The meaning of the expression “Stationary Nomads” is a singular example of the gap between statistical space and mental space. The former is often ignored. The latter is strategic.
With artificial intelligence and platforms like Microsoft Teams and Zoom, which offer solutions for communication and collaboration, a phenomenon is emerging in which a group of people, initially small and then growing exponentially, reside in a city but live active lives spanning the globe while staying at home. These are the Stationary Nomads, individuals who perform intellectual tasks and meet in person once or twice a year at their international hubs, vast mental spaces. By ignoring them, the communities where they live will not benefit from their vast and intense, borderless connections.
The presence of these professionals, hyperconnected digitally on a global scale with intellectuals, thinkers, and creatives, who comprise the leading group of cultural and scientific: production, is deliberately ignored. The guilds, whose cultural roots date back to the Middle Ages, wield considerable power. During the Napoleonic period, they were abolished. Their members: excluded non-sedentary, itinerant workers. Today, do guilds have an interest in registering Stationary Nomads? Does the privilege of belonging to a corporation based on a person’s sedentary lifestyle persist? Are these Nomads considered disruptive? Should they be left unregistered to be labelled as squatters? Is their administrative invisibility useful for preserving the rents of power?
Stationary Nomads are agile, digital, itinerant, and innovators outside the bureaucratic radar, agents of creative destruction that shake the static nature of privilege. Drawing on global expertise, they break the monopoly of local knowledge, allowing value creation to escape the territorial confines that have enclosed it. Ultimately, the Stationary Nomad is uncatchable, roaming freely both physically and digitally, an innovator who contaminates ideas, breaks down the professional monoculture, sparks intellectual dynamism, integrates the community into global networks, and thus, by abolishing economic feudalism, transforms the fortress city into a hub of connections that breaks down corporate barriers.
Their remote working methods demonstrate that it is possible to remain part of a community while meeting one’s expectations. Multinationals present in our economic fabric will benefit. By emulating them, young talents will transform their mobility. from physical escape to digital connection. The Stationary Nomads is a call to action addressed to various institutes and bodies specialising in statistical surveys. They represent an unmissable opportunity to collect data and translate it into clear and compelling narratives. Statistics, combined with imagination, produce a filter of creativity. The data passing through it creates a profound meaning that shines a spotlight on a singular phenomenon of nomadism. Believing we know it without actually knowing it is an illusion of knowledge, a veil that hides the true essence of reality.
