Friday Seminar

Presentation 1 titled : Why the Urban Matters in Understanding the Health of Migrants: Insights from a Border Space between South Africa and Zimbabwe By Fehmida Qaddus Rabanni: This seminar explores how everyday urban conditions shape the health and well-being of South Asian migrants. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork in Musina, a busy South African town on the border with South Africa, this paper presents insights from interviews with South Asian migrants and their lived experiences of mobility, survival, and vulnerability in an urban border setting. These interviews form part of a larger study undertaken by the Disrupting the cycle of gendered violence & poor menta health among migrants in precarious situations in India, Cambodia, South Africa and Zimbabwe (GEMMS), an NIHR Global Health Research Group.

Presentation 2: titled Navigating care under constraint: access to maternal, child and reproductive public health care services among Mozambican migrant women in Mpumalanga, South Africa By Neusa Torres.

This study aims at exploring how Mozambican migrant women navigate maternal, child, and reproductive health services in Mpumalanga, and how health workers interpret and implement migrant‑sensitive policies in everyday practice. Using a qualitative longitudinal design grounded in both anthropology and public health perspectives, the study aims to examine the intersection of mobility and access to health system constraints. The findings aim to illuminate the lived realities of migrant women, explain why implementation gaps persist, and generate evidence to inform more inclusive, mobility‑responsive public health systems in South Africa.