ABSTRACT
This chapter dissects a key turn in migration studies—beyond economic explanations to analyse the action of migration in the construction, deconstruction, and reproduction of spatial politics. It charts the development of migration theory by connecting it to the politics of space, highlighting its shift from structural economic explanations to more complex understandings based on social transformation and structure-agency relations. This reconceptualisation puts the everyday lives of migrants at centre stage, emphasising the experiential aspect of migration and pushing against hegemonic, Westernised narratives that strip migration of its concrete “discursive forms of migrancy.” Through consideration of three different but related moments in history—colonialism, industrialisation, and neoliberal globalisation—the chapter illustrates how spatial politics have been conditioned by and conditioned migration. In so doing, it joins a growing field of scholarship reimagining migration along the axes of power, space, and everyday experience.
