Crises, Migration and (Im)Mobility: Towards a Reflexive and Multilevel Approach

Scholarly inquiry into the intersections of migration, mobility, and crisis has mainly focused on international migration. The scope of this scholarship underscores the continuing influence of methodological nationalism in the field. We argue for a broader exploration of mobility (and immobility) perspectives. Accordingly, we embrace an encompassing understanding of crises as particular events and structural conditions with rather “extensive and large-scale changes and effects” (Bergman-Rosamond et al. 2022: 5). We further adopt what Bösch et al. (2020: 5) call a reflexive perspective “in which the constructivist dimension remains acknowledged” without relativizing a more objectivist view of “the real causes and effects” of the crises in question. Our approach builds on the concept of the Migration-Mobility Nexus (see Piccoli et al. 2024) and its interplays (continuum, enablement, opposition, and hierarchy) to study the crisis-induced shifts between migration, mobility, and immobility. To understand the complex and potentially intertwined ways in which crises interact with the Migration-Mobility Nexus, we propose to combine a multilevel analysis of experiences, practices and agency, perceptions and attitudes, and governance.