This article theorizes subversive mobility by looking at the layers of meaning connoted by a set of etymologically complex words in several languages. I examine at how the semantics of words like Verkehr (German), “filibuster” (English), Yangjingbang (Shanghainese vernacular), and others, convey human experiences of physical mobility and political subversion as interconnected. This discussion is both philological and historical-geographic in orientation, using etymological inquiry to recover transportation geographies and worlds of social meaning which have become marginalized or hidden. The discussion also provides context for an analysis of the importance of not only subversive mobility but also enduring, “archaic” forms of social energy in Karl Marx's dialectical conception of history, especially towards the end of his life.
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