The Future of Human Mobility and Migration

The future of human society – and indeed, the very meaning of what it is to be human – is inextricably related to mobility. Depending on the circumstances under which it occurs, mobility may foster social and technological innovation and support growth in economic productivity and wealth, but it may also exacerbate social inequalities and socio-political tensions. Mobility needs to be seen as an intrinsic part of broader processes of socio-economic, technological, political, environmental and demographic. It is a complex social process, and not simply a response to development imbalances.
Advanced Digital Technologies (ADT) already play an important role in shaping human mobility through facilitating connections, information, networking and hence influencing decision making. They also shape the governance of human migration and mobility through data processing, transport, communication or surveillance technologies while also creating the opportunity for virtual mobility.
Understanding future mobility entails recognizing the crucial role that ADT play in it. Based on  this broader framework, Triandafyllidou, Grossmann and Garba work to answer two questions:
1) Understanding how developments in Advanced Digital Technologies can be harnessed to create greater agency in mobility decision making, identifying pathways to avoid where ADT might unnecessarily limit agency
2) Developing ethical and political considerations for an equitable use of ADT in mobility and migration, with a special focus on the digital divide and on the application of ADT in the regulation by governments of human mobility.