Disciplining the Transnational Mobility of People

This volume scrutinizes new developments in contemporary mobility and migration politics and shows that they are based on a mix of traditional coercive interventions and less repressive and indirect practices.

A core feature of contemporary migration politics lies in the claim to regulate and discipline the cross- border mobility of people "through", "in the interest of" and "with the help of" the very individuals that cross national borders. Popularized by notions such as "smart borders" or "migration management", these practices and technologies raise important questions regarding strategies of migration control, the exercise of power, and their effects on individuals, societies and states. This volume scrutinizes these new developments and shows that mobility and migration politics are based on a mix of traditional coercive interventions and less repressive and indirect practices. Both types of practices are shown to pertain to the common conceptual umbrella provided by the notion of discipline. The contributors discuss disciplining strategies that, while apparently different, share the common objective of making sense of, ordering and, ultimately, steering and "managing" human mobility.