Migration, Health and Biopolitics

Aim

After completion of the course, the students should on an advanced level be able to:

• critically account for relations between migration, health and biopolitics
• analyse health policy and health practices, in addition to narratives concerning health and wellbeing, in relation to theories of nation, ethnicity and race
• critically account for the views of human nature and society that have informed population control, racial biology, colonial psychiatry and postmodern genetics

Content

In this course, questions of health are addressed with reference to intersectional theories of migration, ethnicity and racism. A basic assumption of the course is that bodies, emotions and personal relationships are shaped by experiences of migration, ethnic identity and racialising social structures, and students examine the ways in which such influences find expression on the individual, group, and social level. Included in the course are critical perspectives on global and national health policy, with particular focus on connections between health issues and biopolitics. Examined in the course are examples of population control, the history of racial biology, postmodern genetics, colonial psychiatry in addition to migration and trauma. The course also includes institutional perspectives, with particular focus on the connections between health care systems and migration regimes, as well as connections between sociocultural and (bio)medical perspectives.