Death and the Migrant: Bodies, Borders and Care

by Yasmin Gunaratnam

Overview

Death and the Migrant is a sociological account of transnational dying and care in British cities. It chronicles two decades of the ageing and dying of the UK's cohort of post-war migrants, as well as more recent arrivals.

Chapters of oral history and close ethnographic observation, enriched by photographs, take the reader into the submerged worlds of end-of-life care in hospices, hospitals and homes. While honouring singular lives and storytelling, Death and the Migrant explores the social, economic and cultural landscapes that surround the migrant deathbed in the twenty-first century. Here, everyday challenges - the struggle to belong, relieve pain, love well, and maintain dignity and faith +" provide a fresh perspective on concerns and debates about the vulnerability of the body, transnationalism, care and hospitality.

Blending narrative accounts from dying people and care professionals with insights from philosophy and feminist and critical race scholars, Yasmin Gunaratnam shows how the care of vulnerable strangers tests the substance of a community. From a radical new interpretation of the history of the contemporary hospice movement and its 'total pain' approach, to the charting of the global care chain and the affective and sensual demands of intercultural care, Gunaratnam offers a unique perspective on how migration endows and replenishes national cultures and care. Far from being a marginal concern, Death and the Migrant shows that transnational dying is very much a predicament of our time, raising questions and concerns that are relevant to all of us.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474238267
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/21/2015
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Yasmin Gunaratnam is a Senior Lecturer in the Sociology Department at Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK. She has been working on issues of race and gender equality in health and social care for the past twenty years at the Open University, Southampton University and the University of Central Lancashire. She is author of Researching Race and Ethnicity (2003) and has jointly edited Narratives and Stories in Health Care with David Oliviere (2009).

Table of Contents

Contents
1 Death and the Migrant – An Introduction
1.1 Diasporic Dying
1.2 Hospice-tality and the geo-social
1.3 Mortal Chorographies
1.4 The Book
2 Eros
2.1 The promise
2.2 A Window
2.3 David
2.4 The Face
2.5 Dust and Guts
3 Thanatos
4 A Catch
4.1 Dirt
4.2 Paranoia
4.3 Comin throu the rye
4.4 Patience
5 Never Mind
5.1 Silver Lining
5.2 Les Fleurs du Mal
6 Dissimulation
6.1 Shock
6.2 Body Heat

7 Moving On
7.1 Faith
8 Music
8.1 Noise
8.2 Hospitality
9 The Prince and the Pee
9.1 Tings
10 Failing/Falling
10.1 Inklings
10.2 The High Wire
10.3 Not-knowing
10.4 In the Skin of a Lion
11 Home
11.1 Body work
11.2 Slowly, Slowly
11.3 Genograms
11.4 A View
11.5 A Cough
12 Pain
12.1 Total Pain: 'all of me is wrong'
12.2 Case Stories
12.3 Being Affected to Learn
13 Epilogue: The Foreigner Question
Sweet Chariot
Geese – John Burbanside
14 Appendix: Research and Methods
Stories, Writing, Care
List of illustrations

Editorial Reviews

"This is a collection of extraordinary narratives about generosity and inventiveness that provides new insight into experiences of multi-cultural living, revealing shared human predicaments . . . This book will be of interest to scholars of sociology, psychology, anthropology, medicine and health, and practitioners in social work, diversity counsellors and aid organisations, among others." --Oral History

"Through elegant, elliptical, partly autobiographical analysis, [Gunaratnam] explores the vulnerabilities of migrants ... I learned an enormous amount from this book." - Somatosphere

From the Publisher

This is a collection of extraordinary narratives about generosity and inventiveness that provides new insight into experiences of multi-cultural living, revealing shared human predicaments . . . This book will be of interest to scholars of sociology, psychology, anthropology, medicine and health, and practitioners in social work, diversity counsellors and aid organisations, among others.

Oral History