Description

We take mobility for granted and assume a state of free and expanding mobility. However, mobility has historically been quite complex, frequently coerced but also often restricted. The Atlantic slave trade exemplifes its centrality to capitalism and modernity, while the end of formal slavery marked new associations between mobility and coercion. Since the nineteenth century other forms of mobility also became deeply marked, especially by race, as political barriers replaced falling physical barriers to distance, and mobility and regulation became arenas of contest over empire and citizenship. Continuities and discontinuities in the regulation of mobility and its relationship to citizenship are another focus of this seminar. What can their histories tell us about contemporary controversies over mobility, regulation, and citizenship? How do regulatory regimes structure what we know and cannot know about people who move, and frame related discourses, responses, policies, and resource decisions? What can they tell us about the liberal governance of mobility and citizenship?