The University of Wollongong is hosting a number of speakers who will discuss the ongoing impact of Covid-19 and how personal and societal mobility has been changed as a result.

The seminar, titled the Mobility Justice Symposium 2022, is being held by UOW in collaboration with the Geographical Society of New South Wales (GSNSW) in collaboration with the Australian Mobilities Research Network (AusMob), and the Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society and Space (ACCESS). It will reflect on the impact the pandemic has had on personal, social and professional lives.

ACCESS Associate Research Fellow Theresa Harada is the symposium’s Convenor.

“The pandemic, while catastrophic, has provided an opportunity to reflect on the importance of freedom of movement for everyday life and what this means in a world of overlapping crises,” she says.

“From remote working to home deliveries, decreased use of public transport and pop-up cycling lanes - adapted practices have brought to light the hidden aspects of mobility justice. Essential workers and those in precarious employment, were exposed to higher levels of risk from COVID-19 because they did not have the option to work from home.”

“People with disabilities face mobility injustices in their everyday lives because of infrastructural and social barriers that prevent them from moving freely through many public and private spaces.”

Keynote presentations include Carol Farbotko, ARC Future Fellow University of Melbourne speaking on the COVID-free islands of Tuvalu and Mimi Sheller, Dean of The Global School, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts discussing planetary mobility justice.

Following Tuvalu’s first case of covid in May 2022, Farbotko’s presentation will explore some of the pandemic mobilities and immobilities of Tuvaluan people, including urban-rural migration and experiences of Tuvaluan migrant workers in Australia. Both the pandemic immobilities and climate change issues faced by Tuvalu will be explored, as will mobility justice as a cultural, temporal and geographical issue.

Sheller’s keynote speech investigates how the world might recover habitability while on the threshold of ecological limits, in the aftermath of pandemic related mobility and economic disruption. The Worcester Polytechnic Dean will look at how society can create more equitable forms of dwelling and moving in the legacies of various injustices, and how post-pandemic policy and planning for decarbonisation create a more just, equitable, and sustainable world in the face of a changing climate.

Other topics such as mobility and transport challenges in global cities, the intersection of climate change and human movement; the ongoing effects of border closures; physical and economic accessibility of transport; and the tourism, educational, social and geopolitical implications of mobility will also be discussed.

The Symposium is currently underway. For more information, click here.

Image: NSW Government

Jarrod Reedie

UOW-holds-inaugural-mobility-justice-symposium-1732008878.png

Let’s connect!