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A year of pandemic borders

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By Anna Triandafyllidou, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration

Last March, governments around the world moved quickly to establish border controls in response to the pandemic. Almost simultaneously, migration scholars everywhere responded with a collective gasp, expressing concern for those who are in transit between countries, fleeing persecution or those who are temporarily abroad. In 2019, as many as  (PDF file) 272 million people (external link)  lived outside their country of birth. Already among the most vulnerable in the world, migrants were facing unprecedented threats to their safety and livelihood as states gave priority to the welfare of their own citizens. What could be done?  

The Pandemic Borders blogspace (external link) , in partnership with openDemocracy (external link) , became our response. Over 80 academics from around the world answered our call to contribute a critical analysis of the conditions that were evolving on the ground. More than 115,000 unique visitors have now read the blog contributions, with the most readers coming from Australia, India and Canada, and as many as 150 different countries. A series of webinars brought blog authors together virtually to debate issues and generate new insights. More than 1,400 individuals have attended our webinars over the past year.

The breadth of issues and geography covered by the blogspace provides a global view of the challenges facing migrant in all corners. S. Irudaya Rajan and H. Arokkiaraj raised the alarm on the thousands of Indian migrants who were stranded in the Gulf countries (external link) , unable to earn income and not allowed to return home. From Nicola Piper and Laura Foley, we learn of wage theft (external link) , where migrants, working in countries as diverse as Australia, the U.S., Singapore and the Gulf, have made their way home but with earnings withheld by employers and no mechanism to claim what is owed. Both Richa Shivakoti and Chanan Sapkota  wrote articles that pointed to the many implications of returning migrants (external link, opens in new window)  on a country like Nepal, which depends on migrant remittances for approximately 25 per cent of its GDP (external link, opens in new window) . This country is not only facing a substantial future loss; it also struggles to reintegrate the returning migrants amidst soaring unemployment.   

Throughout advanced economies, from Italy to Canada, we identified many common themes. Audrey Macklin writes of the contradiction of the “essential workers” (external link)  who are keeping our health care and agricultural sectors going while having few employment rights and facing many health risks. Margaret Walton-Roberts likens the care labour force to a submerged iceberg (external link) , undervalued yet foundational to the functioning of the economy. In the Italian agri-food sector (external link) , write Letizia Palumbo and Alessandra Corrado, “there is not a labour shortage, but a shortage of rights for workers.” Put simply by Randall Hansen, the pandemic has highlighted the world’s addiction to cheap migrant labour (external link) .

At the same time, the pandemic has laid bare underlying racial tensions. Tahseen Shams highlights how migrants have been scapegoated as carriers of disease (external link) , while Oreva Olakpe writes of the racializing of disease (external link) , where Africans were being stigmatized while the real risk came from the Global North. Xianan Jin wrote of a similar trend with anti-Black sentiment in China (external link) , showing that when it came to controlling the virus, the public justified xenophobic measures. In the face of the pandemic, the national framework offers a sense of security (external link) , explains Marco Antonsich.  

Amongst the many injustices we have observed over the past year, we have also seen a ray of hope. Many of our writers suggested a possibility of a future that does not retreat to the pre-pandemic world.  The pandemic has presented us with a choice, says Richard Wright, and perhaps now with a deeper understanding of the immigrant experience (external link) , the U.S. can envision better approaches to immigration policies and programs. Usha George says it’s time for Canada to live up to its record on human rights (external link)  and extend workers’ rights to foreign workers, and Armine Yalnizyan outlined the need to address the economic problems of a “temporary” workforce (external link) . 

The full range of commentary and issues that we have gathered, and continue to gather (now under the forward-looking banner, Migrant Futures), is just too extensive to capture here. I encourage you to spend time with our blog posts; they are enduring and a critical read for academics and policy and civil society leaders. I will end where I began with my blog contribution of April 2020. There are many signs that amongst the injustices, a new attitude of transnational cooperation is on the rise. As we emerge from this unprecedented time, have we recognized the extent of our interdependence, and will a new era emerge marked by civic responsibility and transnational solidarity? How well we take care of our most vulnerable will be the true test.