ABSTRACT
Introduction It takes less than 24 hours to send an express package from Paris to an exact address in Berlin, Tokyo or Los Angeles. It takes a split second to send detailed financial information from the New York stock exchange to thousands of servers around the world. And it takes only a few weeks to mobilize and transport hundreds of thousands of US troops, including hardware, to any region in the world. All societies have experienced in various ways the significant changes that are due to ever-increasing displacements of goods, information and people. Increases in speed and distance, in conjunction with greater efficiency, have had a profound effect on the status of such entities. While these changes have introduced new dimensions, dependencies and dynamics to mobility, they have also obscured the construct in that new insights have enriched debates but also added to its conceptual confusion.
