When interlocutors die: Time and space of mobility through the biography of a homeless man

This article examines the 'mobility' of Mario, a former homeless person who settled in a neighbourhood of public housing in Milan. His mobility can be considered along two space-time dimensions. The first is 'circular' and concerns Mario's daily movements. This space-time dimension can be analysed through a bibliography developed in the field of mobility studies: entangled among limitations and opportunities of movement, it refers to the constraints to which the Milanese indigent people are subject. However, a second dimension can be added. This refers to a 'longitudinal' space-time dimension, linked to Mario's biography, ending with his death. This second dimension, not generally considered by mobility studies focused on homelessness, gives a wider perspective on the former dimension. Mario's biography also challenges a dominant interpretation of the Italian ethnographic literature on homelessness, i.e. the subcultural approach. Moreover, it allows for a broader reassessment of the (im)mobility of the Milanese urban 'pariahs'.