Fault Lines in the Globalization of Migration: Frontline Workers as Embodied Constituents of Disjunctive Globalization

Globalization has become characterized by its disjunctions, which the COVID-19 crisis has thrown into sharp relief (Steger and James 2020). The contradictions (and disjunctures) between the dependence of receiving countries on economic migration and the visible tensions associated with migration, and the precarious experiences of migrants at the COVID-19 front line marked new insecurities in migratory paths and shocks to already insecure work circuits. The fault lines revealed by the COVID-19 crisis identified in this article raise fundamental questions for globalization and migration scholars and policymakers around the sustainability of the “migration/value” nexus. We advocate an approach that moves away from a reductivist conception of migration as solely legitimized via the generation of economic value, toward a sustainable recovery and future after the COVID-19 crisis. We argue for a human rights–based approach to migration that fosters mobilities and that ensures that all individuals are deemed of value, of public value. We believe this can inform and help set a tenacious framework that “resettles” the current disjunctures of globalization, through acknowledging different formations of mobilities through globalization for an inclusive global society. This article is part of the Global Perspectives “Interrogating Global Studies” special collection, guest edited by Jill Timms and Alison Hulme, as a tribute to Dr. Paul Kennedy, an ardent pioneer in the field of global studies.