Input made at the CESSMIR conference needs and care practices of refugees and migrants, September 2018

1. Damaging discourses
why meanings matter in migration & health
research, advocacy, and action
Jo Vearey, PhD
Associate Professor
African Centre for Migration & Society
University of the Witwatersrand
17th September 2018
jovearey@gmail.com
@jovearey
@mahp_sa www.mahpsa.org

2. Through a series of unique research and public engagement projects, maHp aims
to generate and communicate knowledge in order to improve responses to
migration, health and wellbeing in the southern African region.
@mahp_sa
www.mahpsa.org
Policy
Research methodology
Knowledge production, communication and uptake
Lived experiences
Communicable diseases
Labour and livelihoods
Non-communicable diseases
Maternal and child health
Health systems

3. “The increasing complexity of global, regional, and national
migration trends, as well as disagreements about the correct way
to define and label different types of migrants, create additional
difficulties within an already tense and politically contested research
domain.”

4. Migration & health: meanings matter
Migrant, migration
• Internal, cross-border, domestic, international
• Bodies, populations
• Long-term, short-term, circular
• Time, space, transit, journey, trajectory
• For work & study, to seek work, for asylum-seeking
• Documentation, regularity
Language, voice, labelling, definitions, representation
• Vulnerability, stereotypes, deservingness, fear
• Moral panics, crisis,’ trafficking’, smuggling
• Securitisation, health security, borders, boundaries, containment
Global, national, regional, continental, local
• Low-income, high-income, power, geopolitical context, global context, nation
state, sovereignty, policy processes
Health, wellbeing, public health, population health
• Social determinants of health, equity, equality, socio-economic status, gender,
age, race, nationality, epidemiological context, violence -direct and structural
Who has the
loudest voice?
Who determines
the (global)
agenda?

5. ?

6. Where’s the internal migrant & processes of internal migration?
Do not exceptionalise cross-border migrants & cross-border
migration.
• Internal migrants are greater in number and a larger development
challenge, and in some contexts are worse off than cross-border migrants
• Improved nomenclature is needed
South Africa –
internal mobility
South Africa –
cross-border mobility

7. Migrant friendly v’s migration aware
Migrant friendly
•“Right to health”
•Limited systems response
•Cross-border/non-national
focus: an assumed
homogenous group
•Exceptionalises
•Individual level focus
•Intercultural / cultural
sensitivity
Migration aware
•Mobility-sensitive
•Heterogeneity of migrant
populations: considers internal
movement
•Systems response
•Spatially sensitive
•“Health for all”
•Public health approach
•Regionally-aware

8. Damaging discourses
why meanings matter in migration & health
research, advocacy, and action
Jo Vearey, PhD
Associate Professor
African Centre for Migration & Society
University of the Witwatersrand
17th September 2018
jovearey@gmail.com
@jovearey
@mahp_sa www.mahpsa.org