Mobility spaces: Grounding the implications of politically-driven shifts in mobility regimes

Abstract

With increasing levels of mobility, driven by political, economic, technological, and cultural factors, mobility regimes are established to facilitate and control both internal and cross-border travel. Still, the degree to which individuals are mobile is a function of multiple factors, including power, citizenship, ethnicity, income, education, culture, networks, and technology. We advance the concept of “Mobility Spaces” as a way to identify the implications of politically induced changes in mobility regimes for individuals. In particular, we show how politically induced shifts in such regimes affect the mobility options of different groups. Mobility spaces are defined as the area to which a person belonging to a certain group can possibly travel, in a regulated but unimpeded or in a partially impeded fashion. The restrictions limiting mobility spaces can be divided into three thematic hierarchies, domestic, international and for refugees. The mobility spaces implications of changes in mobility regimes resulting from political shifts are exemplified along the first two hierarchies for the Israeli-Palestinian and German-European cases.