Migrants during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Discursive Class Formation of Returnee Expatriates

Abstract

Amidst the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, migrants are the most affected parts after the Health and economy. More than half a million migrants have returned from February to May 2020 to Bangladesh. The state and society have stigmatized returnee expatriates as suspected disease carriers. Some of them are being physically assaulted and humiliated by their neighbor and society. Researchers revealed a new dimension of "Othering" discourse; where consent of hate crime formed being solely blamed for bring coronavirus and ignoring mandatory quarantine period. The government officially stigmatized them by putting quarantined seals at their hands and hoisting red flags at their homes. Interestingly, we have found the distinction of stigmatization between returnee expatriates, where returnee workers were being humiliated rather than high-skilled returnee professionals from a so-called developed country. Returnee expatriates experienced a transformation of identity. Researchers argued about the discursive formation of a class of returnee expatriates who were once highly respected and spoiled of their identity as a probable source of virus carrier. Once labeled as a remittance fighter of the economy have to transients their so-called positions, and has to prove their worthiness as a citizen of the state, after starting the pandemic, governments and their developing partners were not humane, concerned about the returnee expatriates' social discrimination, risk of unemployment, uncertainty, economic crisis, and instability. Returnee expatriates' abandonment as a suspected carrier of the COVID-19 virus by the state and society should be worked out more comprehensively to protect them from social and economic exploitation.