The spatial politics of (neo-)imperial mobility control

Abstract

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.