In search of health: medical tourism at the US-Mexico border/lands

ABSTRACT

This article provides evidence for viewing medical tourism through the lens of transborder theory in order to analyze the variation in access to health care for populations who share the US-Mexico border/lands. Using digital ethnography methods, we examine medical tourism at the US-Mexico border. Through three case studies, we highlight how the global free movement of seeking health care at the borderlands of nation-states provides an oasis for residents of one side of the border but creates and intensifies unequal access to health care on the other. We present evidence from YouTube testimonies, health blog sites, and Twitter to illustrate this discrepancy. This article, therefore, considers the role that the demographics of health seekers play in medical tourism and free movement across borderlands in their search for ‘affordable’ care services.

KEYWORDS:

• Medical tourism
• US-Mexico border
• healthcare oasis
• transborder theory
• social media
• digital ethnography

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M University for allowing us to use the facilities to meet to work on the article and its development phase. We would also like to thank Eric Berlin who helped the author carry out a close editing and reading of the article. His editing suggestions allowed us to produce the present version. Sergio Lemus would like to further thank TAMU’s Department of Anthropology for the financial support to help cover the editing services mentioned above. All errors on interpretation as the sole responsibility of the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Viviane Clement

Viviane Clement is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Cultural Anthropology program at Texas A&M University's Department of Anthropology. She received her BA in Sociology and Anthropology from Carleton College in Minnesota and her MPH in Epidemiology at Texas A&M University. Her research area is in transnational migration and leveraging diaspora resources, and health disparities as exacerbated by environmental and social factors.

Sergio Lemus

Sergio Lemus is an assistant professor of Anthropology at Texas A&M University. He received his BA in Latin American Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, his MA in Anthropology from the University of California at Riverside, and his PhD in Anthropology from the University of Illinois. His research focuses on examining the Latinx condition in the United States by focusing on race, class, gender analysis, and border theorizing.

Emma Newman

Emma Newman completed her BA in Anthropology and Sociology at Cornell College in 2021. She is interested in borderlands (theory, migration, and policy), specifically along the U.S.-Mexico border. Her additional research interests include gender and women's studies. Emma is the recipient of the RESI-Cantu Graduate Fellowship in Latinx Studies for the 2022-2023 academic year.