Paper short abstract:

This paper describes the emergence of a medical travel industry between Iraq and Lebanon that has been contingent on a political economy of care, involving the systematic dismantlement of public health care in Iraq, on one hand; and the expansion of privatised healthcare in Lebanon, on the other.

Paper long abstract:

War affects the health of populations, and the healthcare systems they navigate, in profound and lasting ways—reconfiguring 'therapeutic geographies' (Dewachi et al., 2014). This paper explores the social, medical and financial consequences of the US invasion of Iraq on Iraqi civilians. We describe the emergence of a medical travel industry between Iraq and Lebanon that has been contingent on a political economy of care made possible by the systematic dismantlement of public health care in Iraq, on one hand; and the expansion of privatised health care specifically geared towards regional medical travellers in Lebanon, on the other. We use a mix of methodologies—both ethnographic and quantitative—to investigate the outsourcing of healthcare to Lebanon, where Iraqi patients in need of care are routinely sent for treatment. First, we relate ethnographic data from interviews with Iraqi patients and their doctors, tracking the stories and experiences of medical travellers as they negotiate questions of biological and therapeutic citizenship in the Arab world. We then juxtapose this with with clinical data from over 6000 Iraqi medical travellers who sought healthcare in Lebanon between 2003 and 2013. Together, the stories and statistics concerning the mass movement of Iraqi patients across national borders—and the disfigured health systems they encounter—tell us much about the ripples of neocolonialism in the Middle East, and the enduring embodiment of war. This research reminds us that wars are not only destructive, but also productive—not just in the movement of capital and people, but also in the formation of new therapeutic subjectivities.