‘South-Working’: Return mobilities and remote work during COVID-19

Abstract

This article explores the experiences of professionals who, prompted by the pandemic, returned to their hometowns in Italy while continuing to work remotely, a trend known as ‘South-Working’. I explore how the pandemic changed these individuals’ usual mobility routines and led them to return home and reconsider life priorities, all while leveraging digital remote work and new mobility strategies. I draw upon ethnographic fieldwork, including online video interviews, observation in social media platforms and visits to co-working spaces across the northern part of Sicily. This article contributes to the anthropology of (im)mobility by exploring the transformative impact of the pandemic and the digital on mobility regimes and the boundaries associated with movement, work and life. It challenges established categories and normative temporalities of (im)mobilities, offering a new perspective on the evolving dynamics of work and mobility in the digital era, and on the transformation of the meaning of ‘essential’ and ‘non-essential’ mobilities.