Essential Yet Disposable: Health Precarity for Undocumented South Asian Migrant Workers in Greek Agriculture
摘要
Drawing on an intersectional framework of racial capitalism, migrant deportability, medical racism, and the Foucauldian notion of “biopolitics,” this chapter examines how the migrant labour regime utilized by the Greek agricultural industry renders undocumented migrant workers vulnerable to poor health outcomes. With cutbacks to social services due to the Greek economic crisis, public healthcare access for undocumented migrants is limited to emergencies. This case study of undocumented male migrants from three South Asian countries—Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan—who work in the Greek agrarian economy illustrates how migrant disposability leaves “illegal” migrant workers greatly exposed to illness, injury, and poor mental health. They also face obstacles in equitable access to healthcare due to medical racism, a reflection of the larger Greek society’s racist attitude towards racialized migrants as undeserving, an attitude that results in their medical neglect.