The seminar on ‘COVID-19 and Migration’ organised by The World Economic Forum titled ‘Strategic Intelligence Briefing: The Impact of COVID-19 on Migration’ extensively portrayed the local, regional and international migrants exposure to adverse global effect from COVID-19 and various underlying urban stressors. This is further supported by literature that tagged ‘migrants’ as strangers, unwanted/unwelcomed visitors, invaders, and destroyers within the city space. With the entire global nations proactively shutting their borders (land, air and sea), migration and mobility restrictions is experienced among indigenous and foreign migrant nationals. Owing to this, there presents to be an increasing vulnerability of the migrants to the medically induced, politically cultivated and societal motivated exposures. As access to spaces of livelihood, recreation, socialization and religious smoothening remains completely quarantined away from the users.
Based on the fairly commented and averagely documented experiences of regional and international migrants in the lack of access to city spaces due to the disease pandemic and other underlying factors, the SARChI Chair for Inclusive Cities, University of KwaZulu-Natal is interested in provoking intellectual thinking on issues focusing on migrants access to city spaces in the face of this present COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. The commentaries can be a collection of lived experiences and empirically summarized narratives. The blog articles can cover the following sub-themes and beyond:
- Migrant, informal sector and livelihood
- Remittance and migrants
- Migrant survival and Shocks
- Planning for Migrants
- Migrant housing shocks and vulnerability to homelessness
- International borders and migration
- Regional mobility and migration
- Cities
All articles will undergo an anonymous review from team of experts in SARChI Chair for Inclusive Cities, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The requirements for the acceptance of submission are:
- 1. Times New Roman (12 point) on a single line spacing
- 2. A word count of not above 1000 words and no more than 4 references.
All submissions should be sent to Mr. Ayobami Popoola (Popoolaa@ukzn.ac.za) with the Author(s) name and MIGRANT, COVID-19 & CITIES as heading (e.g. Ayobami Popoola MIGRANT, COVID-19 & CITIES). All articles will be published on the SARChI Chair for Inclusive Cities website and Facebook page.
