Transnational healthcare arrangements of Tunisian migrants in Europe: diasporic medical returns and community-based responses to healthcare risks during the pandemic.

Existing literature on health and migration has been largely concerned with the impact of migration on the health of immigrants. Studies on transnational medical travels on the other hand, have looked at the process by which people seek different health services across borders. The division between these two fields of studies is nor simple nor rigid. In fact, both phenomena are embedded in larger complex dynamics of increasing international mobility, globalization of healthcare governance and societal and political debates around inclusion and/or exclusion of migrants from healthcare entitlements. This article examines Tunisian migrant’s transnational healthcare arrangements and the barriers and opportunities in accessing healthcare in both their home and host countries namely by considering how their legal status in some instances constraints or facilitates their access to healthcare. It will explore how Tunisian migrants meet their healthcare needs through the mobilization of transnational resources. In that perspective, transnational ties, networks and flows constitute a useful resource to meet healthcare needs and circumvent the lack of transnational social protection mechanisms. Drawing on literature on diasporic medical mobilities, the paper will primarily address medical returns of Tunisian residing abroad and the construction of transnational ties through the consumption of medical care. Secondly, by considering the role of ‘homeland actors’ towards the health of their co-nationals it explores the emergence of community-based responses to healthcare risks during the pandemic. Drawing on data collected through a multi-sited ethnography and online ethnography the paper maps the multiple drivers of these transnational healthcare practices. ‘Medical home’ is proposed as a term to describe migrants' attachment and engagement to places in which they seek medical care.