ABSTRACT
In public health, ethnicity and migration-related classification systems (or classifications) and their constituent categories are integral to the collection of ethnic and migrant-related data. Classifications that involve categorising groups and populations according to their ethnic background or migration status are useful to governments, for example, in epidemiological studies assessing mortality and morbidity related to infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS as well as identifying the health-specific needs of diverse groups. Literature in the field has focused on the utility of data generated by ethnicity classifications to public health research, the validity of ethnicity categories and the conceptual and methodological challenges of measuring ‘race’ and ethnicity (Aspinall 2011; Ford & Harawa 2010; Mays et al. 2003). 1 We argue, however, that a critical perspective on ethnicity and migration-related classifications as a discursive practice of the state facilitates an interrogation of these information systems and reveals the sociality of scientific knowledge. More specifically, these classifications and their inherent categories constitute a lens through which the social and historical factors that shape the construction of migrants and infectious disease can be examined. This perspective brings into focus the biopolitical function of classification in public health and the tensions surrounding the use of ethnicity and migration-related categories in disease surveillance and control.
