46 RüdigerKunow
globe remind us, moreover, that biology and mobility are strategic
phenomena, located in the contact zone between the collective and the
individual, the public and the private, where the "we" engages the
innermost, intimate domains of the self, and where the "I" in its
idiosyncratic, contingent biological composition engages the life of the
collective.Theseengagementsneverstopandneverreachadeterminate
moment of closure, and so in my reading I will present biology and
mobility as essentially restless practices (or, as some would say,
performances), as dynamic structures, agents of transformation which
operate in space and time and in ways neither always intended nor
controlled by human agency. Such constellations in which biology and
mobility are simultaneously shaping factors will be the principal focus
ofthischapter.
For such a project, I can build on a large body of critical work.
Needless to say, possible conjunctions between mobility and biology
can be and have been investigated from various angles, and not all can
be explored here. The easiest and most predictable analytical move
wouldbetofoldoneintotheother.Onecoulddothisintwoways:first,
by suggesting that biology always already implies, even depends on,
mobility, for example "the mechanic movement in the body, [or]
nervous movements as well as the movement of blood.. ." (Willis qtd.
inCresswell7).Secondly,onecouldstartfromthepremisethatmobility
is always already an embodied practice in which the corporeal
constitution of people (health, age) can be an enabling or restrictive
factor. This people with real or presumed bodily impairments have
historically been less mobile, or less allowed to be mobile, than others.
metazoa such as fleas, lice, and many intestinal parasites. Infection may be
unapparent, i.e., subclinical, or manifest as anything from mild illness to
fulminating,overwhelming,andrapidlyfataldisease"(Last,"Infection").
Contagion designates the "[t]ransmission of infection by direct contact. In
commonusageandinpublichealth,'infectious'impliesaconditionthatishighly
infectious and usually severe, although one of the most infectious diseases, the
common cold, is seldom severe. 'Contagion' can be stigmatizing when it is
emotionally associated with a distasteful disease, such as leprosy, or with what
used to be called venereal diseases, so 'contagion' can imply a condition that is
uncleanorimmoral"(Last,"Contagion").