Home and away? Creating identities and sustaining places in a multicentered world

Imagine being able to 'travel the world without leaving home'. This is not the overblown promise of some high-tech, computer-generated virtual world, but the veritable promise of The World. Built and operated by a Norwegian company called ResidenSea and launched on her maiden voyage in early 2002, The World is a 191-metre-long 'global village at sea', boasting 200 sumptuous residential and guest suites (smaller units occupy 92 sq m and carry a price tag of a mere US$2 million). In naive but premonitory tones the company website announces: "'Citizen of the world" takes on new meaning when your address is The World of ResidenSea.' Indeed, what would it mean to live in the 'world's first mobile community'? What kind of community would surface in the mobile but ephemeral social relations at sea? And what would become of the territorially bounded, the less mobile majority who lack US$2 million to spend on an ocean-going mobile home? How would the places they reside be affected by the flotilla of the fortunate who periodically grace tlleir shores and streets?