Plea for Life: An Ethnography of Migrant Health and Militant Humanitarianism Under the Dublin III Regulation

Abstract

This thesis examines the health experiences of young to middle-aged male migrants of color living under the Dublin III Regulation in Marseille. I approach the question of how health is delivered and defined vis-à-vis this population of migrants living “on the run” from their asylum application transfer decisions by delving into the practices reinforcing their ability to adapt to ecologies of deprivation. My anthropological research thus probes the perspectives of actors implicated France’s migrant health care infrastructure: the state public health system, medical militants, and migrants themselves. My definition of militant humanitarianism corresponds with the vision uplifted by my interlocutors at the medical humanitarian nongovernmental organization Médecins du Monde (MdM, Doctors of the World) who assert that their work is a form of activism appealing for the right to health for all. Participant observation as a volunteer on the MdM Squats and Slums Mission and my semi-structured interviews with migrants and medical militants unveil a crucial reconfiguration in medical humanitarian practices that engender a form of health and administrative care accompanying migrants in a plea for life.

My ethnography explores how the mélange of humanitarian and rights-based forms of medical assistance treat the social and pathological afflictions experienced by migrants under the Dublin procedure, including homelessness, addiction, and hepatitis B. Diverging from recent anthropological critiques of humanitarianism as a form of assistance beyond reform, this thesis advocates for anthropologists and health workers alike to look towards the ways militants around the world engage in the act of mediating care within medical humanitarianism.

Keywords: migrant health, medical humanitarianism, health mediation, care, asylum, health as adaptation