Due to its long history of emigration and widening spatial inequalities, many European regions could be qualified as declining or left-behind areas. Different reasons including de-industrialization, lack of investments arising from the focus on agglomeration economies and adopting the wrong side of skill-based technological change, explain this fragility.   
However, in recent times, these non-metropolitan spaces have demonstrated the complexity of (im)mobility due to the dual functions involved. On the one hand, traditional outward migration has added to a lack of economic investment, diminishing social infrastructure and in some cases political and public stigmatization. On the other hand, there are new dynamics created by inward mobilities, reinforced by the pandemic and with clear traces of transnationalisation. The urge to escape from the virus caused a new appeal for rural and natural environments and for remote working, studying and digital citizenship, which intensified the expectations for people who might combine new lifestyle mobilities with work. 
This reality requires new approaches to identify the trends in (im)mobility patterns across different European regions, with the aim of promoting an alternative regional or local human development as well as governance practices. The question is how to develop these left-behind areas through mobility, gauging its impacts – in terms of local employment, welfare, culture, and community – and its development potential. This session tries to facilitate the dialogue between different case studies bringing out the potential of human mobility and transnationalism to improve the human development of non-metropolitan spaces. Contributions around this issue will be welcomed. The session will be conducted in English

Jennifer Mcgarrigle (1); Josefina Domínguez-Mujica (2,4); Barbara Staniscia (3,4)
(1) IGOT, University of Lisbon, Portugal, (2) University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, (3) Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, (4) IGU Commission on Global Change and Human Mobility (Globility)

 
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