Built to Walk Share
Assignment ends on Feb 15, 2016
Why do we move? Why can’t we sit still? What makes human beings seek out new horizons?
Today, across much of the world, the answers to these questions are often tragic: wars, poverty, climate change and profound social disruptions caused by new technologies have pushed millions of individuals into nomadic lives of extraordinary hardship. Think of the refugee crisis in the Middle East: A staggering 12 million souls have been set adrift there by political upheaval and mass violence. (Syria, of course, being the detonator.) Think of the undocumented migrant workers living in places such as the United States. Or the Chinese who have left the countryside to pour into cities, seeking better lives. The United Nations estimates more than 240 million people now live outside of their places of origin. Today, we truly inhabit an era of human migration unseen since the end of World War II.
That said, not all human migration is either epic in scale or heartbreaking.
People move for many positive reasons, too—and sometimes just a few city blocks away. In thousands of towns and cities, billions of us engage in “micro-migrations” to work and back every day. (Commuting.) We have invented sports in part to tap this innate love of collective movement. (Marathon races.) We perambulate parks. We perform religious pilgrimages. We roam and ramble. That’s because it’s in our DNA: We are an insanely restless species.
For the past three years, John Stanmeyer and I have been working on a project that is focused on human migration, old and new. The project, called the Out of Eden Walk involves walking across the planet for almost a decade in the footsteps of the first human ancestors who trekked out of Africa during the Stone Age and discovered the world. We are documenting this continuous journey across all media.
So this is your assignment: Whether you live in a big city, or small town, in a migrant camp or on a farm, find an original, meaningful, artful way to capture the true essence of human migration or movement—one of the defining qualities of being human.
- Paul Salopek