Aimed at the 24th IMISCOE Annual Conference, taking place in Brussels, Belgium, from 6–9 July 2027, the following panel proposition is accepting contributions:
“Migration, Healthcare and Human Rights: Structural Inequalities in Access to Care”
Organizers: Alistair Hunter (University of Glasgow), Sorana Toma (University of Gent), Carole Wenger (University of Liège)
The right to health and healthcare is enshrined in international human rights frameworks, promising in theory an equal entitlement to healthcare regardless of nationality, migration status, race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability or socioeconomic position. Yet access to healthcare remains profoundly unequal across and within societies, with migration status being a major axis of stratification, operating in interaction with broader systems of inequality, including racialisation, class relations and gendered power structures. This panel seeks to advance a structural understanding of healthcare inequities by examining, through an intersectional approach, how access to healthcare is produced, constrained and negotiated within wider legal, political and social systems. Much existing research explains disparities in healthcare access through individual-level characteristics, behaviours, or cultural factors. By contrast, we encourage contributions that focus on the institutional, policy and political-economic conditions that shape healthcare rights and healthcare access, asking how inequalities become embedded in laws, eligibility criteria, bureaucratic procedures, welfare regimes, labour markets, border controls, and healthcare systems themselves.
In line with the conference theme, United for Human Rights and Global Equity, we are particularly interested in contributions that critically examine healthcare as a human right and explore the conditions under which migrants and other minoritised populations are recognised as legitimate rights-bearing subjects. We welcome research on how healthcare rights are enabled, restricted, contested and redefined through interactions between migration regimes, racialised structures, welfare institutions, and broader systems of power. We are equally interested in forms of advocacy, solidarity, resistance and collective action that challenge unequal access to care and promote healthcare equity.
At the same time, access to healthcare is not shaped by formal institutions alone. Individuals frequently rely on a wider range of actors to navigate healthcare systems and claim healthcare rights, including migrant and diaspora associations, community organisations, NGOs, social workers, cultural mediators, faith-based organisations and informal networks. We therefore also welcome contributions examining the role of intermediaries in facilitating, mediating, negotiating or constraining access to healthcare, rights and resources.
We are particularly interested in contributions addressing:
· Migration status, legal precarity and institutional barriers to healthcare access
· Structural determinants of healthcare access, including migration regimes, welfare institutions, labour markets, housing systems and border governance
· The intersections of migration, race, class, gender and other systems of stratification in shaping healthcare inequities;
· Life-course perspectives and cumulative disadvantage in health and access to care;
· Migrants’ experiences and strategies in navigating healthcare systems;
· The role of civil society organisations, migrant and diaspora organisations, community networks and other intermediaries in facilitating or mediating healthcare access;
· Healthcare rights, eligibility and deservingness, including processes of negotiation, intermediation, advocacy and contestation;
· Solidarity, mutual support and resistance in response to inequalities in access to healthcare.
We welcome quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods and participatory approaches, as well as contributions from different disciplinary and geographical contexts.
📅 Please send your abstract (max. 250 words) by 8 October 2026. 📩 Carole Wenger:
📍 Brussels, Belgium
📅 6–9 July 2027
🎓 24th IMISCOE Annual Conference – “United for Human Rights and Global Equity”