Migration Studies Commons^™

Shock Mobilities During Moments Of Acute Uncertainty, Biao Xiang, William L. Allen, Shahram Khosravi, Helene Neveu Kringelbach, Yasmin Y. Ortiga, Karen Anne S. Liao, Cuellar Jorge E., Lamea Momen, Priya Deshingkar, Mukta And Naik

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

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 …