What are trajectories?
It is difficult to give a “trajectory” a single definition. The first thing that probably comes to mind is the dictionary definition: “the curve that a body (such as a planet or comet in its orbit or a rocket) describes in space.” But the dictionary quickly moves on to the metaphorical or symbolic meanings, also describing a trajectory as “a path, progression or line of development resembling a physical trajectory.”
Paths, progressions, lines of development—those could describe anything from a personal journey to a creative process to the lifespan of an individual to the evolution of a species and much, much more.
Individuals, relationships and groups all have trajectories. Institutions, societies and civilizations do as well. So do social systems, such as democracy. So does cultural life, such as pop culture and counter culture. Knowledge and ideas have trajectories. Our galaxy and the universe have trajectories. For your explorations in SPACE this year, we invite participants to interpret the TRAJECTORIES theme in this broader sense.
Trajectories as a story we tell
The architype of all trajectories is the narrative—a story of how an object moves and changes, of how a path, a progression, a line develops and unfolds over time and across space. Trajectories may exist objectively, but to perceive and trace them involves human observation, measurement, description, interpretation—and error.
Although we may predict and project trajectories forward into the future, we are often only able to describe them more accurately in retrospective—after they have happened. Sometimes new knowledge and perspectives in the present lead us to reflect on and re-draw past trajectories.
“Thick” trajectories
Trajectories are made even more complex by the fact that they almost never not exist in isolation. They begin from certain initial conditions. They travel through specific contexts. They interact with and react to other trajectories.
Would it be possible to describe the trajectories of, say, five random students through their years at Dawson and beyond in a way that is separate from their genetic inheritance, the families and backgrounds they come from, the way they were raised, the teachers, staff and other students whose paths they cross, the building and institutional structures they move through, the city and country they inhabit, the culture and politics that impacts them, and so on?
In this sense, trajectories can be “thick”—a term used by sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom in her book of essays by the same title—that is to say, complex, rich in connections, associations, meanings, related to many topics and open to multiple interpretations.
Trajectories can contain internal tensions, conflicts, antagonisms and contradictions. They are subject to disjunctions, splits, conjunctions, interruptions, changes, fusions (partial or total), or parallel existences (such as in the concept of the multiverse). They may be constrained, broken, aborted. They may fluctuate and change. One trajectory may be latent within or emerge from another. Trajectories may be shaped by myriad possible factors.
Trajectories may also be “thick” in terms of what counts as a trajectory. Is the random movement of small particles suspended in a fluid, also known as Brownian motion, a set of trajectories? Could a series of tokens predicted by AI be described as a trajectory? What about an aimless walk through a city or countryside?
Goals, plans, predications, calculations—and beyond
Trajectories may or may not be guided by goals. The trajectory of putting a satellite into space will be guided by the goal of having a satellite in space. However, when the artist Paul Klee described drawing as “taking a line for a walk”, did he have a specific goal or outcome in mind, or was he seeking to make something beyond what he could initially imagine, something surprising even to himself?
Even when a trajectory is guided by a goal, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley,” as the poet Robert Burns wrote. A person may enter a relationship imagining one trajectory and end of following quite another. Someone may enter a relationship, for instance, with a particular goal in mind and an idea of the trajectory they would like to take, but over time that person may discover a new way of understanding the other, themselves and their situations that alters both their initial goal and their trajectory.
People may have the goal to disrupt and/or innovate on previous ways of doing things, whether in science, art, business, politics or another field, which may give rise to new practices, ideas and even movements. But the trajectories they take in doing so are almost always unpredictable.
Some kinds of trajectories can be calculated and predicted, but others, especially when it comes to individual, social, cultural and historical life, cannot. There are not only known knowns in life, but also unknown unknowns that make life messy. One may have a goal in life and a plan to reach that goal, but the plan to get there often involves uncertainties, and reaching that goal will often involve unforeseen or unplanned paths.
Trajectories across the disciplines
Trajectories may not always have the same or even comparable meanings in the various domains of social practices, the natural and biological sciences, the humanities and social sciences, ethics, and art. In health care or medicine, one could speak of the trajectories of life, health, disease, care, and dying. In biology, the trajectories of various life forms or of a species throughout
evolution. In physics, the trajectories of an accelerated particle or a beam of light. In art, the trajectories of art movements or the creative process. In sociology, the trajectories of social movements and institutions. In philosophy, the trajectories of ideas, and so on.
As well, in one discipline, trajectories may, as mentioned, be driven by goals, predicated and calculated, pursued according to plans (though even then, uncertainties and surprises may abound); in another discipline, trajectories may be thought about in a non-outcome-or-goal-oriented way.
Different disciplines may also look differently at what conditions give rise to trajectories, what motivates and propels them, what contexts surround and shape them, what destinations they bend towards.
Returning to where we began: the idea of “trajectories” eludes easy definition, and we invite students to think critically and creatively about the term as they consider how they themselves may engage with the theme.
Why trajectories matter
The theme of trajectories is intimately linked to fundamental questions about how we and other bodies move through the world and why. As human beings, we have a strong natural interest in where we are going—and where things around us are going as well.
There are certain destinations we are eager to arrive at and others we are eager to avoid, and we also want to find joy and meaning in the journey along the way, which is a kind of destination in itself.
We also have a strong natural interest in where we came from and how we got here. Our history gives us a sense of who we are and our place in the order of things and also holds lessons we can carry forward into our present and future trajectories.
