Workshop on 'Engendering research and reframing policy and public debate on Migration and Health', Lalitpur, Nepal, April 2019

1. Migration and health
Disrupting the narrative
Jo Vearey, PhD
Associate Professor
African Centre for Migration & Society
University of the Witwatersrand
Johannesburg, South Africa
jo.vearey@wits.ac.za
@jovearey www.migration.org.za
25th April 2019
http://metrocosm.com/global-migration-map.html

2. Three concerns / Three opportunities
1. Migration and health is a global public health priority
2. Structural violence negatively affects health
3. Opportunities for change

3. 1. Migration and health is a global public health priority
– Central determinant of health; Health for All: migrant health; public
health; systems responses; global health governance; social justice; ethics;
migration-aware and mobility-competent responses; Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) – Universal Healthcare Coverage (UHC)

4. Migration and health
• Migrant health: the health of individual migrants
• Public health: the ways in which migration can affect the health of populations
• Systems responses to migration and health
• Global governance of migration and health
• Cross-cutting concerns
– Global – regional – national – sub-national/local
– Politics; power; loudest voice
– How to avoid doing more harm?
Vearey, Hui, Wickramage (forthcoming)

5. Social Determinants of Health
http://www.who.int/social_determinants/en/
XENOPHOBIA; RACISM; NATIONALISM
STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE
JUSTICE
> BIOMEDICAL
IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION: DOCUMENTATION
HEALTH LEGISLATION: RIGHT TO ACCESS PUBLIC SERVICES

7. Damaging discourse
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
Scapegoating
• 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?

8. Competing agendas:
securitisation of immigration and state sovereignty; global health
security; universal healthcare coverage; migration for development

9. NATION STATES
SOVEREIGNTY
BORDER MANAGEMENT
REGULARISATION
COMMUNICABLE DISEASES
PUBLIC HEALTH
HEALTH AND WELLBEING
HEALTH FOR ALL
LEAVE NO-ONE BEHIND
GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY
SECURITISATION
OF MIGRATION
EPIDEMIC PREPAREDNESS
MIGRATION FOR
DEVELOPMENT
MIGRANT LABOUR
REMITANCES
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
UNIVERSAL
HEALTHCARE
COVERAGE
Human Security
AND / OR ?
State Security

10. 3. Opportunities for change
– better data; research in & between LMIC contexts; global health
and development targets; Migration Health in all Policies
(MHiAP); alliance building; advocate; UHC
www.mhadri.org
@mhadri_