Deadly Care: Citizenship and Access to Medicine on the Russia-Occupied Territories of Ukraine

• In Event: Citizenship in the Shadow of Empire: Enforced and Contested

Abstract

This paper focuses on Ukrainians with chronic medical conditions who have been living on the Russia-occupied territories (from either 2014 or 2022). It explores how treatment options and access to pharmaceuticals are increasingly tied to Russian citizenship. It discusses the process of imposition of citizenship: how a sick body of a (colonial) subject becomes a site where an invading power asserts its control and the right to let live or let die.

Author

• Dafna Rachok, UNC at Chapel Hill