Transnational medical spaces: opportunities and restrictions

Abstract

How can we understand health-seeking behaviour, if the space in which this behaviour takes place stretches across borders? Is there more happening than just the increase in options? Based on examples from research on reproductive travels, medical remittances, the circulation of medicines in migrants’ personal networks, and the revitalisation of local healing traditions through globally active NGOs, in this working paper we attempt to elaborate upon medical practices and therapeutic itineraries in a transnational framework. By looking at how people take advantage of different regulations and procedures in different national frameworks, we propose to think along the lines of therapeutic opportunity structures in order to bring in spatial theory as well as draw attention to new forms of exclusion and agency