In Pursuit of a Good Life: Understanding Spatial Mobility after Border Changes in Sensitive Spaces through Geographical Imagination

Abstract

The false predictions of spatial mobility after border changes in sensitive spaces misguide the understanding of the geographic movements. The aim of this research is to theorize about the geographic movements after border changes in sensitive spaces. This research casts sensitive spaces and boils the purposes of spatial mobility down to a good life that necessitates geographical imagination. The prevailing idea about geographical imagination depicts a mental-material binary. This research challenges the conventional wisdom and offers the geographical imagination ternary theory, arguing geographical imagination is a social-mental-material nexus. The geographical imagination ternary theory projects individuals’ knowledge about the good life. This research states that following border changes in sensitive spaces, spatial mobility and immobility should be understood through the geographical imagination ternary theory: to go and to stay are local people’s workable choices for the purpose of a good life. A careful cross-case analysis of Crimea and India-Bangladesh enclaves buttresses the validity of the geographical imagination ternary theory.