Miss Mathavi Senguttuvan1
1Centre For Biomedical Ethics (National University of Singapore), Singapore, Singapore
Biography:
Mathavi Senguttuvan is a Research Associate at the NUS Centre for Biomedical Ethics and a lawyer by training, enrolled with the Indian Bar. She is also currently pursuing a Ph.D. with the centre. Her research interests lie in ethics of migration and vulnerability, particularly in the context of public health.
Abstract:
Public health emergencies like pandemics have exposed several diverse and complex manifestations of vulnerability. Amidst the constraints of the crises, certain groups are (often intuitively) classified as vulnerable, foregrounding harm-based conceptions of vulnerability without duly acknowledging the nuances of the concept. This prompts misattributions of moral and legal responsibility for the vulnerabilities, ambiguity in what responsibilities are owed and how they ought to be fulfilled, and ultimately, overemphasis on harm-protection obligations. To address some of these normative challenges, I propose an account of structural vulnerability which implicates systemic forces and power relations in the production of novel forms of vulnerability, as well as perpetuation or exacerbation of existing ones. In developing this account, I examine the case of Singapore’s policies towards its low-wage migrant workers, focusing on mechanisms employed to inhibit the spread of COVID-19 within and outside purpose-built dormitories where they are largely housed. Informed by postcolonial scholarship, my analysis identifies three significant, institutionally sustained conditions: (1) subalternity, (2) precarity, and (3) alterity – which shape distinct expressions of migrant vulnerability in relation to their work, spaces, bodies, relationships, perception, etc. Essentially, this approach questions why certain people are vulnerable and theorises as to what, beyond simply knowing the who. In doing so, I argue for a more robust reconfiguration of obligations to society’s most marginalised, in favour of their just and respectful treatment.