Bringing the Virus Back Home: Media Representations of Ukrainian Labour Migrants in a Time of Pandemic

Abstract

In a globalized world where mobility and movement is at its essence, the movement of viruses paradoxically causes a preoccupation with boundaries, containment, and control over borders, and thus keeping the “dangerous” outside separated from the “safe” inside. Through a qualitative thematic and frame analysis of news articles published on 12 Ukrainian news sites, I found that Ukrainian labour migrants conceptually constitute a challenge to such a clear-cut spatial organization in a time of a pandemic. Labour migrants are part of the national “we,” but their presence in the dangerous outside excludes them from the “imagined immunity.” This ambiguity is evident in the way labour migrants were portrayed during the first months of the outbreak in Ukraine. Initially, Ukrainian labour migrants were depicted as a potential danger, and then blamed for bringing the virus back home. However, the framing of the labour migrants as a danger is only part of the story, and the image of a scapegoat was eventually replaced with images of an economic resource and a victim. Thus, Ukrainian labour migrants have been the object of vilification, heroization, as well as empathy during the various phases of the outbreak. I would argue that these shifting frames are connected to the ambiguous conceptualization of Ukrainian labour migrants in general.