Medical tourism and hospital(ity) in Mumbai: Imprints of the global commodification of health

Abstract

Internationally, healthcare has been intensively privatised and commercialised over the past three decades. Medical tourism has emerged in this context as an economic development strategy for many developing nations, and provisional remedy for patients in developed countries facing rising costs and long waiting periods to access healthcare at home. This study is based in India and is predominantly ethnographic. As such, it is grounded in local realities, with a close eye to how everyday interactions and actions are shaped by significant global interconnections. The research findings have been directly shaped by the daily interactions of living and studying the footprint of medical tourism in..