Paper short abstract:

The uncertainty produced by the pandemic forced migrants to redefine the rhythms of their mobility. They renegotiated their "time horizons", and these negotiations had emotional resonance and concrete effects, as happened to Romanian agricultural workers and caregivers in Italy.

Paper long abstract:

In the wave of COVID-19 pandemic, when both lives and living were at risk, there was an acute uncertainty about the future and it was difficult to estimare to what extent it would impact people’s lives. In this paper I analyse the impact that the pandemic had on the intra-European mobility of migrants, on their perceptions of time, paces, identities and on their visions of the future. The uncertainty posed a problem of projection and action and migrants were forced to redefine the rhythms of their mobility and imaginations about them. They have redefined their horizoning, the process through which human beings bring an unknown or fleeing future into the present as an object of knowledge.

Based on a multi-site ethnographic research conducted in the last four years, I analyse the biographies of Romanian migrants employed in Italy as elderly caregivers and agricultural workers. Their migration was defined "essential" for the national economy and some exceptional measures were accorded to these workers. The survival and reproduction of Italian families was linked to the their presence both materially, as they guaranteed food security, and emotionally, as they granted the care and the emotional stability of the elderly.

How to reconcile the visions of the future and the security needs of Italian society with the uncertain and fragmented ones of these migrants? I discuss how individuals and communities have negotiated their divergent "time horizons", the emotional resonance and concrete effects of these negotiations.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the experiences of professionals who, following the outbreak of Covid-19, relocated back to their hometowns in Italy while working remotely. How do these workers practice return and various (im)mobilities through remote work while (re)making career and life trajectories?

Paper long abstract:

The recent outbreak of the Covid-19 has posed new challenges to mobility for many and has concomitantly stimulated an increase of remote work for some. Favoured by new remote-working policies, some people take advantage of the virtualization of work to travel and work from alternative locations. The diffusion of remote work practices has made some work-related mobile practices ‘non-essential’ (e.g., commuting, business travel) and has encouraged alternative mobilities that now appear ‘essential’ to people at more existential and personal levels. This paper explores the experiences of professionals who, following the outbreak of the Covid-19, relocated back to their hometowns in Italy from abroad or from other Italian regions while working remotely. This phenomenon, also known as ‘South-working’ – Lavorare dal Sud, has particularly intensified with the recent pandemic. For some, the Covid-19 challenged certain mobile practices once taken for granted. Places that once seemed easily ‘reachable’ for occasional visits became ‘remote’ due to the emerging mobility restrictions. The lockdown and the limitations of movement linked to the pandemic hence prompted the decision to return, reunite with families, and rethink life priorities thanks to virtual remote work and alternative mobility strategies. How do these workers practice return and various (im)mobilities through remote work while (re)making career and life trajectories? How do they re-make sense of the ‘remoteness’ of return destinations following the Covid-19?

Paper short abstract:

This paper asks why Tokyo's crowded commuter trains were largely excluded from Japanese public health guidance and discourses during the COVID-19 pandemic. It links this conspicuous absence to the urban railway network's essential role in the operation of socio-economic life in the Japanese capital.

Paper long abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic has not just prompted the widespread deceleration and halting of human movement, but also reconfigured enduring mobilities. One example of this is many Tokyo residents' continued use of the city's urban railway network throughout the pandemic (Schimkowsky forthcoming). Even as case numbers rose and multiple 'states of emergency' were declared, Japanese government authorities avoided placing official restrictions on 'non-essential' urban mobility flows in Tokyo. This paper presents a theoretic exploration of this lack of urban mobility restrictions through the lens of essential and existential mobilities (Salazar 2021). Although Tokyo's notoriously crowded commuter trains are potentially dangerous spaces in terms of viral risk, they were largely absent from Japanese public health guidance and discourses related to the COVID-19 crisis. This paper inquires into this uncomfortable position of urban railway commutes within Japanese COVID-19 discourse and responses, asking why urban railway commutes in Tokyo withstood the immobilizing effect of the pandemic even though many commuters were concerned about the new viral risks of urban mobility practices. It argues that crowded commuter trains were not allowed to be problematized by COVID-19 discourses and measures due to their integral position in Japan's socio-economic order and their function as a platform of essential mobility.

Paper short abstract:

How did postgraduate students (PGRs) experience and react to temporal, existential im/mobility during the pandemic? My research paper considers qualitative PGRs during the COVID-19 pandemic and the related consequences of experiencing dis/connectedness from their research, peers and institutions.

Paper long abstract:

During the pandemic, ethnographers travelled from bedrooms to their fieldsite located in a living room or kitchen where our temporal and spatial boundaries became increasingly constrained. My paper argues that postgraduate research (PGR) ethnographers were particularly im/mobilised during the COVID-19 pandemic as we fought against corroding timelines, institutional alienation and, at times, suffocating dis/connectedness. PGRs who experienced temporal existential im/mobility endured the consequences of periods of uncertain renegotiation of their research. As we lingered in im/mobility, we grasped at the unravelling threads of our COVID-19 infected research, hoping that it could somehow be rewoven. Thus, what are the consequences of existential im/mobility for PGRs and did agentive potential diminish or re/emerge? How did the structures of academia help or hinder PGRs during the pandemic?

Using mixed-methods, my paper considers the temporal nature of existential im/mobility of PGRs in the UK and Republic of Ireland, who feared that their future was collapsing in on their present, eroding their past selves. I explore how universities often magnified PGRs im/mobility pushing them to move better (Hage 2005), without considering how, while many stood against a metaphorical brick wall. Many PGRs experienced purposeless im/mobility and dis/connectedness during the pandemic, leaving supervisors to add therapist to their already precarious workload.

However, despite academic existential im/mobility, some PGRs were able to re-envision their futures as hopeful however fragile that might be. Throughout my paper I will consider how PGRs can be helped to move better.