Introduction: Mobile Patients and Sedentary Health Systems

Follis, Karolina and Burns, Nicola and Follis, Luca (2025) Introduction: Mobile Patients and Sedentary Health Systems. In: Migrant and Refugee Access to Health Systems : Challenging (Im)mobilities in Healthcare. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, pp. 1-16. ISBN 9781035324972

Abstract

This Introduction fleshes out the volume’s conceptual framework. Through examples from Italy and the UK we explore access to healthcare for people on the move. We argue that national health systems have a sedentary bias, privileging settled populations over migrants and refugees. Relatedly, national health systems have increasingly become sites of bordering, where identities are checked and access is regulated based on ‘deservingness’. Immigration and mobility status become socio-political determinants of health, intersecting with other socio-economic factors. In this context health inequalities emerge as a product of the politics of (im)mobility, i.e. the struggles over the control of human movement. As an issue of mobility justice (Sheller, 2018), we approach it by focusing on infrastructures of healthcare and border control. Alongside the contributors to this volume, we highlight the spatial, material and institutional contexts where mobility justice is enacted through enabling healthcare access for those cast outside the sedentary norm.