Pandemic Mobility/(Im)mobility in the Canary Islands: irregular migrants becoming hotel guests

Abstract

The history of the islands has been linked to mobility insofar as they were originally populated thanks to waves of immigration and have been subsequently affected by flows of different kinds. Circumscribed to a limited territory and a relatively closed framework of social relations, these spaces generated, over time, intense relations with the outside world, which have been expanding in the context of a globalized world (Fonseca, 2010). Therefore, from the point of view of human mobility, island spaces can be considered nodal spaces (King, 1999), which act as a nexus between population flows, meeting places, places of transition and points of support on international routes for the movement of people. Consequently, from a spatial perspective, islands are an exceptional laboratory for analysing mobility (King, 2009).