Ethical and Epistemological Implications of Conducting Ethnographic Fieldwork as a Researcher-cum-Clinician in Brussels, Belgium.

We draw on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Brussels (Belgium) on the health care experiences of undocumented migrants. We explore the implications of the double position of the ethnographer, who is both a researcher and a practicing doctor. We describe how the intimate knowledge the ethnographer-cum-clinician holds about the health care system influenced and shaped the data collection, analysis and subsequent policy recommendations.

Between Sympathy, Fascination, and Powerlessness. The Experiences of Health Professionals During the Medical Monitoring of a Hunger Strike Among Undocumented Migrants.

In 2014, a group of undocumented migrants started a hunger strike in Brussels. The medical monitoring was mainly done by young, committed health professionals with no prior experience of medical monitoring of people on hunger strike. Following the hunger strike, two focus groups were organized to assess the experiences of the health professionals during the medical monitoring of the hunger strike.

Beyond biopolitics: the importance of the later work of Foucault to understand care practices of healthcare workers caring for undocumented migrants.

Background: Undocumented migrants experience multiple institutional and legal barriers when trying to access healthcare services. Due to such limitations, healthcare workers often experience ethical dilemmas when caring for undocumented migrants. This article aims to understand how individual healthcare workers who regularly take care of undocumented migrants deal with these dilemmas in practice.

Counting the non-existing: causes of death of undocumented migrants in Brussels-Capital Region (Belgium), 2005-2010.

Background: So far knowledge about undocumented migrant health status is poor. The objective of this study is to compare patterns in causes of death between undocumented migrants and legal residents, of both migrant and non-migrant origin.

Method: Using cause-of-death data, we compared undocumented migrants with Belgian residents and documented migrants through logistic regression analyses.