Introduction: Reconfiguring essential and existential (im)mobilities

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The Introduction to this Special Issue, themed ‘Navigating Hurdles and Reconfiguring (Im)mobilities in Times of Corona' departs from a reflection over what constitutes a ‘crisis', and accordingly reflects over the notions ‘essential’ and ‘existential’ that have been devised extensively in research, as well as in official and colloquial discourses, to describe diverse types of mobilities. The Introduction engages with the concepts of ‘crisis' and ‘emergency' that set the tone of the social reality during the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, it aims to conceptualize the paradigm shift of (im)mobilities reinforced at the outbreak of the pandemic within the wider debates around ‘crisis' and ‘emergency', further scrutinizing the official and colloquial discourses assumed during the pandemic. Accordingly, the Introduction discusses the concepts of essential, non-essential, and existential mobilities as understood amidst and outside of the critical times of the pandemic. In doing so, it offers a theoretical basis from which the discussion of the Special Issue departs. Finally, the Introduction engages with the concept of ‘pace' as a theoretical lens to understand (im)mobilities, and proposes the concept of ‘reconfiguration', as a tool that enables us to focus on the agentive actors' discourses and practices to reconstitute a meaningful life, and navigate the (im)mobility regimes forged amidst the critical times of corona.