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65 2 Anxiety of mobility, New Media use, and imaginations of a “good life” I have already highlighted the pervasiveness of New Media such as the internet and mobile phones in Bamenda. They play an important role in people’s lives and their practices of social networking and their felt connection to “the world”. Practices of New Media use and mobility are spatial practices, which have several dimensions: youths’ seeking a position in society and their dreams of success are very much tied to imaginations of “greener pastures”, related to migration in a sense of a physical mobility. Along the lines of youth’s defining their social position and potential vis-à-vis others and pursuing projects of a “good life”98 , New Media offers opportunities to connect to physically present and absent others alike. Furthermore, New Media offers a range of imaginations of possible lives (Appadurai 1996), which in return serve as orientation for intentional practices of connecting to opportunities in the sense of a virtual mobility, in practices of media use. Not only that, however, being connected and engaging in the use of New Media is also taken by youth as an opportunity to shape their identity and an indicator to their potential for becoming successful and respected individuals in the sense of social mobility99 . In this chapter I will explore how New Media and practices, and imaginations of mobility are interrelated. I will look at mobility as physical mobility, and of how dreams of social mobility intersect with it. This chapter thus deals with the first guiding question and related subquestions : What role do the internet and mobile phones and their opportunities for “liveness” play in relation to practices and imaginaries of mobility? In order to explore the answers to the sub-questions, I intend to examine how New Media relates to mobility in particular, how 98 I will come back to these notions of “good life”, and „greener pastures” later in this chapter. 99 Habitual, projective, and practical-evaluative agentic orientations are intertwined with the dimensions of mobility. 66 they are intentionally used for migration purposes respectively, and how they contribute to local imaginations of mobility. Regarding imagination100 , this chapter furthermore relates to the second guiding question, regarding how New Media use impact on local social spaces, and thus, how imageries and imaginaries are produced and reproduced on a local level, as well as the production of imagined spaces. Appadurai calls migration and media the two major “forces” of transformation, and imagination their joint effect (Appadurai 1996:3). Specifically he calls it “work of the imagination”, in the sense, as he explains, of both labour and culturally organized practice (compare Förster 2010). He thereby points to a negotiation between what he calls “sites of agency – the individual – and globally defined fields of possibility” (Appadurai 2009:42). He then rests his claim that imagination has become an important social fact or practice on three distinctions: first, that imagination has become part of the everyday mental “work” of people. Second, that – compared to fantasy – imagination is a basis for action, and third, that imagination is a collective activity, influencing and being influenced by “culture” and society, and thus the gear of social transformation (Appadurai 1996:4-7). Through mediation of diverse ranges of information and imageries, imagination has become even more pervasive in the everyday lives of people. According to Mbembe (2008:110), the “imaginaries of faraway” has undergone a revival in the era of globalization, with an increase of migratory practices and circuits of mediated communication between diaspora communities abroad and “at home”. I will explore in the course of this chapter, how these mediations stimulate and lead to local negotiations of imaginaries and imageries, which cannot be viewed as 100 I will need to distinguish between pictures in a material or visual sense as cultural representations, and mental images (Mitchell 1984), which often build on pictures. An image goes beyond a picture in a material sense, since it augments its depiction by individually, socially and culturally induced connotations and interpretations. “Imagery” or “imageries” could be understood as diverging aggregations of “images”, which come about in individual’s practices of imagining, or related to institutions’ conveyance of imageries. These can be differing and even contradictory. An “imaginary” or “imaginaries” are then rather collective normative convictions shared in a society, or how these differ from such ideals. They are deeply embedded in social practices, and process oriented (Förster 2005:14, 2010). “Imagination” relates then to practices of...

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