Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
4-2023
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and interventions addressing it raise important questions about human mobility that have geopolitical implications. This forum uses mobility and immobility during the pandemic as lenses onto the ways that routinised state power reacts to acute uncertainties, as well as how these reactions impact politics and societies. Specifically, we propose the concept of "shock mobility" as migratory routines radically reconfigured: emergency flights from epicentres, mass repatriations, lockdowns, quarantines. Patterns of shock mobility and immobility are not new categories of movement, but rather are significant alterations to the timing, duration, intensity, and relations among existing movements. Many of these alterations have been induced by governments' reactions to the pandemic in both migrant-sending and receiving contexts, which can be especially consequential for migrants in and from the Global South. Our interventions explore these processes by highlighting experiences of Afghans and Kurds along Iran's borders, Western Africans in Europe, Filipino workers, irregular Bangladeshis in Qatar, Central Americans travelling northwards via Mexico, and rural-urban migrants in India. In total, we argue that tracing shocks' dynamics in a comparative manner provides an analytical means for assessing the long-term implications of the pandemic, building theories about how and why any particular post-crisis world emerges as it does, and paving the way for future empirical work.
Keywords
COVID-19, epidemic, disease spread, mobility, geopolitics, state
Discipline
Migration Studies | Public Health | Sociology
Research Areas
Sociology
Publication
Geopolitics
Volume
28
Issue
4
First Page
1632
Last Page
1657
ISSN
1465-0045
Identifier
10.1080/14650045.2022.2091314
Publisher
Taylor and Francis
Citation
XIANG, Biao, ALLEN, William L., KHOSRAVI, Shahram, KRINGELBACH, Helene Neveu, ORTIGA, Yasmin Y., LIAO, Karen Anne S., CUELLAR Jorge E., , MOMEN, Lamea, DESHINGKAR, Priya, & and NAIK, Mukta.(2023). Shock mobilities during moments of acute uncertainty. Geopolitics, 28(4), 1632-1657.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3658
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2022.2091314