Events

ABSTRACT

Rural-to-urban migrants are a new and constantly growing segment of the population that has emerged in Chinese cities since the beginning of the reform era. In this paper I focus on the analysis of the various alternative health seeking practices that migrants apply as a response to their lack of access to health care. In general, research on health seeking is characterized by an abundance of empirical studies and a lack of theoretical grounding. I thus introduce a new social theory approach, which conceptualizes the various interlinkages between and interdependencies of structure (e.g. regulations in the health care and occupational systems, cultural precepts and health beliefs), different types of agents (e.g. administration, health practitioners, NGOs, social organizations and networks) and individual practices. The approach is then transferred to investigating migrants’ health seeking practices in Guangzhou. I adopted a mixed methods research design that included qualitative interviews and a quantitative survey with migrants living in Guangzhou as well as expert interviews. I argue that in order to understand health seeking, it is necessary to consider migrants’ reflexive decision process in the face of the enabling or constraining influence of other agents and (systems of) rules. The paper contributes to the social theory debate and expands existing approaches to health seeking with the concept of health seeking practices.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Tabea Bork-Hüffer is Post-doctoral and Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation fellow at the Migration Cluster of the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (NUS) starting from 1 January 2013. She has studied at the Universities of Bonn, Belfast and Cologne and holds a Diploma degree in geography (MSc equivalent, “passed with distinction”) and a PhD (“summa cum laude”) from Cologne University, Germany. Her research and previous publications concentrate on the interlinkages of migration (internal and international), urbanization, governance and health in China. Her first book “Migrants Health Seeking Actions in Guangzhou, China. Individual Action, Structure and Agency: Linkages and Change” was published in June 2012 (Steiner Publishers). Before coming to NUS she worked as Scientific Coordinator of the German Research Foundations’ Priority Program “Megacities – Megachallenge: Informal Dynamics of Global Change” (2006-2012), which comprises 10 projects and 70 researchers in Bangladesh, China and Germany.

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