Migrants and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Communication, Inequality, and Transformation

Description

This book looks at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on migrants globally who bear disproportionate burdens of health disparities. Centering the voices of migrants as anchors for theorizing health, the chapters adopt an array of decolonizing and interventionist methodologies that offer conceptual communicative resources for re-organizing economics, politics, culture, and society in logics of care.   Each chapter focuses on the health of migrants during the pandemic, highlighting the role of communication in amplifying and solving the health crisis experienced by migrants. The chapters draw together various communicative resources and practices tied to migrant negotiations of precarity and exclusion. Health is situated amidst the forces of authoritarianism, disinformation, hate, and exploitation targeting migrant bodies. The book builds a narrative archive witnessing this fundamental geopolitical rupture in the 21st century, documenting the violence built into the zeitgeist of labor exploitation amidst neoliberal transformations, situating health with the extractive and exploitative forms of organizing migrant labor.   The book is essential reading for advanced undergraduate or graduate courses for scholars studying critical and global health, development, and participatory communication, migration, globalization, international and intercultural communication interested in the questions of precarity and marginality of health during pandemics. Preface Acknowledgments Contents Notes on Contributors List of Figures 1 The COVID-19 Pandemic and Precarious Migrants: An Outbreak of Inequality The Relationship Between Outbreak and Communicative Inequalities Precarities as Ecological Health Information Digital Spaces Vaccines Health Equity and Precarious Migrants References 2 The Role of Contemporary Neoliberal Government Policies in the Erosion of Migrant Labor Rights During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Examination of Executive, Legislative and Judicial Trends in India and the United States Caste Inequities and the Informal Labor Market in India Migrant Workers’ Health Rights During the COVID-19 Pandemic Undocumented Labor in the United States Systemic Barriers to Undocumented Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic Discussion References 3 The COVID-19 Pandemic’s Impact on the Health of Rohingya Refugees COVID-19 and Refugee Health Rohingya Health Culture-Centered Approach Method Findings Struggles with Food Struggles Accessing Masks and Hand Sanitizers Scarcity of Rohingya Interpreters for Communication Long Waiting Time Discussion References 4 Listening for Erasures as Method in Making Sense of Health Disparities: Culture-Centered Constructions of Health Among Refugees COVID-19 and Refugees at the Margins Culture Centered Approach Method Results Communicative Gaps Structural Inequalities Communicative Agency Discussion References 5 The Implications of Being Thrice-Marginalized: Work Migrants in India During the Coronavirus Lockdown The Health Consequences of Distress Migration Stresses of the Pandemic The Culture-Centered Approach (CCA) Power Dimensions Method Voices of Distressed Migrants Recruitment Data Gathering Analysis Findings When Income Stops and Loans Run Out Home Is Health, and the Stigma of the Infected City Healthier at Home Home to Stigma Being Triple-Marginalized References 6 Extreme (Im)mobility and Mental Health Inequalities: Migrant Construction Workers in Singapore During the COVID-19 Pandemic Pandemic Measures for Migrant Construction Workers Communicative Inequality and the Culture-Centered Approach Extreme (Im)mobility Mental Health Interventions Living Conditions Family and Precarity Agentic Community Building Ecological Precarities as Health Violence References 7 Indonesian Domestic Workers in Malaysia During the COVID-19 Pandemic Introduction Women, Patriarchal System and Gender-Based Inequality Foreign Domestic Workers Covid-19 Challenges and Struggles Experienced by Domestic Workers Dysfunctional Migration Governance Recognition of Women and Identity of ‘Domestic Work’ Domestic Work as Cultural Threat? Conclusion References 8 Conducting Digital Ethnography with Precarious Migrant Workers in a Pandemic Introduction Why Digital Ethnography? Field Sites in Digital Ethnography Configuring Field Sites Positionality of the Researcher Research Design and Preparation Methods of Digital Ethnography Participant Observation Photography, Videography, and Audio Recording Ethnographic Interviews Surveys Fieldwork Analysis Ethical Guidelines Conclusions References 9 Profiling the Diseased: Tablighi Jamaat and Racist Experiences in Assam Introduction The Tablighi Case and Judgement Segregation and Bangladeshi Question in Assam Profiling of Patients: Media and Assamese Middle Class Conclusion References 10 Community-Based Art Interventions, Migrant Health Inequalities, and COVID-19 Coping Migrant Experiences, Acculturation Stress, and Health Outcomes The U.S. Context, Immigrant Inequalities, and the COVID-19 Pandemic Art as Therapy, Collective Healing, and Migrant Coping Arts-Based Interventions, COVID-19, and Migrant Coping: Case Studies from the United States Quarantined Across Borders: Collective Storytelling Intervention on COVID-19 Conclusions References 11 Culture-Centered Migrant Organizing at the Margins: Resisting Hate Amidst COVID-19 Extreme Neoliberalism and Worker Exploitation Hindutva and Far-Right Hegemony Culture-Centered Approach Method Findings Co-creating Class Consciousness Challenging Disinformation Forging Connections Discussion References