ABSTRACT
In a classification, every element is slotted into place on the basis of intrinsic characteristics that are given quite independently of the context in which it is encountered, and of its relations with the things that presently surround it, that preceded its appearance, or that follow it into the world. Stories always, and inevitably, draw together what classifications split apart. But if the genealogical model implies a transmission of vertically integrated, classificatory knowledge, the reverse also holds. Thus while classification arranges things vertically into a hierarchy of taxonomic categories, transport links locations laterally in a network of point-to-point connections. To the distinction between wayfaring and transport there corresponds an important difference in the understanding of the world in which movement occurs. The chapter argues that the paths of wayfaring, as they thread their way through the inhabited world rather than routing across it from point to point, comprise a meshwork.
