ABSTRACT
A prominent, even unavoidable feature of modernity is that of human mobility, daily in the news due to refugee movements and so on. It is notable in other ways such as the movement of experts such as engineers and computer specialists from India to the USA, worker migration from Turkey to Germany, permanent resettlement, diasporas and nomadic communities of all kinds, and of course tourism. These social phenomena are certainly recognisable in the modern city and celebrated by Saskia Sassen, but the rise of the most important migration of all, colonialism and its many derivations, is constitutive of much that we now recognise as normative in the many legacies that we are heir to.
