Mobility guilt: digital nomads and COVID-19

Abstract

This article examines how digital nomads (generally defined here as those from the Global North working remotely without a permanent home) reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic. Using social media data and 37 in-depth interviews with digital nomads from 16 countries, it argues that many in this group continued traveling to maintain their identity and avoid border closures and lockdowns. The article explores how they rationalized their mobility while navigating feelings of guilt, avoidance of shame, and deflecting accusations of geographical and epidemiological selfishness. New geopolitical conditions created both barriers and travel loopholes, with participants therefore attempting to maintain their group identity through movement while also limiting their social media participation to avoid moral sanction. Drawing on Mimi Sheller’s work on mobility justice, the article closes by demonstrating how mobility guilt may be a phenomenon that outlasts the pandemic.