The spatial politics of (neo-)imperial mobility control
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24226239 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Fiona B Adamson (0000-0003-3137-1325, University of London), Enze Han (0000-0001-8948-3843, University of Hong Kong) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Pages | 1-20 |
| Publication date | 2026-10-06 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | New Community (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0047-9586 • E-ISSN: 1469-9451 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/1369183x.2026.2735125 |
| OpenAlex | W7220655986 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 91 |
What can the study of past imperial practices of mobility control tell us about the present? In this article, we engage with the growing literature that examines how past colonial and imperial practices shape present state strategies of population control, by focusing on the spatial politics of imperial transport practices, and the lessons they provide for understanding similarities between historical and contemporary (neo-)imperial forms of population management. Historically, we look at three common imperial practices: convict transport and the use of penal colonies; slavery and indentured labour; and forced exile and banishment. Each of these three practices relied heavily on spatial practices combined with state repression that are replicated in some respects by a range of contemporary state population management practices, including border externalisation and migrant warehousing; facilitated labour emigration; migration diplomacy; and transnational repression. We ask whether existing state-based conceptualisations of migration policy are sufficient for understanding the at-times global scale of states’ mobility control and population management policies and argue for the utility of introducing a neo-imperial framework for understanding contemporary population management practices.
colonial legacy · Exile · forced exile · indentured labor · migration diplomacy · migration policy · mobility control · neo-imperialism · penal colonies · population management · Slavery · spatial politics · transnational repression · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · Migration and Exile Studies · Migration, Refugees, and Integration
Diaspora’s Homeland
Refugees and Exile
A History of Exile in the Roman Republic
The Comparative Politics of Immigration
Coolitude
Deportation Nation
States Against Migrants
Becoming a Citizen
The Citizen and the Alien
Human Geopolitics
Migration and the metropole
Refuge beyond Reach
Understanding Global Migration
Externalizing Migration Management
A Global History of Convicts and Penal Colonies
Migration and National Identity in South Africa, 1860–2010
Exile in Mid-Qing China
The Deportation Machine
Immigration and the Nation-State
The Deportation Regime
Underground Asia
Channel crossings
Rethinking immigration policy theory beyond ‘Western liberal democracies’
Drawing a line
Spaces of Global Security
Modes of Securitization and Desecuritization of Transnational Kinship Ties
Chinese emigration in global context, 1850–1940
Migration Diplomacy in World Politics
Through the Prism of Migration
The Borders Beyond the Border
Postcolonial challenges to migration control
Producing transnational space
Immigration and the State of Exception
Interrogating and Broadening the Emerging Narrative on Migration Diplomacy
Diasporic geopolitics, rising powers, and the future of international order
The Emerging Migration State
Modes of Immigration Politics in Liberal Democratic States
Modes of Immigration Politics in Liberal Democratic States
The Migration State in the Global South
Refugee commodification
Ethnoscapes of Exile
Return governance and diplomacy between Türkiye and Afghanistan
Networks of Domination
Church and commerce in New Caledonia
Contesting colonial rule
Diasporic geopolitics and differentiated policies of transnational repression
(B)ordering Britain
Carceral Geography
Manufacturing displacement. Externalization and postcoloniality in European migration control
Shifting up and out
Organised forced migration and the external drivers of eliminationist politics
Beyond presentism in border externalization studies
The Limits of Unilateral Migration Control
Coercive Capacity and The Politics of Implementation
Weapons of the Weak? South–South Migration and Power Politics in the Philippines–GCC Corridor
The postcolonial migration state
Remapping the Boundaries of `State' and `National Identity
The rise of linear borders in world politics
Geographies of Detention and Imprisonment
The fire this time
The territorial trap
Diaspora Institutions and Diaspora Governance
Transportation, Deportation and Exile
The colonial migration state
The enforcement archipelago
Using Development Aid as a Leverage in the EU's External Relations
Of Migrant Slaves and Underground Railroads
Deal-making, diplomacy and transactional forced migration
Imperial migration states
Rethinking the migration state
The developmental migration state
Labour coercion and commodification
Bifurcated homeland and diaspora politics in China and Taiwan towards the Overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia
Entangled migration states
Mare nero? Undoing the decolonial redux , multiplying (post)colonial legacies and struggles
Landscape as a Provocation
Methodological nationalism and beyond
Transnational Repression, Diaspora Mobilization, and the Case of The Arab Spring
Ambient Surveillance
| Highly cited | No |
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