@colmigproject
Interdisciplinary project funded by @britishacademy.bsky.social investigating how colonialism has shaped migration governance around the world. Team includes @mcslaven.bsky.social, @evansmithhist.bsky.social, and others who aren't here yet
📖 Call for Papers 📖: Our project is hosting a workshop on 8-9 July at the University of Lincoln, UK for scholars working at the colonialism-migration governance intersection.
Read the call here: tinyurl.com/bdhhejam
Submit a paper here: tinyurl.com/43yh85c4
Deadline: 26 March
Presentation title slide. In white title box, ‘Transnational Policy Transfer and the Policing of Non-‘White’ Persons: Using Historical/Border Criminology to Examine Settler Colonialism in Australia and South Africa, 1910-1960’. In white text underneath: Evan Smith, Colonialism and Migration Project, ANZSOC conference, December 2025.
Just presented my research as part of the @colmigproject.bsky.social at ANZSOC in Brisbane. First parallel session for the day!
This article by @audieklotz.bsky.social is one of those that has been very helpful for something that I am writing for the @colmigproject.bsky.social project. So shout out to this one!
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
@lunavives.bsky.social wrote a great book about the workers and union of a small spanish maritime agency that resists the state’s order to abandon people at sea.
Much needed in this time of countless horrors caused by national border controls!
Our project members Anita Huizar-Hernandez and @mcslaven.bsky.social presented their research on Friday at the Roatch-Haskell Lectures at Arizona State University, on "The Complex Historical and Political Events of the Southwest Borderlands."
Thanks to the hosts and everyone who came!
Two of our project members have been recognized by their home institution, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, as best law professor (Mayra Feddersen) and best young researcher in the social sciences (Carla Sepúlveda). Congrats!! www.uai.cl/noticias/der...
The latest issue of @jich.bsky.social (53/5) has now been published!
www.tandfonline.com/toc/fich20/5...
Four people sitting around a table in a wood-panelled room watching a remote presentation on a TV
Three people in the distance walking on a path through a green and forested hillside, toward white buildings and mountains in the far distance
Five people posing for a photo seated
We are finishing three great days of project meetings at the invariably beautiful campuses of Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Santiago de Chile. Great views and great opportunities to link together our project fieldwork on 6 continents! Stay tuned
My article "The Windrush Scandal and the individualization of postcolonial immigration control in Britain" has passed 25,000 views, enough to put it on the @ersjournal.com most-viewed list. Thanks for (still) reading. If you use it to teach, I'd love to know! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Screenshot of an online conference featuring several people watching and a powerpoint presentation about "Immigration politics: typology and 'convergence'"
Thanks to everyone who stopped by (digitally) to our project panel at #IMISCOE2025, and to our discussant Prof Ipek Demir for her excellent questions/comments! Featuring team members @evansmithhist.bsky.social, @mcslaven.bsky.social, Carla Sepulveda and Hamoon Khelghat-Doost.
@evansmithhist.bsky.social
Colonialism and Migration in Global Perspective Thu July 3, 10:50–12:20, Session #203 panel | migpog Room: Online room 2 While colonialism is a global phenomenon, discussions of how it has influenced contemporary migration governance are usually confined to a handful of cases in Europe. This panel presents four papers emerging from a British Academy-funded interdisciplinary research project, which, taking colonialism’s global scope as a starting point, aims to decentre this analysis – broadening geographically and deepening temporally our understanding of how colonialism has shaped migration policies worldwide. Such a perspective questions the presumption that “settler societies” and ex-metropoles developed different, rather than similar, migration politics from their involvement in colonial empires; the frequent exclusion of Southern “settler” countries from analysis; the tendency to overlook empires based outside of Europe; a relative lack of detailed historical engagement in many social-scientific accounts of colonial influence; and a frequent lack of comparison in these examinations. Drawing insights from a range of social science and humanities fields, this project aims to help forge a global understanding of how the many identities shaped by colonization and empire shape the governance of international mobility in today’s world.
Find our project at IMISCOE this week, in the online programme -- Thursday 10:50-12:20 (Paris time). Four papers from project partners who are beaming in from all over the world! Hope to see you there.
Why the Social Sciences Are Important: research showcase @ University Lincoln. Social & Political Sciences colleague @mcslaven.bsky.social talking about his important @britishacademy.bsky.social funded interdisciplinary project on the relationship between colonialism & migration governance
Does calling anti-immigrant policies racist work at opposing them? Much analysis (validly) says no, but I have a new 📖 article 📖 on why this was essential to changing immigration politics in Arizona 🌵. Sometimes the effective arguments aren't already popular! 1/ www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Found today that Hathi Trust has the South African House of Assembly parliamentary debates from the 1920s and 1950s online and searchable. Game changer for my part of the @colmigproject.bsky.social project!
An image of a left sculpture of the Arizona flag made out of legos
A 1913 oil painting by Lon Magargee called “The Spirit of Arizona” which depicts an idealized vision of white settlers cultivating a lush oasis in the Arizona desert, while a prospector and Native American ride off in the far left of the canvas
Just finished a great month of fieldwork in Arizona for @colmigproject.bsky.social — 21 interviews which have given me lots to think about. While at the state capitol I also saw this painting (second image: Megargee, “The Spirit of Arizona,” 1913) which is the most colonial I’ve ever seen in AZ
Had a great time talking at ASU about @colmigproject.bsky.social research, and surprising people with a selfie. Thanks to the School of Politics and Global Studies and their Identity Lab and Security Lab for the excellent venue.
new project fieldwork now underway in Arizona!
Our new edited book 'Forced Migration' is out in ebook form, with hardcopies coming very soon! Many thanks to my tireless co-editors @andrekosvarnava.bsky.social & @evansmithhist.bsky.social - check it out here: brill.com/display/titl...
@dgb-history.bsky.social
Today’s reading for @colmigproject.bsky.social project
Congrats to our team member @evansmithhist.bsky.social who's on the editorial team of this important journal
Great new volume co-edited by our team member @evansmithhist.bsky.social
As our community here slowly grows, here is a starting list of people working on critical border studies, #migration journalists, #refugee storytellers, and border abolitionists like @hebagowayed.bsky.social @vwlegal.bsky.social @vanessid.bsky.social @nsharma101.bsky.social @nandosigona.bsky.social
Some of the work we are doing.
This is our team!