ABSTRACT
This chapter explains that how migratory movements in and from the Middle East are often associated with developments in which external actors play a key role. It describes the linkage as a migration crisis nexus, in which mass movements of people are inseparable from major social, economic and political changes that have characterised the region since the colonial period. The chapter considers migration in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in a different context, seeing migrants as social actors whose circumstances and experiences are integral to understanding patterns of movement. It analyses an overview of human mobility in the MENA region before European colonial intervention. The chapter describes the impact of Europe and the long process by which colonial powers unmixed people of the Middle East. It focuses on a more recent expression of the migration crisis nexus the relationship between political economies of neoliberalism and movements of people both within and from the region.
