Infection, temporality and inequality: Sanitizing foreign bodies and protecting public health in Taiwan

Abstract

This paper probes how temporality is integral to the health examination regime that aims to protect citizens from infectious diseases in Taiwan. The paper finds that migrant workers in less-skilled occupations are examined more frequently than foreign professionals. Analyzing such differentiation, this paper argues that a hierarchy of sanitization is built on and increases the inequality between them and perpetuates instability in migrant workers’ circumstances. Applying a temporal approach to the study of health examination opens new inroads into our understanding of how a “migration state” achieves the exclusion of migrant workers by making them outsiders subject to permanent intrusion into their bodies.