The long journey home
Viapolitics in the journey of migrant labourers during Covid-19 lockdown in India
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5717007 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Malavika P Pillai (0000-0003-0437-9567, University of Oxford, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1041-1053 |
| Publication date | 2024-11-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Mobilities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1745-0101 • E-ISSN: 1745-011X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17450101.2024.2356568 |
| OpenAlex | W4399506396 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 25 |
After the nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19 in 2020, India saw a mass departure of migrant labourers from urban to native rural areas on foot, by cycle or with available means of transportation due to unexpected unemployment and poverty. This paper attempts to analyse various instances of this incident from the documentary film 1232 KMs (2021) directed by Vinod Kapri. Analysing the film within the framework of viapolitics, this study looks at the mode of transportation used for migration, the routes, the geographical structure and possible challenges on migratory paths to analyse how they affect and influence the migrants and their migratory process. It focuses on the different experiences of migrants based on their mode of transportation as it generates different cultures of mobility and exposes the different affordances for governmental action like a nationwide shutdown. The study explores human struggles over boundaries, life, security, and death in such a migration, particularly considering the socio-economic conditions of the people involved. A viapolitical reading of migrant labourers’ displacement during lockdown thus becomes relevant in throwing light on how factors like vehicles, trajectories, geographical structure, etc., projected their politics during the pandemic
Development economics · Economic geography · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Migrant workers · Mobilities · Pandemic · Political science · Population · Poverty · Slum · Social science · Sociology · Unemployment · Climate Change, Adaptation, Migration · Demography · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Migration, Refugees, and Integration
The Covid-19 Pandemic and Internal Labour Migration in India
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Migrant workers and human rights
Viapolitics
Geographies of Mobilities
Deportation and Airports
Labour Migration to the Construction Sector in India and its Impact on Rural Poverty
Structural Violence and Normalising Human Suffering
Migration Infrastructure
Scaling rights
Border Crossing Assemblages
The speed of life and death
Rethinking Darkness
If Mobility is Everything Then it is Nothing
Towards a Politics of Mobility
Migration, vehicles, and politics
Indian Migrant Workers' Experience During the Covid-19 Pandemic Nationwide Lockdown
Spectacles of migrant 'illegality
Cycles of Empowerment? The Bicycle and Everyday Technology in Colonial India and Vietnam
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |