The concept of immobility is showing up -- and often in relation to the closures that the pandemic has created. My concern or interest is in the way immobility is used. Often it seems posited as the opposite of mobility (or in other words NOT migration) and that is rather narrow. Immobility is also used to describe the limits on peoples who would otherwise cross national/international borders. Shouldn't internal movement factor into our discussion as an alternative? And immobility is more than not migration, would be interested to hear thoughts on this.
To build on some of the ideas here, mobility is certainly more than a question of physical movement/migration. As a first example, from Sociology, social mobility is moving through a social system through wealth accretion, networks, expertise, etc., often used to look at how people travel through a seemingly rigid hierarchy. As a second example, from (mostly) Anthropology, existential (im)mobility is the feeling (or not) that one is progressing through a life that has movement and experiences change (worth a read: Hage 2005; Lems and Tošić 2019). In both of these cases, there may or may not be physical movement involved.
In fact, linking the latter example to my own work with camp-based refugees, I would say that whilst many face physical immobility, their sense of futurity and their working towards these goals suggests existential mobility. If we go back to your point on the COVID-19 pandemic, it would seem that while physical mobility has been reduced, other forms of mobility have emerged as expressed through change and innovation in terms of physical-virtual labor, emergent networks and social relations through localized mutual aid, and different forms of personal change adapting to these new circumstances.
Nicolas Parent I agree that mobility is more than physical movement, that's why it has taken other creative forms during the pandemic.
Max J. Stein , yes, it does show up in discussions of social mobility (immobility) but in migration - it is often approached as what people DON'T do, and while there are links between mobility and immobility, NOT migrating is not the same as being immobile, it has to be more than a physical movement defined by a relationship to a geographic point in time as both Nicolas Parent and Neema Ghenim argue. At an institutional level, if immobility is referenced as NOT mobility, we lose the complexities that drive immobility as a household decision for example.
In my recent paper, I critically focus on the social-spatial junctures in transnational family ties and care practices. I identify social mobilities as the capacities in the socio-economic condition of individuals, related to occupation, income and nature of mobility. By spatial mobilities, on the other hand, I mean abilities for cross border journey for residence or resettlement, such as migration. Such (im)mobilities are embedded in family care practices incorporate inequalities in geographies and social settings that have been shaped by cross border connections. for details, Article Power geometries of mediated care: (Re)mapping transnational...
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