COVID-19 VACCINE PASSPORTS: GLOBAL INEQUALITIES AND ENTANGLED MOBILITIES

Abstract

Vaccine passport is a new term that has recently entered the vocabulary of nation-states and those involved in the travel industry. A passport is a tool through which individuals can be mobile internationally and by which they can be identified, tracked, and regulated. Although the introduction of vaccine passports has facilitated the re-opening of borders and air travel and assists with reviving economic situations of nation-states, it also means that those who carry proof of immunisation are the only ones who may be able to travel freely. The citizens of many countries will not have access to vaccines nor vaccine passports in the near future. As such, the biopolitics of vaccination passports become entangled with pre-existing global and domestic inequalities and risk further entrenching the immobilities of people in the periphery. In this paper, we discuss the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the meaning of freedom of movement globally and how the introduction of vaccine passports perpetuates and exacerbates existing inequalities in terms of unequal access to international travel and freedom of movement.