The present study looks into the concept of mobility through the phenomenon of neo-nomadism, a phenomenon which has particularly concerned philosophical thought with regard to the notion of locus, space and habitation in the recent decades and has influenced architectural thought as well as social sciences and humanities in general.
The primal object of this research study is the concept of vagabond- age, i.e. the lack of permanent residence, and the issue of habitation as analyzed by the German philosopher Martin Heidegger; a connection between the natural homeless existence and the modern drifting person, for whom locus has more of a symbolic rather than a realistic meaning, is attempted. Next, nomadism is approached through the radical thought of Deleuze and Guattari, who identify the nomad-res- ident with the war machine used against law and structure in “sedentary” – stable social systems – in the State. Then, the conceptual space within which nomadic thought “ranges”, is defined; this space being a plane space, or an allegorical desert like the one being shaped today, where distances are zeroed and transportation takes a larger and larger piece of our daily routine. This very reality gives birth to the concept of Neo-nomadism, through a series of financial and social parameters, which, in turn, formulate different manifestations of this phenomenon and different categories of the contemporary neo-no- mad nowadays. At this point and for the sake of information processing and conclusion derivation, it was deemed important to perform a number of discussions-interviews with individuals who belong in these different categories of neo-nomads, who shared their stories with regard to the manner in which they experienced space in each place they visited and with regard to how mobility affected their lives and habitation.
Taking the full research and the thoughts that emerged from the interviews into consideration, the research study attempts to formulate concerns and queries with regard to the way in which architectural thought deals with the issue of mobility in current times and with regard to the manner in which we revise our understanding of space and issue of habitation in the city of today.