Temporary Migrants as Dehumanised ‘Other’ in the Time of COVID-19: We’re All in This Together?

Dimitria Groutsis, Annika Kaabel and Chris F Wright
Additional contact information
Dimitria Groutsis: University of Sydney, Australia
Annika Kaabel: Diversity Council Australia, Australia
Chris F Wright: University of Sydney, Australia

Work, Employment & Society, 2024, vol. 38, issue 3, 615-635

Abstract: Temporary migrants comprise a substantial component of the Australian workforce. Evidence of the tensions and contradictions in Australia’s reliance on temporary migrant workers was spotlighted during the COVID-19 global health crisis, particularly with regards to the actions and responsibilities of key players in the attraction, recruitment, deployment and ultimately abandonment of these workers. In this article, we interrogate the public framing of temporary migrant workers within the context of the pandemic. We employ a discourse analysis and build upon theories of precarity and dehumanisation. In doing so we demonstrate how the precarious state within which temporary migrant workers found themselves saw them cast as a dehumanised and unwelcome ‘other’, a burden to the labour market, the state and the broader society.

Keywords: COVID-19; dehumanisation; precarity; temporary migrant workers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170221142723 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:38:y:2024:i:3:p:615-635

DOI: 10.1177/09500170221142723

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Work, Employment & Society from British Sociological Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().