How COVID-19 may alleviate the multiple marginalization of racialized migrant workers

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the visibility of “low skilled” migrant workers in the agricultural and care work sectors, who have been rebranded as “essential” by receiving states in the Global North. Many such workers are from the Global South and experience marginalization due to their overlapping social positions: race, gender, ascribed skill level, and legal status. We assess how COVID-19 can prompt a revaluation of the legal statuses of “essential” migrant workers in countries of the Global North and thereby alleviate their marginalization to a small extent. We present two frames of deservingness – based on work and based on sacrifice – as having the potential to facilitate claims for improved legal status. We argue that deservingness claims stemming from migrants’ willingness to sacrifice their health and lives have the greatest potential for success.

KEYWORDS:

• Migrant labour
• temporary foreign workers
• race
• legal status
• deservingness
• citizenship

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

Support for this work was provided by an Internal McGill University COVID-19 Rapid Response Social Sciences and Humanities Award & MI4 Emergency COVID-19 Research Funding (ECRF).