Screening Out: HIV Testing and the Canadian Immigration Experience - Softcover

Bisaillon, Laura

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0774867485 ISBN 13: 9780774867481

Publisher: UBC Press, 2022

Synopsis

What happens when people with HIV apply to immigrate to Canada? Screening Out takes readers through the process of seeking permanent residency, illustrating how mandatory HIV testing and the medical inadmissibility regime are organized in such a way as to make such applications impossible. This ethnographic inquiry into the medico-legal and administrative practices governing the Canadian immigration system shows how this system works from the perspective of the very people toward whom this exclusionary health policy is directed.

As Laura Bisaillon demonstrates, mandatory immigration HIV screening triggers institutional practices that are highly problematic not only for would-be immigrants, but also for those bureaucrats, doctors, and lawyers who work within that system. She provides a vital corrective to state claims about the functioning of – and the professional and administrative practices supporting – mandatory HIV testing and medical examination, pinpointing how and where things need to change.

About this title

About the Author

Laura Bisaillon is a political sociologist and associate professor in the Department of Health and Society at the University of Toronto Scarborough. Through journal articles, scholarly blogs, documentary film, photography, and creative writing, her research investigates interactions between migration, health, and the state. She has held research fellowships at the Brocher Foundation, Geneva, and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Amsterdam. The research on which this book is based was awarded a Governor General’s Gold Medal.

Edition details

• Publisher: UBC Press
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0774867485
• ISBN 13: 9780774867481
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304