Ormond, M. and Toyota, M. (2018) ‘Rethinking care through transnational health and long-term care practices’, in V. Crooks, G. Andrews and J. Pearce (eds), Routledge Handbook of Health Geography, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 237-243.
Abstract
Access to and quality of health
and social care resources within and between countries is increasingly uneven. Market,
state, civic, familial and individual responses to this unevenness produce
diverse transnational care practices that, in turn, generate a variety of
transnational care spaces around the world and at different scales. This
chapter focuses on the ways in which these different social actors are
imbricated in a range of transnational care practices and the spaces in which
these practices unfold. Drawing on examples from South and Southeast Asia, it
first discusses two transnational care practices produced by (perceived) medical care deficits: 1) temporary and
circular movements abroad for the satisfaction of one’s specific medical needs and
wants (popularly dubbed ‘medical tourism’) and 2) short-/long-term and circular
migratory trajectories of skilled health workers seeking to meet the demands of
and benefit from health systems abroad. Such practices have generated diverse
transnational care spaces, from ‘world-class’ hospitals to dedicated airport immigration
lanes to special nursing schools training nurses for ‘export’. The chapter then
draws on examples from East Asia and Western Europe to describe two
transnational care practices produced by (perceived) long-term care deficits: 1) migratory trajectories for the improved
fulfilment of one’s long-term care needs and 2) migratory trajectories of
formal and informal care-givers seeking to meet the long-term needs of
societies with rapidly ageing populations. A variety of transnational care
spaces have also emerged around these practices, including assisted living
facilities and nursing homes for foreigners and live-in care arrangements
enabling dependent seniors to age in place. In examining these practices and
their resultant spaces, this chapter seeks to shed light on the existing and
emergent range of scales and complex networks of care.
