Paper short abstract:

This presentation considers how women refugees and asylum seekers work to achieve well-being through care relations within the context of multiple converging public health crises (e.g. COVID, Brexit, refugee/housing/economic crises) across the island of Ireland.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation considers how women refugees and asylum seekers work to achieve well-being through care within the context of multiple converging public health crises across the island of Ireland. The recent pandemic demonstrated that public health crises disproportionately impact already marginalised and precarious populations like displaced women; those impacts were gendered, racialised and unequally experienced, exacerbating the existing inequalities of life in asylum. To improve the outcomes of future public health crises, research is needed on how the most vulnerable populations are impacted and respond.

This research seeks to identify and suggest ways in which public policy can better support marginalised populations during future crises. I consider the interaction of a biological crisis (COVID-19) with various socio-political crises (Brexit, refugee, housing and economic crises) in order to better understand the complexities and contradictions that complex crises create. Pre-existing social inequities commonly exclude marginalised populations from decision-making and information-sharing in a crisis. By considering lived experiences of crisis, I seek to promote more relevant, inclusive and appropriate crisis response strategies. I pay particular attention to care-giving processes women co-create and enact for their survival, outside formal societal structures. By examining diverse approaches to care, I seek to understand what types of care are missing from existing state and non-state support mechanisms, highlighting novel approaches to solving issues that arise in a crisis. This approach will allow for improved emergency preparedness and response policies and practices.