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Colonialism & Migration in Global Perspective @colmigproject.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Our project will be at #APSA2026: Our research is part of the panel "Representation, Candidate Appeals, and Group Messaging" (put together by Div. 32, Race, Ethnicity and Politics). Thursday at 4pm:

Representation, Candidate Appeals, and Group Messaging
Thu, September 3, 4:00 to 5:30pm EDT, TBA

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

I have an article in @thirdworldq.bsky.social on why the UK could not fully erase the rights of Commonwealth citizens from ex-colonies. Important for understanding the Windrush Scandal and other things. Broadly part of our @colmigproject.bsky.social research. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Article screenshot.

Title: Entangled imperial citizenship: decolonisation and the dual status of Commonwealth immigrants in post-war Britain

Abstract: Post-WWII migration from the Global South to the United Kingdom mostly comprised immigrants who were simultaneously (post-)imperial citizens. Among major attempts to remake South–North migration dynamics in the 1960s–1970s were Britain’s efforts to distinguish overlapping citizen–immigrant categorisations, recasting ‘Commonwealth citizens’ as lacking rights and subject to control. Yet this dichotomisation remained incomplete: ex-subjects whom Britain ceased to consider citizens still present claims which complicate Britain’s immigration control intentions. What explains this contradiction? This article employs a concept of ‘entangled imperial citizenship’ to trace how imperial and post-imperial ideas of citizenship interpenetrated in key periods of UK policy development, producing residual rights. Examining the policy cycles surrounding successive immigration acts in 1962, 1968 and 1971 underlines two overarching reasons why post-imperial citizens’ rights claims were not fully extinguished. First, the overlap of imperial and post-imperial citizenship concepts in shaping earlier policies generated legacies that frustrated escalating intentions to degrade Commonwealth citizenship. Second, emerging complexity in the immigration policy field, where conflicted understandings of social membership increasingly highlighted state interests in social cohesion and domestic legitimacy, interfered with reform attempts. Entangled imperial citizenship in Britain exemplifies Global North states’ difficulties in conforming migration control to their post-decolonisation intentions for South–North dynamics.

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Colonialism & Migration in Global Perspective @colmigproject.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

📖 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

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Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

Just presented my research as part of the @colmigproject.bsky.social at ANZSOC in Brisbane. First parallel session for the day!

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.

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Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · 20/01/2026

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....

tandfonline.com

Imperial migration states

In the past decade, theorising about migration policy has rapidly included more states beyond Western Europe or North America. Expanding the temporal and geographical range of conventional cases de...

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Nandita Sharma @nsharma101.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

@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!

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Colonialism & Migration in Global Perspective @colmigproject.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

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!

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Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

The latest issue of @jich.bsky.social (53/5) has now been published! www.tandfonline.com/toc/fich20/5...

tandfonline.com

The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History

Volume 53, Issue 5 of The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History

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Colonialism & Migration in Global Perspective @colmigproject.bsky.social · 10/09/2025

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

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

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

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....

tandfonline.com

The Windrush Scandal and the individualization of postcolonial immigration control in Britain

This article argues a previously little-discussed policy shift, the individualization of UK immigration control, is key to understanding the Windrush Scandal and the wider governance of racialized ...

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Colonialism & Migration in Global Perspective @colmigproject.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

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.

Screenshot of an online conference featuring several people watching and a powerpoint presentation about "Immigration politics: typology and 'convergence'"

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Colonialism & Migration in Global Perspective @colmigproject.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

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.

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.

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Gary Rawnsley @garydrawnsley.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

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

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

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....

tandfonline.com

Saying racism: calling anti-immigration policies racist as effective pro-immigrant politics in Arizona

Identifying anti-immigration policies as racist commonly features in political discourse in many majority-white countries. Both behavioralist studies of voter attitudes and studies of party positio...

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Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

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!

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

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

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

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Mike Slaven @mcslaven.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

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.

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Yianni Cartledge @yiannicart.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

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

brill.com

Forced Migration: Exiles and Refugees in the UK and the British Empire, 1815–1949

"Forced Migration: Exiles and Refugees in the UK and the British Empire, 1815–1949" published on 24 Mar 2025 by Brill.

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Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

Today’s reading for @colmigproject.bsky.social project

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Colonialism & Migration in Global Perspective @colmigproject.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Congrats to our team member @evansmithhist.bsky.social who's on the editorial team of this important journal

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Petra Molnar @petramolnar.com · 11/11/2024

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

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