Region power for mobilities research

In this Thinking Space essay, we explain why the COVID-19 pandemic makes mobilities research more important than ever. In a time when mobilities have been reconfigured so dramatically, perhaps even leading people to value mobility differently, we need concepts and theories that can help us to attend to and navigate this new situation. Our contention is that mobilities research must recentre the region. Building on earlier work in the mobilities paradigm, we suggest ways that regionality can be conceptualised, and argue that mobilities in our part of the world take distinctive manifestations that warrant our attention. Our essay concludes by pointing to new directions for mobilities research from our region.