Intersections of Migration and Covid-19 Pandemic

Introduction

COVID-19 is already a household name that it would seem to require no further introduction. And yet scientists and world leaders are still grappling with any significant understanding of the virus, its nature, mode of operation and transmission, media of infection, forms and extent of impacts etc. The various prescriptions and measures on how to prevent or control its transmission and spread are still controversial with one authority contradicting another. The conspiracy theories and “fake news” are only growing and threatening to submerge the “facts” about the virus. While the impact of the pandemic are obvious, the ramifications of these impacts are still emerging and contentious. All these call for critical engagement, deep reflections, open conversations and fundamental clarifications.

One aspect that seems incontrovertible is the impact of the pandemic on mobility and the social space. Such terminologies as “lockdown”, “physical distancing” and “social distancing” have gained high currency in both local and global conversations that various versions of their meaning, connotation and locution are also trending and constituting major conversational genres and discourses. While international travels have literally been put on hold, local movements have also been severely restricted with states and cities within countries erecting “border gates” and imposing bans on “cross-border” movements.

The present and future impacts of these on migration may only be imagined but need to be closely studied because mobility is native to the self-understanding, self-realization and authentic existence of the human being. Migration has been with us from the day the first human person met the other and exchanged either handshake or fisticuffs. And whatever COVID-19 brings or does, the currents of migration hold out no promises of easing the tides because the push and pull factors of migration are not abating nor is the human instinct for mobility waning. Indeed the pandemic would seem to have only increased these engenderers of migration. One evidence of this is the anti-lockdown protests across the world.

However, while we may have become overwhelmed with COVID-19 information and news, including “fake news”, verified knowledge and deep reflection on the matter are only emerging. And while the nexus of COVID-19 and migration may seem obvious, the deep connections, the nature of these connections and the many possibilities that this pandemic holds for migration and migrants are yet to be significantly explored.

In response to the global lockdown occasioned by the COVID-19 Pandemic, considering the cross-cutting impacts of migration on our lives and cognizant of our mandates to teach, research and serve the human migrant community, CMS-NAU in collaboration with the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Branch (ASUU-NAU) launched a Webinar Series on the theme: Migration Perspectives to COVID-19. The Webinar series provided forum for scholars, scientists, migration experts and migrants to present their reflections on the COVID-19 pandemic from various disciplinary and experiential perspectives but fundamentally highlighting the relations, impacts and implications for human mobility and migration. It was an opportunity for them to tell the tales and discover the narratives, to expose the facts and debunk the fictions, to explore the relations and examine the interweaving implications of COVID-19 pandemic and migration.

The articles published in this volume are mainly selections from the presentations at the webinars reviewed and edited. The articles approach the intersections of migration and the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspectives of the impact on environment; preventive measures and the implications of the lack of knowledge of such measures; the experience of irregular migrants in the wake of the pandemic; the workers’ perspective to the protection of migrant workers’ rights during the pandemic; the socio-economic dimension of the brain drain problem in the context of the pandemic; the implications for food security and nutrition of the effects of COVID-19 on agricultural migrant labour; the health challenges posed for migrants by the pandemic; and the gender dimension to the effects of COVID-19 on migrant labour; etc.

The presentations will surely inform the reader and excite further engagements with the cross-impacts of these two phenomena that currently trend in our world.

Prof. Ike Odimegwu
Director
Centre for Migration Studies,
Nnamdi Azikiwe University