Abstract
Migration Studies and Colonialism is a long-overdue call to make the analysis of colonialism central to migration studies. Even though contemporary migration is often rooted in histories of colonial expansion, core texts in the field of migration studies, Mayblin and Turner (2021) argue, have rarely mentioned colonialism, postcolonial racism, or decolonization. The authors critically characterize migration scholarship as a “white” field (p. 9), fraught with methodological nationalism for producing research agendas that serve the state's interests and that omit colonialism and race in the analyses. The authors urge migration scholars to recognize how “colonialism is so fundamental to contemporary migrations, mobilities, immobilities, receptions and social dynamics that it is certainly not something that should only be of concern to scholars of color, indigenous, and/or those working in former colonized countries” (2).
The book's beginning analyzes the underlying discourse of modernity prevalent in migration studies (Chapter 2) and the omission of race from analyses in the field (Chapter 3). Migration studies, the authors argue, relies on a dichotomous understanding of Europe (or the West) as a geographical space of progress in relation to the Global South that is not modern, and consequently, inferior. Postcolonial and decolonial perspectives disrupt this narrative by addressing how the West became “modern” through the exploitation of colonized people. Colonial exploitation, in turn, led to the transfer of resources and wealth from the Global South to the Global North and funded the latter's technological advancement. The third chapter argues that methodological nationalism has ensured that an analysis of race and racism has largely been missing from migration studies. The authors do not bring any new insights—scholars of race and postcoloniality are well aware of how race impacts migration and integration—but this chapter emphasizes the urgency of examining movement, mobility, and integration in relation to colonialism.
The remaining substantive chapters examine the pitfalls of subfields in mainstream migration scholarship, including studies of sovereignty and citizenship (Chapter 4), of refugee settlement, forced migration, and asylum-seekers (Chapter 5), of securitization and borders (Chapter 6), and of gender and sexuality (Chapter 7). Each chapter outlines interventions from postcolonial, decolonial, and Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) to push extant scholarship to provide an historicized account of migration's causes and consequences. More specifically, Chapter 4 disrupts methodological nationalism by emphasizing the contributions of three literatures that migration studies largely neglects: Bhambra's postcolonial concept of “connected histories,” Achiume's TWAIL decolonial approach, and a no-borders approach to the sub-field of sovereignty and citizenship. This chapter, on my read, should also highlight that because sovereignty and borders are treated as real by nation-states, they have material outcomes for migrants, and these material outcomes must be studied as well. Chapter 5 explores how refugee studies and forced migration can be understood within the context of colonialism, particularly because colonialism impacts the international law and norms which govern the movement of people. In Chapter 6, the authors make two critical interventions to the study of borders and security. First, the plethora of research on 9/11, the authors argue, has failed to contextualize the ways that colonialism underpins the war on terror. The authors turn to Franz Fanon's work to investigate how Islamic terrorism is a revolutionary political struggle against a history of colonialism. Second, to decenter a Eurocentric focus in border scholarship in the Global North, the authors notably examine how African scholars reimagine discussions about borders, freedom, and mobility. Chapter 7 accurately criticizes current mainstream migration scholarship for using gender or sexuality as a single variable among others to understand how women experience migration differently, and sometimes as dependents. The authors turn to three distinct literatures—Lugones's “coloniality of gender,” Spillers's ungendering, and Fergusons's queer of color critique, “taxonomies of perversion”—all of which emphasize colonialism's role in forming a racialized system of gender hierarchy.
This book is a refreshing intervention. It lays the groundwork for junior scholars to ask novel research questions that place colonialism in the center of migration studies. Moreover, Mayblin and Turner offer a comprehensive bibliography that includes Indigenous and racialized scholars and some feminist thought (although I would have liked to see more feminist analysis throughout the book!). The authors humbly note that they do not want this book to be cited, as much as the scholars within it, making the bibliography a vital resource for scholars and graduate students. That said, I urge future scholars to take Mayblin and Turner's call to action by thoughtfully considering the ways in which colonialism may shape the causes and consequences of migration.