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Migrants as ‘vulnerable groups’ in the COVID-19 pandemic: A critical discourse analysis of a taken-for-granted label in academic literature
The COVID-19 pandemic affects different people unequally, and migrants are frequently among the groups considered particularly vulnerable. However, conceptualizations of ‘vulnerability’ are often ambiguous and poorly defined. Using critical discourse analysis methods, this article analyses the acade...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9052635/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35529889 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmqr.2022.100076 |
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author | Molenaar, Jil Van Praag, Lore |
author_facet | Molenaar, Jil Van Praag, Lore |
author_sort | Molenaar, Jil |
collection | PubMed |
description | The COVID-19 pandemic affects different people unequally, and migrants are frequently among the groups considered particularly vulnerable. However, conceptualizations of ‘vulnerability’ are often ambiguous and poorly defined. Using critical discourse analysis methods, this article analyses the academic use of the term ‘vulnerable’ applied to migrants in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic across public health and social science disciplines. Our findings indicate that the concept of vulnerability is frequently applied to migrants in the COVID-19 context as a descriptor with seemingly taken-for-granted applicability. Migrants are considered vulnerable for a wide variety of reasons, most commonly relating to exposure to and risk of contracting COVID-19; poverty or low socio-economic status; precarity; access to healthcare; discrimination; and language barriers. Drivers of migrants' vulnerability were frequently construed as immutable societal characteristics. Additionally, our analysis revealed widespread generalization in the use of the notion of vulnerability, with limited consideration of the heterogeneity among and between diverse groups of migrants. Conceptualizations of migrants' vulnerability in the COVID-19 pandemic were sometimes used to advance seemingly contradictory policy implications or conclusions, and migrants’ own views and lived experiences were often marginalized or excluded within these discourses. Our analysis highlights that although some definable groups of people are certainly more likely to suffer harm in crisis situations like the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of ‘vulnerable’ as a fixed descriptor has potentially negative implications. As an alternative, we suggest thinking about vulnerability as the dynamic outcome of a process of ‘vulnerabilisation’ shaped by social order and power relations. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9052635 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-90526352022-05-02 Migrants as ‘vulnerable groups’ in the COVID-19 pandemic: A critical discourse analysis of a taken-for-granted label in academic literature Molenaar, Jil Van Praag, Lore SSM Qual Res Health Article The COVID-19 pandemic affects different people unequally, and migrants are frequently among the groups considered particularly vulnerable. However, conceptualizations of ‘vulnerability’ are often ambiguous and poorly defined. Using critical discourse analysis methods, this article analyses the academic use of the term ‘vulnerable’ applied to migrants in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic across public health and social science disciplines. Our findings indicate that the concept of vulnerability is frequently applied to migrants in the COVID-19 context as a descriptor with seemingly taken-for-granted applicability. Migrants are considered vulnerable for a wide variety of reasons, most commonly relating to exposure to and risk of contracting COVID-19; poverty or low socio-economic status; precarity; access to healthcare; discrimination; and language barriers. Drivers of migrants' vulnerability were frequently construed as immutable societal characteristics. Additionally, our analysis revealed widespread generalization in the use of the notion of vulnerability, with limited consideration of the heterogeneity among and between diverse groups of migrants. Conceptualizations of migrants' vulnerability in the COVID-19 pandemic were sometimes used to advance seemingly contradictory policy implications or conclusions, and migrants’ own views and lived experiences were often marginalized or excluded within these discourses. Our analysis highlights that although some definable groups of people are certainly more likely to suffer harm in crisis situations like the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of ‘vulnerable’ as a fixed descriptor has potentially negative implications. As an alternative, we suggest thinking about vulnerability as the dynamic outcome of a process of ‘vulnerabilisation’ shaped by social order and power relations. The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. 2022-12 2022-04-29 /pmc/articles/PMC9052635/ /pubmed/35529889 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmqr.2022.100076 Text en © 2022 The Author(s) Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. |
spellingShingle | Article Molenaar, Jil Van Praag, Lore Migrants as ‘vulnerable groups’ in the COVID-19 pandemic: A critical discourse analysis of a taken-for-granted label in academic literature |
title | Migrants as ‘vulnerable groups’ in the COVID-19 pandemic: A critical discourse analysis of a taken-for-granted label in academic literature |
title_full | Migrants as ‘vulnerable groups’ in the COVID-19 pandemic: A critical discourse analysis of a taken-for-granted label in academic literature |
title_fullStr | Migrants as ‘vulnerable groups’ in the COVID-19 pandemic: A critical discourse analysis of a taken-for-granted label in academic literature |
title_full_unstemmed | Migrants as ‘vulnerable groups’ in the COVID-19 pandemic: A critical discourse analysis of a taken-for-granted label in academic literature |
title_short | Migrants as ‘vulnerable groups’ in the COVID-19 pandemic: A critical discourse analysis of a taken-for-granted label in academic literature |
title_sort | migrants as ‘vulnerable groups’ in the covid-19 pandemic: a critical discourse analysis of a taken-for-granted label in academic literature |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9052635/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35529889 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmqr.2022.100076 |
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