Book Review: Migration Studies and Colonialism

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.