As the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus swept around the world in 2020, outpacing public health efforts to contain it, many everyday human mobilities were brought to an abrupt halt, while others were drastically reorganized. Viral mobilities have unleashed not just a disruption of human mobilities, but also a vast intensification of existing uneven relations of (im)mobilities. Critical mobilities studies range from the microscopic scales of viral mobilities that hitch a ride on human movement (Lavau 2014;see also Jensen, this Issue), to the macroscale planetary mobilities of the Anthropocene (Szerszynski 2016). In this Special Issue on ‘Pandemic (Im)mobilities’ we have invited leading contributors in the field of mobilities studies to address the multiple issues generated by the pandemic’s relation to complex (im)mobilities at many scales, as well as deeper theoretical issues that arise when we consider the pandemic from a critical mobilities approach.
Pandemic (Im)mobilities