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Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that longer U.S. histories of instrumentalising contagion, coupled with the recent sharp rise of xenophobia, compelled (im)migrants to "care" for themselves and their communities in ways that often-contradicted public health advice during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paper long abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic upended domestic and international movement through lockdowns, strict testing regulations, and quarantines. In the United States, Title 42 was established, allowing for the rapid expulsion of migrants at the border because they “threatened” the health of the nation as potential sources of COVID-19. In Philadelphia, home to a fast-growing West African diaspora, discourses about moral responsibility, communal care, and individual protection from disease emerged as the official motivations for the COVID-19 vaccine, even as hesitancy consistently remained high among African (im)migrants. Yet these discourses of concern and care exist within a kaleidoscopic immigration system in which (im)migrants and asylum seekers are constantly tested, evaluated, documented, and surveyed by physicians, judges, and immigration authorities not for the health and safety of the individual in question, but to “protect” the nation and body politic into which they seek residency. In turn, rejection of the vaccine was frequently positioned as a form of pre-emptive protection from a vaccine which many believed was purposefully designed to cause irreparable harm to Black Africans. This paper argues that longer U.S. histories of vilifying migrants as sources of contagion, coupled with the sharp rise of xenophobic policies initiated during the Trump administration, compelled (im)migrants to “care” for themselves and their communities in ways that often-contradicted public health advice throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. By analysing how local and national government discourses of protection were experienced, accepted, and/or contested within Philadelphia’s West African diaspora, this paper questions why, and for whom, is social care practiced?