EU4A8      Half Unit
Migration From Below: Theories and Lived Experiences of Borders

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

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This course will explore mobility and borders as sites of contestation and focus on perspectives rising from the (everyday) practices of migration in Europe and beyond. Migration is part of the human condition, however, in the contemporary media and political debates it is often approached through a framework of crises or a problem to be solved. Unlike this static approach to societies, this course takes distance from the normative lens of the nation-state and its control apparatus to the movement of people. It will introduce critiques of methodological nationalism, address issues of decolonisation and postcolonial condition in migration studies and examine mobility and rights as differentially accessed resources defined by global hierarchies.

The course is divided into two parts. The first part provides a historical and conceptual overview of the questions related to border regimes, modern state formation, and rights. We will examine the historical development of border regimes in Europe and the USA, their relation to colonial legacies and control of the labour force, and how these formations inform contemporary understandings of the movement of people. Then we move to explore the core concepts, such as race, ethnicity, and nation, examine critically the categories of migration, and acquire an understanding of the international legal agreements concerning the movement of people. After orientating in concepts and providing a framework for discussion, we will move to more empirical accounts of the contemporary movement of people discussing themes such as lived experiences of border crossings, diasporic and borderland identities, detention and deportations, and intimate and gendered migrations. Along the way, we will also discuss the ethical and political implications of researching (im)mobilities.

10 hours of lectures and 15 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

Essay plan (500 words) in Autumn Term Week 6

Powerpoint slides

Discussion post (500 words)

There are three pieces of formative coursework designed to help students prepare for their summative essay:

1.     Seminar discussant and presentation on a theme related to the week's readings.

2.     Weekly Moodle posts related to the readings and core questions.

3.     Research question & long (500-word) abstract together with annotated bibliography submitted on the reading week. 

1. Shahram Khosravi (2010). ‘Illegal’ Traveller: An Auto-Ethnography of Borders. New York: Palgrave.
2. Andreas Wimmer and Nina Glick Schiller (2003). Methodological Nationalism, the Social Sciences, and the Study of Migration: An Essay in Historical Epistemology. The International Migration Review, Fall, 2003, Vol. 37.
3. Stuart Hall (2021). Selected Writings on Race and Difference. Duke University Press
4. Mae Ngai (2004). Impossible subjects: Illegal immigrants and the making of modern America. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
5. John Torpey (2000). The invention of the passport. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
6. Lucy Mayblin & Joe Turner (2021). Migration Studies and Colonialism. Cambridge: Polity. 
7. Jason De Leon & Michael Wells (2015): The Land of Open Graves. Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail. California University Press.
8. Gloria Anzaldúa (1987) Borderlands=La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Aunt Lute Books.
9. Ben Bowling and Sophie Westenra (2018). Racism, Immigration, and Policing. In Mary Bosworth, Alpa Parmar, and Yolanda Vázquez (Eds.). Race, Criminal Justice, and Migration Control: Enforcing the Boundaries of Belonging. Oxford University Press, pp. 61-78.
10. Behrouz Boochani (2023). Freedom, Only Freedom. The Prison Writings of Behrouz Boochani. London: Bloomsbury. 

Essay (100%, 4000 words)

4000-word essay on a topic of your choice formulated with the instructor.