The production and policing of new categories of migrants: Zimbabwean migrant families and the UK Health and Care Worker Visa Scheme

In light of the shortage of care staff in the UK's privatised care
sector and the challenge in meeting the needs of older people,
the care sector - enabled by the state - regularly recruits
migrant workforce through restrictive visa arrangements. This
project will address the question of how the British state -
through the private care sector - produces and regulates
these specific categories of migrants through the Health and
Care Worker visa via a qualitative study of Zimbabwean care
workers and their families in the UK. Melding labour migration
studies and studies of postcolonial governmentality, this
project extends the focus on governmentality to the
regulation of physical movements and access to the labour
market of the formerly colonised within the territory of the
former coloniser. Through its focus on the UK Health and Care Worker visa, the study will explore how the visa system shapes
the manner in which Zimbabwean families interact with
private care sector employers who play an integral part in the
immigration policing regime and act as border-guards when
checking on the legality of employees. The focus on families
rather than individuals in this study aims to explore the role of
work visa regulations in terms of their creation and
management of migrant populations with distinct rights and
restrictions. By focusing on the family unit as a site of
regulation, the study brings a unique relational perspective in
the production of governed populations in postcolonial
societies to the context of the Health and Care Worker visa.