key: cord-0816061-mz9ucnxa
authors: Dobusch, Laura; Kreissl, Katharina
title: Privilege and burden of im‐/mobility governance: On the reinforcement of inequalities during a pandemic lockdown
date: 2020-05-09
journal: Gend Work Organ
DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12462
sha: 59a01f14a72962f2328322bc4816b79b398109b3
doc_id: 816061
cord_uid: mz9ucnxa

In order to contain the COVID‐19 pandemic, nation states have focused on governance of im‐/mobilities: Certain mobility restrictions were enforced, while simultaneously some forms of mobility were maintained or even enhanced in order to keep the system running in crisis mode. With a special focus on Austria, we analyze specific politics of im‐/mobilities concerning the organization of paid work and show how the socio‐spatial conditions of who is permitted, denied or urged to work are inextricably linked to inequalities. It becomes apparent that while in principle all bodies are equally dependent on collective social relations and enduring infrastructure, not everybody contributes equally to their maintenance. In fact, the governance of im‐/mobilities follows and reinforces already prevalent inequality regimes based on class, gender and migration relations, thereby differentiating between bodies perceived as highly valuable and worth protecting and those categorized as less valued and potentially disposable.

Nation states all over the world warn against tourist travel to any foreign destination. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects the "Great Lockdown" during the coronavirus pandemic to lead to the "worst economic downturn since the Great Depression" of the 1930s. 1 Unemployment rates in Europe are assumed to double in the coming months and might only fall back to pre-crisis levels by the end of 2021. 2 The daily news coverage focuses on 'coronavirus arithmetic' and connected measures. Considering the omnipresence of the COVID-19 outbreak, one could almost forget that the whole world switching simultaneously into crisis mode is not a 'logical consequence' to a 'natural disaster.' Rather, also in this case, what is framed as a (global) crisis and which forms of crisis management are perceived as adequate are closely linked to prevalent power relations and societal inequality regimes.

While the situation of the refugees at the external borders of the European Union could also be described as an unignorable crisis that shakes the European Union to its core, politics tend to individualize it as the result of the (wrong) choices of refugees themselves and externalize it as a problem of the neighboring regions. The refugees' fate is untied from that of EU citizens: The fact that "what gets crystallized at the margins of society (...) is embedded in a global social dynamic" (Castel, 2003, p. xxii) is denied, simply because it is possible, because the relationship between refugees and the populations of the EU member states is characterized by fundamental asymmetries assigning the refugees a subject status as exposed supplicants without any bargaining power. This works differently in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic. Established national institutions do not focus on denying the constitutive interdependence underpinning human 1 https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2020/03/23/pr2098-imf-managing-director-statement-following-a-g20-ministerial-call-on-the-coronavirus-emergency food supply). As the nation states' crisis management in the form of lockdowns and severe restrictions of public life disrupted the seamless (re-)production of basic living conditions, it became apparent that "the powerful and the secure are not placed on an Olympian plateau from which they can dispassionately contemplate the misery of the world" (Castel, 2003, p. xxiii) . Rather, an unintended consequence of the crisis management was to shed light on the fact that "everyone is dependent on social relations and enduring infrastructure in order to maintain a livable life" (Butler, 2015, p. 21) .

Third, and this is connected to the first two points, as the coronavirus can potentially infiltrate any social relationship and keeping in mind that a fundamental relationality is constitutive for the viability of human existence as such, the COVID-19 crisis management cannot simply follow established strategies of externalizing costs (as happened in the financial crisis 2007-08) or blaming certain groups for 'their own failure' (as happened during the 'long summer of migration' of 2015). Instead, because anybody can transmit the virus, everybody needs to be taken into account when measures for the containment of the pandemic are designed. 4

For national crisis management, this meant first and foremost introducing governance of im-/mobilities: Mobility restrictions such as closing national borders, avoiding contacts in public spaces, shutting down or decreasing public transport, home office incentives etc. were enforced, while simultaneously, some forms of mobility were maintained (going to work in 'system-relevant' jobs) or even enhanced (flying in care workers from Eastern Europe). By this specific governance of im-/mobilities, it becomes apparent that while in principle all bodies are equally dependent on collective social relations and enduring infrastructure, not everybody equally contributes to their maintenance. In fact, the governance of im-/mobilities follows and reinforces already prevalent inequality regimes based on class, gender and migration relations. Thereby it reveals a categorization into those whose lives are highly valued and preserved and those whose lives are less valued and potentially disposable (Bejan, 2020) .

We illustrate this link between im-/mobility governance and pre-existing inequality regimes by the case of COVID-19 measures of the Austrian government and how they affected the organization of paid work. The focus on paid workwho is permitted, denied or urged to work under which im-/mobility circumstanceshas several reasons. First, within the political discourse, all the COVID-19 measures are discussed against balancing health needs and economic needs, which also implies ensuring that a certain amount of the population keeps working. Second, paid work is not only still a hugely significant enabler and indicator of one's inclusion but also a necessity in order to cover the needs of daily life (Levitas, 1996) .

Third, how paid work is organized, its connected forms of rewards as well as the opportunity to work are fundamentally prestructured by class, gender and migration relations (Acker 2006 ; Avent-Holt & Tomaskovic-Devey, 2019).

The German writer Carolin Emcke describes the Coronavirus as a "contrast medium" 5 for social relations, a sort of magnifying glass for systemic cracks, societal vulnerabilities and inequalities. This does not merely affect the immediate impact of the disease and the distribution of health riskswho gets sick, who gets (good) treatment, who diesbut also the consequences of public health measures. It comes as no surprise that, when confronted income, the larger the share of home office among employees. 9 A recent analysis of phone companies' mobility data draws a similar conclusion. In Vienna, Austria's largest city and capital, mobility patterns quite accurately depict social stratification regarding regionalities:

While in wealthier districts, people mostly stay home, mobility in working-class neighborhoods has not changed much since lockdown policies were implemented. 10 However, this is not merely a result of working patterns, but also a consequence of housing.

The lockdown and restrictions of movement exacerbate inequalities of living conditions connected to educational, socio-economic and migration backgrounds. Larger families and residents of urban areas have less space available, children being particularly affected by cramped housing. In total, around 20% of children living in Austria are confined to cramped housing conditions. Around 45% of children with migrant background have little or no personal space versus 7% of children with no recent ties to migration. Children from parents with compulsory education have a 51% risk of living in cramped conditions versus 10% from those with high school or higher education level (Bacher, 2020) . This also explains why people in working-class districts aremust bemore mobile. Temporary retreats from family and/or roommates as well as the need for fresh air are easier met in larger houses and a garden of one's own. These inequalities are also reflected in the social phenomenon of correcting individuals who go outside. Particularly during the first weeks of mobility restrictions, social media was buzzing with public shaming of proclaimed negligent, unaware or even 'stupid' people who strolled around in parks before more and more voices pointed out the moral and classist undertone of a privileged perspective. With the implementation of segmented mobility standards comes the classification of subjects into, as Raluca Bejan (2020) describes accurately, "those who deserve protection and those who do not." The first are, in our case, the Austrian subjects, "whose lives and health are valued" while the Eastern European workers are the "disposable subjects, those whose work matters more than their health, and whose health becomes vital only in relation to the domestic population." This also becomes evident in recently published pictures of harvest workers waiting for their planes to Germany at the airport of Cluj/Napoca in Romania. 13 Around 1,800 people were queuing up and cramped together for hours without being able to follow physical distance or hygiene regulations. However, when arriving in Germany, they were put under quarantine for 14 days in order to protect the domestic workforce. In a nutshell, during the coronavirus pandemic, certain groups of people were 'mobilized' while at the same time lacking motility.

As we have argued, the specific characteristics of the virus lay open both the life-threatening and life-sustaining nature of social relations underpinning our common viability. Through the sudden disruption of taken for granted encounters and interactions that have covertly kept our everyday lives going, the fundamental interdependence enabling any human existence becomes visible. However, interdependence should not be misunderstood as social harmony.

In contrast, although everybody's being and becoming is dependent on and embedded in non-12 https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000092969393/eu-sozialkommissarin-kritisiert-indexierung-beifamilienbeihilfe 13 https://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/rumaenien-erntehelfer-fluege-101.html /human relations, the maintenance of these relations is disproportionately shouldered by only some bodies. By outlining the reaction of the conservative-dominated Austrian government to the coronavirus pandemic in the form of im-/mobility politics, we could show that it is underpaid, undervalued and largely power-distant groups of peoplesuch as women care workers or migrant seasonal workersthat put their own lives at risk (by going out to work) in order to secure the other groups (who can stay home). We see that motilitythe capacity to stay or move under conditions of one's own choosingis highly unequally distributed, connected to prevalent class, gender and migration relations.

Many current media commentaries and public voices praise the 'new obviousness' of who is carrying the burden of 'system-relevant work' and express hope for a fairer financial and symbolic recognition of these professions post-COVID-19. However, we assume that this fundamental interdependence is not at all new for a globally operating economic elite, who is quite aware of its dependence on global value chains sustained through exploitative relationships. From our point of view, it is not the 'epiphany' of fundamental interdependence itself, but rather whether it is actually integrated into relationally oriented forms of (political) organizing "that are committed to fostering a sustainable interdependency on egalitarian terms" (Butler, 2012, p. 149) .

Inequality Regimes: Gender, Class, and Race in Organizations

Organizations as the building blocks of social inequalities

215.500 Kinder leben in Österreich in beengten Wohnungsverhältnissen

COVID-19 and Disposable Migrant Workers

Precarious Life, Vulnerability, and the Ethics of Cohabitation

Notes toward a performative theory of assembly

From manual workers to wage laborers: Transformation of the social question

Mobility justice in the context of disaster