New Vulnerabilities for Migrants and Refugees in State Responses to the Global Pandemic, COVID-19

Claudia Tazreiter and Simon Metcalfe
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Claudia Tazreiter: Department of Culture and Society (IKOS), Division of Migration, Ethnicity and Society (REMESO), Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden
Simon Metcalfe: Research Assistant, Forced Migration Research Network, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, Australia

Social Sciences, 2021, vol. 10, issue 9, 1-15

Abstract: This article examines the global pandemic, COVID-19, through the lens of responses to vulnerable migrants, asking what state responses mean for the future of human rights values and for humanitarian interventions. The responses of the Australian state are developed as a case study of actions and policies directed at refugees and temporary migrant workers through the COVID-19 pandemic. The theoretical framing of the article draws on racial capitalism to argue that the developments manifest during the ‘crisis times’ of COVID-19 are in large part a continuity of the exclusionary politics of bordering practices at the heart of neoliberal capitalism. The article proposes that a rethinking of foundational theoretical and methodological approaches in the social sciences are needed to reflect contemporary changes in justice claims, claims that increasingly recognize the multi-species nature of existential threats to all life.

Keywords: migrants; refugees; human rights; humanitarianism; COVID-19; racial capitalism; neoliberalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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