Cosmopolitanism, Care Ethics and Health Care Worker Migration

Abstract

Tronto’s care as a public value is meaningful in diagnosing the problem of care deficit in contexts such as India. Nevertheless, this chapter suggests that care transcends Tronto’s focus on institutions to a broader understanding of global dependencies reflected in hierarchies of health care in India. Such concerns cannot be entirely remedied through the lens of situated citizenship but require cosmopolitan situatedness. Yet, cosmopolitan models such as those of Appiah and Nussbaum overlook interdependence, given their emphasis on individual citizenship. Hence, they cannot remedy the deficit of care. Rather than a determinate individual or nation, cosmopolitan care would have to be fastened to Butler’s embodiment of unstable and unpredictable interdependence. Arguing for the latter, the discussion reimagines both cosmopolitanism and care from the perspective of mutual dependencies highlighted by the migration crisis of Indian health care workers.