Voicing a Constant Presence: Migrant, Black and Minority Ethnic Workers in the UK Health Sector
Friday 9th October 2009
10.00am - 4.30pm (to include lunch)
The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes
Migrant and people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds have played a significant role in the UK's health and care system for many years. Historians, policymakers, employers, professional bodies and researchers with an interest in issues of coloniality, discrimination, representation, labour supply, interculturality, control and regulation have been working within different disciplines, traditions and with differing objectives seeking ways to explore and account for the contribution of migrant workers to the UK health system. However there have been few attempts to bring this whole range of work together.
The aim of this seminar is to arrive at a critical understanding of what has been a significant presence. Broadly this means identifying the constitutive role of migrant and BME workers in shaping the UK health sector, playing a part in the development of service provision in the UK, working with a wide variety of clienteles and in all parts of the UK. Specifically it means listening to and hearing accounts: the voices of those who provide personal witness to the migrant experience of working in the health sector. The seminar has in addition been timed to make a contribution to Black History Month.
Joanna Bornat, Parvati Raghuram and Leroi Henry (Open University) - ‘Hearing and not hearing: using the idea of polyphony to explore the role of voice in interviews exploring inter-cultural relationships in the workplace.’
Aneez Esmail (University of Manchester) - ‘Can we change our present without reflecting on our past? History, racism and diversity in today’s NHS.’
Sumita Mukherjee (University of Oxford) - ‘Eye Doctors and Quackery: The Old Bailey Trial of Four Indian Oculists, 1893.’
Nirmal Puwar (Goldsmiths, University of London) - ‘Arrival Time: Landing and co-existence.’
Louise Ryan (Middlesex University) - ‘Irish nurses in the British health service: negotiating networks and ethnicity.’
Julian Simpson (University of Manchester) - ‘Asian Doctors as architects of the NHS: c.1948 - c. 1978: The whitewash of NHS history and why it is relevant to contemporary policy debates.’
Pam Smith and Helen Allan (University of Surrey) - ‘I don’t want to bring the house to work’ - the emotional labour of migrant nurses and the remaking of disadvantage’ and ‘The experience of mothering as a migrant worker in the UK: overseas nurses’ accounts of mothering.’
Naomi Watson (Open University) - ‘Diminishing Returns or Exclusion by another name? Exploring the reasons why UK born African Caribbean young people appear to be refusing to choose Nursing as a career.’
10.00am - 4.30pm (to include lunch)
The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes
Migrant and people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds have played a significant role in the UK's health and care system for many years. Historians, policymakers, employers, professional bodies and researchers with an interest in issues of coloniality, discrimination, representation, labour supply, interculturality, control and regulation have been working within different disciplines, traditions and with differing objectives seeking ways to explore and account for the contribution of migrant workers to the UK health system. However there have been few attempts to bring this whole range of work together.
The aim of this seminar is to arrive at a critical understanding of what has been a significant presence. Broadly this means identifying the constitutive role of migrant and BME workers in shaping the UK health sector, playing a part in the development of service provision in the UK, working with a wide variety of clienteles and in all parts of the UK. Specifically it means listening to and hearing accounts: the voices of those who provide personal witness to the migrant experience of working in the health sector. The seminar has in addition been timed to make a contribution to Black History Month.
Joanna Bornat, Parvati Raghuram and Leroi Henry (Open University) - ‘Hearing and not hearing: using the idea of polyphony to explore the role of voice in interviews exploring inter-cultural relationships in the workplace.’
Aneez Esmail (University of Manchester) - ‘Can we change our present without reflecting on our past? History, racism and diversity in today’s NHS.’
Sumita Mukherjee (University of Oxford) - ‘Eye Doctors and Quackery: The Old Bailey Trial of Four Indian Oculists, 1893.’
Nirmal Puwar (Goldsmiths, University of London) - ‘Arrival Time: Landing and co-existence.’
Louise Ryan (Middlesex University) - ‘Irish nurses in the British health service: negotiating networks and ethnicity.’
Julian Simpson (University of Manchester) - ‘Asian Doctors as architects of the NHS: c.1948 - c. 1978: The whitewash of NHS history and why it is relevant to contemporary policy debates.’
Pam Smith and Helen Allan (University of Surrey) - ‘I don’t want to bring the house to work’ - the emotional labour of migrant nurses and the remaking of disadvantage’ and ‘The experience of mothering as a migrant worker in the UK: overseas nurses’ accounts of mothering.’
Naomi Watson (Open University) - ‘Diminishing Returns or Exclusion by another name? Exploring the reasons why UK born African Caribbean young people appear to be refusing to choose Nursing as a career.’