Voices of the world: (im)mobility experiences of workers during the COVID-19 pandemic

This article has as an objective the analysis of (im)mobilities of workers around the world following the crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. To accomplish this, qualitative research was carried out, featuring 27 subjects from five continents (North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania) who worked from home from March to June 2020. The idea is to unite the similarities and discrepancies of their lived experiences in a period of social distancing through the theoretical lens of mobility and the outlook of political, economic, cultural, and social multilocality and multiplicity. Our main findings focus on the paradoxes of (im)mobility concerning COVID-19 containment policies in different countries, from the lived experience of lockdown in a foreign country and new structures of remote work, to the singularities that led to a (re)invention of the self during the pandemic’s most critical period. Thus, the suspension of the pre-pandemic pace, lifestyle and work routines, however temporary, gave way to the experimentation of new affective mobilities.