Medical tourism of Indian diaspora “back home”

Abstract

Migration, diaspora, tourism, and health have emerged as prime research interests among social scientists. Interdisciplinary studies are being conducted on the interface of two or more of these domains analysing complex social mobility patterns, such as medical tourism, diaspora tourism, diasporic medical tourism and their like. Among these, medical tourism has emerged as a new form of transnational movement. Within this premise, diasporic dimension of medical travel has amassed substantial importance in contemporary times. These ethnic communities contribute to their homeland in form of investment, philanthropy, and development through healthcare production and consumption. This phenomenon is more prominent in India which is among the top medical tourism destinations and also holds the largest diaspora in the world. Indian government has formulated policies for attracting diasporas back home and also for developing the medical tourism potential of the country. However, there is need to merge the initiatives operational in these two different fields at ground level to obtain maximum benefit. At present, no study gives a nuanced account integrating these two disparate phenomena. Therefore, based on extensive literature review, the paper will seek to integrate the dimensions of medical tourism and diaspora tourism and thus, underline the phenomenon of medical tourism by Indian diaspora at their homeland. The systematic review pointed a large gap in academia within the domain of diasporic medical tourism in Indian context. Research situated around this domain is highly solicited as such studies will contribute substantially to the discourse of diaspora for development.