Abstract
Using the case study of Romanians in Spain, this article highlights how the COVID-19 crisis presents both challenges and opportunities when it comes to human mobility and sustainability. Drawing on in-depth interviews with mobile people during the period of lockdown and circulation restrictions, and in accordance with the objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the paper advances and contributes to the relevance of sustainability and its impact on people’s mobility in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. I argue that even in the midst of the crisis, sustainable ways may be found to promote and protect human mobility. The paper raises the way sustainability acts as a driver, gains relevance and influence, and contributes to the creation of new models of resilient mobility in times of crisis. The conclusions defend the respect for the SDGs regarding human mobility and emphasise the role of people on the move as sustainable actors learning to overcome distance and the barriers to their mobility during the pandemic.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health, socioeconomic, political, and human rights crisis that has resulted in over 123 million cases and the death of over 2.7 million people and has severely impacted national economies worldwide [1]
To what extent do the COVID-19 responses—whether mobility, crisis response, health, or other policies—address the special needs and vulnerabilities of mobile people and empower them to contribute to the COVID-19 response and to the economy?
The movement of people needs rethinking, and a European debate should be generated on the Eastern European citizens who are doing essential and undervalued work, crossing borders amid the lockdowns, quarantines, and crises provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic is a public health, socioeconomic, political, and human rights crisis that has resulted in over 123 million cases and the death of over 2.7 million people and has severely impacted national economies worldwide [1]. Its dependence on tourism (one of the worst affected sectors) combines with the low technological base of its production model, the fragility of the labour market, the inequality inherited from the previous crisis (2008), and a prior level of public debt that conditions stimulus plans In this framework, migration to Spain has become a real battlefield. The paper introduces Spain as one of the European countries worst affected by the pandemic, and the link between this and human mobility It explains a brief theoretical framework which connects human movement to the need to apply sustainable methods to labour mobility between countries. It discusses the EU’s borders during the lockdown period, and the subsequent stage of the pandemic with the closure, semi-opening, and opening of borders between Spain and Romania. It is proposed as a starting point in the field of studies linking human mobility with sustainability in the COVID-19 era, which researchers may continue, using both qualitative and quantitative methodology
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
