Bodies of work: skilling at the bottom of the global nursing care chain

• Main Authors: ORTIGA, Yasmin Y., RIVERO, Jenica Ana
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2019
• Subjects: Global care chain; body work; care work; nursing; labour migration; Philippines; Asian Studies; Social Welfare; Social Work
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2829; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4086/viewcontent/Bodies_of_work_skilling_at_the_bottom_of_the_global_nursing_care_chain.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

In the midst of a growing global market for migrant care work, there is a need to investigate not only how such labour is consumed but how ‘ideal’ care workers are also produced. This paper investigates how schools within migrant-sending countries produce nurse labour through body work or the testing and honing of hospital procedures on patients’ bodies. Focusing on the case of the Philippines, this paper shows how the education of nurses for export creates a paradoxical impact on care work within local healthcare institutions. Aspiring nurse migrants provide much-needed manpower to understaffed public hospitals yet, treat poor patients as docile bodies to enhance their skills for future foreign employers. This practice creates an inherent inequality in the actual skilling of aspiring nurse migrants, where the poorest bodies allow nurse migrants to provide better care to more privileged bodies in wealthier nations.