I noted in Chapter 1 that the essence of globalization lies in the various interconnections and interdependences across borders. These networked connections involve mobility, whether of goods, money, services, information or people. Such flows are the focus of this chapter and two of the next. In the present chapter the focus is on movements of people and the associated health impacts. Later chapters examine movements of materials – focusing less on the trade in goods and more on the flows of “bads” – and then infections.

In a very prescient observation ten years ago, Glick Schiller and Salazar (2013: 184) wrote that “the current global economic crisis seems to be accompanied by a normalisation – once again – of national borders and ethnic boundaries, even as the crisis itself reveals the degree to which the world is intricately networked and interdependent”. The connections afforded by globalization seem – after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as Trumpian politics and Brexit – to be giving way to heightened nationalism. Despite these borders, desperate people will continue to seek safety and refuge by crossing them, dangerous as the journeys usually are and uncertain as to the welcome – or lack thereof – that awaits them. The welcome given to Ukrainian refugees in Greece contrasts with the appalling conditions in camps “housing” Afghan refugees on the island of Lesbos (Markham 2022).

A key theme in contemporary social science is that of “mobilities”. This is a vibrant multidisciplinary field that deals with the geographical mobility of humans, nonhumans and objects, as well as information, visual images and, crucially, capital (Sheller 2015). It reflects more than the mere act of movement or transport, looking also at the emotional work that goes into this as well as the physical infrastructure necessary to enable movement. A related concept is that of “motility” – the potential to move – which “captures the unequal distribution of power over mobility, mobility resources and access to space” (Stjernborg, Wretstrand & Tesfahuney 2015: 384).