ABSTRACT
This chapter traces key historical developments in thinking about and theorization of center/periphery in migration studies, while arguing for the continued salience of the distinction. The terminology of center/periphery and the related dyad core/margin is deeply connected to knowledge production about geopolitical developments and global economic inequalities, which shape the momentum for and governmentality of migration and the differential freedoms and constraints on global mobility. In addition, the inflections of the terms on a discursive and symbolic level shape the perception, the “image” of the migrant subject and the host societies, and often contain a normative dimension. Despite critiques of the normative, nation-state-centered, Eurocentric biases embedded in the terms and their usage in migration studies, the analytical usefulness of center/periphery and core/margin in naming dynamics of power in the globalizing present of economic, social and geographic expulsions, violent bordering and rising anti-migrant rhetoric remains unparalleled.
