Privileged mobilities: local impacts, belonging and citizenship

Privileged migration folds together different kinds of global mobilities characterised by individuals’ capacity to benefit from, maximise, or exert privilege through migration. Whether privilege comes from race, place of birth, wealth, or professional qualification, it allows migrants to define their migration strategy in terms of their own choosing, rather than by material need, unsafety, or persecution. In the context of generalised immobility, the COVID-19 pandemic made evident how specific individuals have been able to move to safer destinations, to do remote work from sunnier places, or even to get vaccinated earlier in other countries. The pandemic also exacerbated vulnerability and precarity, potential drivers for the mobility of the relatively privileged to lower-cost destinations.

PriMob as a research initiative (http://primob.ceg.ulisboa.pt/) is allocated two panels at the conference and welcomes paper submissions both from PriMob’s members and non-members. It will bring together researchers working on various kinds of privileged mobilities (lifestyle, digital nomadism, retirement, investment, amenity, entrepreneurial, elite, highly skilled and international residential mobilities).

We welcome papers related (but not limited) to the following topics:

• Conceptual discussion around privilege in migration;
• Emplacement, integration, citizenship, and belonging;
• Local impacts, transnational gentrification, leisure-led spatial restructuring;
• Privileged mobilities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Please submit a 250-word abstract by 6 Dec 2021 to: Jennifer McGarrigle - jcarvalho@campus.ul.pt & Franz Buhr - fbuhr@campus.ul.pt