Fronteras invisibles. Aproximaciones desde un nuevo paradigma de la movilidad

With the advances in communication and transportation technologies, human mobility has increased incessantly. We are facing a system that encompasses the mobility of capital, commodities, services, ideas, and people. 

As we navigate these changes, migration analysis requires new methodological and theoretical approaches to further investigate the expulsion and attraction factors for migrant populations. In this context, a new paradigm of mobility emerges as a promising and viable proposal for the study of migration and other human mobilities. 

The concept of mobility applies to both, wide range human mobility—objects, capital and information all over the world—and the daily mobility of individuals within local public spaces. This essay directs its attention towards human mobility, specifically focusing on migrant populations, displaced communities or refugees, as well as tourists, work and study travelers, and other actors who travel around the Cartesian space. 

 
MIGRANTS AND TOURISTS: TWO SIDES OF MOBILITY 
Statistics by the World Bank (2023) show that about 184 million people (2.3 per cent of the global population) live outside their country of origin. Among them are migrants, displaced populations, refugees and asylum seekers. About 37 million people are refugees living in countries different from their own. 

Migrants make one of the most important categories of mobility. At the opposite side lie tourists. According to the UN Tourism Organization (OMT, 2024), in 2023 there were 1.3 billion international arrivals. The leading tourist-sending countries include the United States, Canada, European nations, and more recently, Asian countries. Among the most visited destinations, France ranks first, followed by Spain, the United States, China, Italy, Türkiye and Mexico. The latter is the only Latin American country positioned highly, hosting 45 million international tourists in 2023. 
The growth of tourism industry in an increasingly interconnected world spurred the rise of educational travel, academic tourism, business trips and other mobility-related activities. This is integral to the global system described by John Urry in his work Mobilities (2007), a framework that has been revisited by specialists who align with the principle of the “new paradigm” of mobilities. 

 
MOBILITY AND INEQUALITY  
One initial aspect to consider when studying mobility is to analyze it in relation to immobility. With the progression of mobility, new mechanisms have emerged to regulate it, or impede it. While some individuals can now travel across different countries and cross long distances in a matter of hours, this accessibility is not universal. While certain individuals can easily travel long distances in a short time, others face difficulties and barriers in undertaking the same journey. The high mobility of some social groups or sectors is juxtaposed with the immobility of others due to economic, social and symbolic reasons. The latter may include class conditions (lack of resources for mobility), nationality (lack of visa), and gender (where women may face restrictions to travel alone). In all these cases different factors collectively anchor millions of people and limit their freedom of mobility. 

One of the paradoxes of the wide range mobility system is evident when millions of tourists are encouraged to travel, stay and consume in distant places, often relying on the assistance of individuals who face a situation of immobility, this is, by working class people in the hosting societies whose life and work conditions are precarious, thus keeping them with limited mobility. So, mobile tourists rely on these working people who have little to no mobility. 

Mobility restrictions are thus directly related to social inequality, often determined by class, nationality, gender and ethnic origin. As a result, restrictions tend to disproportionately affect individuals with limited resources. Similarly, mobility is generally reduced for women compared to men, and this can also be said about individuals from ethnic minorities. 
National borders, in their relation with nationality, play a significant role in the regulation of mobility, and can grant access or impose restrictions. Americans enjoy visa-free entry to many countries, while the reverse is not always true. Mexicans, for instance, require a visa to enter the United States and now also Canada, whereas Americans can enter Mexico with just their passports. It is worth highlighting that obtaining an American visa can be a difficult process for millions of individuals. 

There are also other, less conspicuous borders that impede mobility. These invisible borders restrict the vertical and horizontal movement of women, impoverished groups, ethnic minorities and racialized populations. When discussing mobility in the context of globalization, Bauman (2011) demonstrated how nationality and race influence people’s mobility capacities in a globalized world. 

The distinction between being a tourist and a migrant is reflected in their differing uses of time and space. However, these uses are also differentiating elements (Bauman 2011, p. 8), as the unequal access to capital and technology of communication provides advantages for some, while disadvantaging others. Unequal access to mobility is an expression of the uneven distribution of symbolic capital, where nationality plays an important role. As a result, population mobility emerges as a capacity that generates greater inequalities. It is important to add here the construction of discourses that perpetuate racism and xenophobia. These discourses contribute to preventing or limiting the access of migrant populations and others considered “undesirable” in certain countries or regions, like Muslims, undocumented individuals, the LGBTQ+ community, and anyone perceived as a stranger or a threatening presence. In this process of cultural constructions of difference and distinction, nation-states continue to hold an important part as builders of alterity (Segato, 2007). 

The disparity between mobility and immobility in the global system is a manifestation of the uneven distribution of capital, financial, cultural, and symbolic capital. Furthermore, inequality in mobility can be a driving force that generates new and more significant inequalities. Those with greater mobility capacities can access better resources than the individuals with restricted mobility. In this context, mobility can be viewed as a form of capital that influences the creation of new mechanisms, ultimately contributing to the reproduction and amplification of social inequality (Pedreño, 2011). 

 
TOURISTS AND MIGRANTS 
By highlighting the connection between mobility and inequality, as exemplified in the relation tourists-migrants, Nina Glick-Schiller and Noel Salazar (2013) introduced the concept of “mobility regimes”. The concept aims to identify the tendencies that normalize and facilitate the movements of certain individuals, while simultaneously stopping, preventing or criminalizing the mobility of others. They argue that the opportunities to be a tourist, a migrant, a high-level employee who travels around the world, or a student studying abroad, are conditioned to their position within the mobility regimes that operate in a global scale. 

Inequality in mobility is the manifestation of the uneven distribution of both economic and symbolic capital. This inequality is a result of the power asymmetries inherent in the global system. The unequal capacity of mobility tends to reinforce the existing inequalities, such as those expressed in the relations between central and peripheral countries, between men and women, between established populations and outsiders, between nationals and foreigners, and other distinctions. Furthermore, it is suggested that globalization not only enhances mobility, but it also generates new schemes of immobility. Alongside mobility, a new cultural and normative principle emerges, centered on security criteria, which institutes what Shamir (2005) classifies as the “suspicion paradigm” that aims to restrict borders or limit mobility to specific categories of people. 

The structure of the tourism industry generates and reproduces the distinction between tourists and local workers, the latter being rooted in a specific location with limited mobility capacity. This structure is often accompanied by additional sociocultural aspects, such as the racialization of job roles that differentiate local workers from migrants. 

Summarizing, it is essential for those examining the new paradigm of mobility to contrast the diverse movements of a group of people with the immobility or anchoring of others, who remain fixed in a given place. On the other side, it is proposed to study the dynamic between mobility and immobility using the same theoretical concepts, regardless of whether it involves the free movement of tourism, or the forced mobility of individuals compelled to relocate against their will, such as victims of human trafficking, exiles, displaced communities, and those affected by risk situations like drought and other climate change-related natural disasters. 

Between the extreme poles of mobility and immobility, there are individuals who have adopted migration and tourism as lifestyle. These individuals often possess a second residence, including retired people from Northern European countries who travel to Spain and Portugal, as well as Canadians and Americans who reside in Mexico, Costa Rica and Panama, among other countries. Additionally, there are also the so-called “digital nomads”, whose numbers have increased significantly since the pandemic due to the widespread use of digital platforms. Regardless of one’s location, it is now possible to work from anywhere if the technical needs are available—a computer and Internet. The digital modes of work have made it possible to de-locate several activities that were previously confined to one geographical space. In some American cities, such as Houston, Los Angeles, or Chicago, it is common to see large buildings standing empty, as the employees now work from home. 

 
HOW TO ANALYZE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOBILITY AND IMMOBILITY? 
In recent years, there have been efforts to establish a unified theoretical framework to analyze the diverse types of mobility. This proposal was first developed by certain geographers and sociologists, including the previously quoted Urry (2007). From this emerged the new mobility paradigm, which involves various disciplines: anthropology, sociology, geography and studies on migration and tourism (Hannam, Sheller and Urry, 2006). 

According to this approach, the aim is to study different phenomena related to human mobility using the same theoretical and methodological frameworks. The proposal is to adopt a unified theoretical approach that enables the use of the same tools to study migratory flows, tourism mobility, the movements of refugees, displaced communities, expatriates, and the so-called digital nomads (who have a certain degree of freedom and mobility capacity). This proposal also includes an analysis of the immobility experienced by sectors that face significant restrictions that limit their free and independent mobility capacity. Some authors argue that while globalization has granted freedom of movement to some, it has also increased the immobility of others through the closing of borders. This is the case of the people seeking asylum in third-party countries, as well as those unable to migrate due to a lack of resources to fund their movements (Hannam, Sheller and Urry, 2006). 

People’s mobility occurs at varying velocities and scales. For some, crossing borders can take months and consume significant resources and energy, while for others, it is a matter of hours. Other authors have emphasized how structures of power influence the relationship between mobility and immobility. From this perspective, the relationship between mobility and immobility reflects power dynamics. Furthermore, the mobility capacity can be viewed as a mechanism that generates inequality because it accentuates the differences and contrasts with those who lack mobility and are anchored to a single place. 

The study of mobility also requires the analysis of the mechanisms created to restrict it: borders, the rejection of migrant populations, xenophobia, racism, misogyny, and other factors that limit, channel and regulate mobility. One method to halt migratory flows is the racialization of migrants, a cultural construction accompanied by the invention of negative attributes aimed at creating a negative identity for those deemed “illegal”—a term that violates the essence of human rights. This can also be applied to the mobility of women and their access to certain spaces previously considered masculine domains. 

This paradigm of mobility and immobility offers a new perspective for the social sciences, as it enables the analysis of the subject’s relationship with spatial mobility. The study of everyday mobility, as well as of migration, tourism, displacement or asylum-seeking, allows us to view the mobility capacity (motility) as a form of capital unevenly distributed. 

This is why motility becomes a structuring element of relationships that tend to reproduce or exacerbate inequalities when considering other factors such as nationality, social class, gender or “race”. This opens new and promising avenues for the study of phenomena related to human mobility. 

---