Alexandre Branco-Pereira

This ethnographic research examines the impact of Covid-19 pandemic over Black and indigenous migrants’ communities in S’o Paulo, Brazil, and Toronto, Canada. Examining the migrants’ access to health services during the pandemic, I analyze whether and how universality acts as a mechanism of suppression of racial, social and economic differences. Therefore, my research asks: Who is entitled to the universal under the desired model of nationhood? To what extent racialized migrants’ experience seeking for healthcare during Covid-19 pandemic reveal the functioning of universal healthcare systems and of multicultural and mixed-race countries’ narratives in Brazil and Canada? How do racialized Latin-American and African migrants’ experiences on navigating universal healthcare systems in self claimed multicultural societies inform us on racism? How do health policies and public policy making respond to racial diversity and complaints of racism by racialized migrants in healthcare systems molded by narratives of universal access, especially during pandemic times?