induce. This was a particularly fine day. I was ten years into my post-graduate career as an academic and had made my way from Aberystwyth on the west coast of Wales. I was used to being invited to talks but not used to being invited to talks in different countries. I was travelling to Normandy to attend the Centre Culturel International de Cerisy, at an event called Les Sens du Mouvement. The costs were fully covered and at that point in my career this was an unusual and exciting invitation. I was not aware at the time that I would spend a great deal of time in the years to come travelling between countries and continents to speak about, and listen to others speak about, the theme of mobility. So this felt like a big deal – a measure of some kind of success. This was probably the kind of thing I was thinking about as I sat on the steps and watched the world. I was also thinking about the people I was going to meet in Cerisy.
