Work

353 Where medicine meets migration control policies: looking back at the first annual cycle of the boundaries longitudinal study

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: PTH 6: Health Policy and Health Services 1, B307 (FCSH), September 4, 2025, 16:30 - 17:30 Aim: The Boundaries Longitudinal Study is an ongoing 10-year interdisciplinary project aiming to untangle the complexities involved in using medicine as a conduit for migration control policies. The objective is to, over time, capture and investigate contemporary examples of the unfolding of restrictive migration policy debates as they enter healthcare contexts, observed through the lived experiences of physicians. Here, we look back at the first annual cycle. Methods: A broadened multi-cited ethnography, including constructivist interviews, fieldwork, media documents, social media data, and creative methodologies, presenting empirical cases from conventional healthcare, medical humanitarianism, and the public sphere in Sweden. Particular attention is given to if/when/how these contexts interact with, and/or influence, one another. Results: Our findings offer a composite mapping of how physicians, across contexts, reasoned and reacted when their participation in migration control was to be mandated, illuminating various facets of how such policies transcend societal institutions in physicians lived experiences. Yet, in the formation of protest, uproar appeared to be linked to the social contract between society and medicine, and the physicians overburdened work-environment—at times in ways that overshadowed the rights and medical needs of undocumented patients. Whether this approach was a strategic measure remains unclear. The bleeding of rhetoric across contexts was also found to bear risk, as public debate on policy initiatives yet to be legislated pre-emptively led to tangible exclusions of undocumented patients seeking healthcare. Even those engaged in medical humanitarianism witnessed a drop in utilisation. Conclusion: While the mandated involvement of physicians in migration control policies will likely increasingly materialise, various forms of compliance, resistance, contestation, and civil disobedience should be expected. Advancing understandings of the lived experience of law in medicine is paramount in capturing these materialisations, as, ultimately, these professionals hold power in determining undocumented peoples’ inclusion into (or exclusion from) healthcare systems.

Source: European Journal of Public Health

DOI: 10.1093/eurpub/ckaf180.271

Authors: Josephine T.V. Greenbrook, Mayssa Rekhis, Lisen Dellenborg, Andrea Spehar, Lena Gross

Institutions: University of Gothenburg, University of Edinburgh, Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research, UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Language: English

Topic: Migration, Racism, and Human Rights

Subfield: Health

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Good health and well-being, Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,181