Research on migration and the pandemic
Although relatively marginal in the field of migration studies, there has been research on the relation between pandemics and migration before COVID-19. Migration scholars have studied the role that international migration played in World War I in the spread of the influenza pandemic of 1918 (Tuckel et al., 2006), and the racialized implications of the AIDS pandemic and the impact of AIDS on mobilities (Marshall, 2005). In general, there has been growing attention in the field to the key topic of health-related migration, but also the health situation of migrants and their access to healthcare.
Since 2020, there have been numerous publications on COVID-19 and migration. Some focus on how the pandemic is challenging and reshaping migration patterns. For instance, Papademetriou and Hooper (2020) show how the pandemic has revealed dilemmas of dependency of various countries that increasingly rely on labour migrants for their economic production but are no longer able to recruit and receive labour migrants during the pandemic. Tagliacozzo et al. (2021) also report that migrant agricultural workers may end up in particularly vulnerable positions during the pandemic. Kluge et al. (2020) observe that refugees also find themselves in particularly vulnerable positions along multiple dimensions, including their access to health care, while being ‘trapped’ in refugee settlements. Bhopal (2020) makes a similar argument regarding undocumented migrants with weak access to health care.
Another important theme in recent studies is how the pandemic will challenge migration governance regimes. Crawley (2021) argues that the pandemic has boosted support for migration restriction and populist resentment against the “other” and thereby also legitimizing a more restrictive approach to the social protection of and service provision to refugees. Newland (2020) also argues that migration governance is likely to change substantially and in more long-lasting ways in response to the pandemic; she predicts that the changes will be even more substantial than in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US.
Besides attention to the relation between the pandemic and migration, the impact on migration-related diversities has also been central in various studies. For instance, Clouston et al. (2021) show that there is a clear relation between social inequalities and the spread of COVID-19 in the US; social-economically deprived groups are more susceptible to COVID-19 (in terms of both health and economic impacts), and as a consequence, COVID-19 has deepened pre-existing social inequalities. Crawley (2021) makes a similar argument, and adds that in a post-COVID-19, world refugees are more vulnerable for new forms of migration control and restriction, as well as protection of access to services.
A more specific topic of attention has been discrimination and racism in relation to the pandemic. Various studies, such as Wu et al. (2021), have shown how the pandemic has led to an increase of discrimination against Asian communities. Devakumar et al. (2020) make a similar argument that the COVID-19 pandemic—similar to other pandemics throughout history—contributes to othering and increased fear of marginalized groups. Fear of the increased spread of the virus via international mobility only added further to this othering process. Furthermore, Sabatello et al. (2020) show that the pandemic has had a particular impact on racialized groups, such as black African-Americans.
The contributions from this special issue try to pick up on these important recent contributions in the literature on migration, diversities and the pandemic. In the following, we will briefly discuss the key takeaway points for comparative migration studies from the various articles of this special issue, per topic: refugee migration, labour migration, migration governance and inclusion.