Spatial Mobility versus Migration
Social Science has studied how humans change residence. Historically, people moved to different places because movement is a natural process of human life. However, humans organized their life in a Nation State around the eighteenth century when first Nation States emerged in England, Spain, and France. First Nation States organized their social life inside borders. People who live in a Nation State safeguard their human rights, security, and citizenship. However, humans cross borders continuously because they need to interchange knowledge, goods, products, and genetic. The history of humanity means spatial mobility because humans change their residence as a matter of course. Human movement was normal before Nations States, and it is common during globalization.
On one hand, migration is a social science concept that was created to explain the changes of residence between municipalities, provinces, and states. This idea is used by Nation States to explain how people change their place to live. On the other hand, spatial mobility tries to recognize that movement is part of human life, so humans frequently decide to modify their place of residence, in order to achieve better living conditions.
Sociology has a strong tradition of migratory studies; a number of researchers say that the twenty first century is the “Migration Era” because a lot of people move to another place for many reasons, such as wars, poverty, economic crisis, social instability, or to get better socioeconomic conditions. In contrast, studies of mobility are new in sociology, but they have a vast tradition in geography. Lastly, it is important to understand that space has been related to human history. Thus, space is a human product, as a natural resource. That means, people change their space, and they are affected by it.
Spatial mobility explains more about the social role of space in human life; before, now, and in the future. Space is a dimension of human life, one of the most important. Although people cannot change their residence without government permission, for instance passport is the credential of any citizen in the world, so it represents the link with a Nation State. Nevertheless, humans can move around the Earth more than in any other period of human history as a consequence of innovation in transportation and telecommunications. Nowadays, it is easy to know different countries on our planet.
In conclusion, spatial mobility is the concept that best reflects the characteristic of human movements in human history. It helps to understand how people modified space through natural, social, economic, and cultural dimensions. For all the reasons given before, it is important to develop more studies about human management of spatial mobility. Also, it is relevant to know how humans transform and affect space. The main example of that is the topic around climate change, which is a product of the human use of space, and also it has generated new spatial mobility as a consequence of pollution and natural catastrophes.