Shock Mobilities During Moments of Acute Uncertainty

The COVID-19 pandemic and interventions addressing it raise important questions about human mobility that have geopolitical implications. This forum uses immobility during the as lenses onto ways routinised state power reacts to acute uncertainties, well how these reactions impact politics societies. Specifically, we propose concept of “shock mobility” migratory routines radically reconfigured: emergency flights from epicentres, mass repatriations, lockdowns, quarantines. Patterns shock are not new categories movement, but rather significant alterations timing, duration, intensity, relations among existing movements. Many been induced by governments’ in both migrant-sending receiving contexts, which can be especially consequential for migrants Global South. Our explore processes highlighting experiences Afghans Kurds along Iran’s borders, Western Africans Europe, Filipino workers, irregular Bangladeshis Qatar, Central Americans travelling northwards via Mexico, rural-urban India. In total, argue tracing shocks’ dynamics a comparative manner provides an analytical means assessing long-term implications pandemic, building theories why any particular post-crisis world emerges does, paving way future empirical work.