The SSL ‘Book of the Month’ feature highlights a book in our collection that has been chosen by one of our Subject Consultants. This may be a recent addition to our stock or an existing item that we would like to share with you.

The postcolonial age of migration

Ranabir Samaddar

University of Routledge, 2020

Available as an eBook.

April’s book of the month was selected by Sarah Rhodes. Subject Consultant for International Development and Forced Migration.

Why was it chosen?

Topical and an important intervention in contemporary global migration and refugee studies, this title offers new sources, interpretations, and analyses in understanding postcolonial migration.

Book Overview

This book critically examines the question of migration that appears at the intersection of global neo-liberal transformation, postcolonial politics, and economy. It analyses the specific ways in which colonial relations are produced and reproduced in global migratory flows and their consequences for labour, human rights, and social justice. The book discusses issues such as trans-border flows among countries of the South; migratory movements of the internally displaced; growing statelessness leading to forced migration; border violence; refugees of partitions; customary and local practices of care and protection; population policies and migration management (both emigration and immigration); the protracted nature of displacement; labour flows and immigrant labour; and the relationships between globalisation, nationalism, citizenship, and migration in postcolonial regions.

It also traces colonial and postcolonial histories of migration and justice to bear on the present understanding of local experiences of migration as well as global social transformations while highlighting the limits of the fundamental tenets of humanitarianism (protection, assistance, security, responsibility), which impact the political and economic rights of vast sections of moving populations.

How can I access it?

This title is available as an eBook via SOLO. Oxford University staff and students can access eBooks remotely by logging into SOLO with their SSO.

What would your SSL Book of the Month be? Do you have a favourite book in our collection? If so, we would love to know what it is. Add a comment below or email us.