Mobility, fixity, agency: Australia’s working holiday programme

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Description/Abstract

Recent writings on transnational corporeal
mobility have been dominated by at least two
concerns: mobility as ever-expanding or even
complete; and mobility as determined by
economic restructuring. In this paper, I
confront such writings with empirical material
from primarily qualitative research into
Australia’s working holiday programme,
which was established in 1975 to allow British
citizens between the ages of 18 and 26 to work
and holiday in Australia for a period of up to
12 months. And I confront such writings with
M. P. Smith’s (2001) agency-oriented approach
to transnational urbanism, which I extend
with two arguments. Firstly, since agency is
not a simple possession of intent or motivated
human beings, the achievement of mobility
rests on both human actors and non-human
actants. Secondly, since mobility is not simply
increasing, the achievement of mobility rests
alongside what we might call relative
contingent fixity.