Looking longer, seeing differently: Applied anthropology and the mobilities framework

People, objects, ideas, and capital move across borders constantly, making mobility one of the defining features of contemporary globalization. In this short article, I explore the analytical potential of mobilities studies for applied anthropology and of anthropology’s contributions to mobilities studies. I situate anthropology within a broader interdisciplinary conversation by addressing how movement has been theorized as both a social process and a lived experience. The ethnographic depth and historical scope of anthropology have enriched mobilities scholarship across a range of topics, including migration, borders, displacement, tourism, and collective movement strategies, and applied anthropology has translated these insights into advocacy and policy. Central to the argument is the idea that a mobilities lens is not merely descriptive but inherently political: it compels us to ask whose movement is enabled, whose is constrained, and what responsibilities arise from that asymmetry.