What is it about?
This article explores how the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way governments and citizens thought about movement. During lockdowns, authorities classified some forms of mobility as “essential” (such as travel for work, healthcare, food supply, and other key services) while restricting many other movements. Drawing on evidence from Belgium, especially Brussels, the article shows that people often valued different kinds of mobility than those officially recognized by governments. Activities such as walking, running, cycling, visiting loved ones, or spending time in nature were not only ways of moving from one place to another; they also helped people maintain their well-being, sense of purpose, and feeling of being alive. The article distinguishes between essential mobilities, which are usually defined according to social and economic needs, and existential mobilities, which contribute to personal well-being, meaning, and quality of life. By examining mobility before, during, and after the COVID-19 crisis, the study reveals how crises expose underlying social values, inequalities, and assumptions about whose movements matter and why.
Featured Image
Photo by ANNIE HATUANH on Unsplash
Why is it important?
The article offers a new way of thinking about mobility by bringing together two perspectives that are rarely considered side by side: the societal importance of movement and its personal, existential significance. The COVID-19 pandemic created a unique real-world experiment in which governments explicitly decided which mobilities were permitted and which were restricted. This made visible the power relations behind mobility policies and highlighted the gap between official definitions of necessity and people’s lived experiences. The study is timely because societies continue to face interconnected challenges, including public health emergencies, climate change, and urban sustainability. Its findings suggest that future mobility policies should not focus only on economic efficiency but also on human well-being, social justice, and quality of life.
Perspectives
As an anthropologist, I was struck by how the pandemic revealed mobility to be much more than a practical necessity. The lockdowns showed that movement is deeply tied to how people experience freedom, connection, health, and hope. While governments understandably prioritized the mobilities needed to keep society functioning, many people discovered that activities such as walking, cycling, or simply being able to move through meaningful environments played a crucial role in their sense of well-being. The crisis thus highlighted an important tension between mobility as an economic requirement and mobility as a human need. My hope is that this distinction between essential and existential mobilities can encourage researchers, planners, and policymakers to design future mobility systems that are not only efficient and sustainable but also supportive of human flourishing.
Professor Noel B. Salazar
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Existential vs. essential mobilities: insights from before, during and after a crisis, Mobilities, January 2021, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2020.1866320.
You can read the full text:
Resources
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
