Mobility Privilege and COVID-19: Determinants of a Spatially Differentiated Experience in the Lockdown-ed Delhi Region

Abstract

The singular form that the response to COVID-19 took, namely a general lockdown on the scale of entire countries, combined with the recurrence of this health threat, leads us to draw concrete conclusions from this episode of strict movement restriction in Delhi and its region. To the multitude of works that have dealt with this subject, the present study brings an analysis based on the contribution of massive data from a major social network, Facebook, which informs and quantifies the evolution of population flows before and after the implementation of the containment measures. By analyzing the socio-demographic characteristics of the affected territories, mobility is relocated at the intersection of active renunciation to movement for some high capital populations, and constrained continuation of physical motion for others. This critical framework allows us to define mobility not as a simple synonym of movement, but as a capacity that constitutes the privilege of implementing one’s strategies in the various dimensions of space. That privilege was made particularly visible by the crisis, but one can wonder if it has been properly recognized in decision-making spheres. After having articulated hypotheses on the territorial dynamics that fuel those inequalities, this study observes how the circulation networks are rebuilding and questions what can be said about the relations between area types. Finally, a reflection is engaged on the data’s blind spots, and on how digitization may also alter, if not distort, the understanding of mobility.