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This paper analyses findings of the 'PROWELLMIGRANTS'2 project, which qualitatively investigated COVID‐19 impacts on migrants' well‐being and mental health in Kerala, India. It draws on a novel conceptual framework that combines assemblage‐thinking with theories of social contracts in disasters. The paper first explores how past development processes and contemporary migration policies in Kerala, and India more widely, generated conditions of vulnerability for migrant workers in Kerala prior to the pandemic. Next it shows that Government of Kerala interventions, in some cases supported by the central Government of India, temporarily addressed these vulnerabilities during the pandemic. In acknowledging the helpful response of the Kerala government, we problematise its stance on migrant workers during 'normal' times and speculate that permanently addressing these conditions of vulnerability would be a more logical approach. We acknowledge this involves overcoming many wider barriers. Thus, the paper also contains national‐level policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article builds on previous work that has sought to link assemblage theory with the study of disaster risk. Specifically, we propose that the existing idea of a 'disaster risk management assemblage' can be used in two ways. The first is an overall approach to analysing disaster risk. The second is to conceptualise disaster risk management assemblages as objects of study. These are the assemblages, or apparatuses, that seek to manage – but also create – disasters-in-the-making. We go on to explore how these ideas can be used in empirical research and how they can help us to imagine doing research differently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]