Migrating medications: medication use and the transnationalization of familial healthcare practices

Abstract

Migration is a prominent feature of life for large numbers of people today. Migrant families bring with them to their adoptive countries various cultural understandings, rituals and healthcare traditions. This article draws on a range of qualitative methods (mapping, photographic and interview exercises) to explore the trans-nationalization of medication procurement and use within 12 migrant families. Specifically, we explore medications as enculturated objects that materialize links between countries of origin and New Zealand. Our analysis sheds light on how bringing medications from one's country of origin to a new home and regularly restocking medication supplies via return visits, allows these families to the maintain a sense of control and continuity in responses to threats of illness. As pharmaco-social objects, medications help migrants transcend the 'here' and the back 'there' and are implicated in the preservation and enactment of cultural identities, traditions and meanings.