The course connects contemporary trends in global migrations with a historical
understanding of how and why migrants move, as well as how modern nation-states have
developed a precedent for inclusion and exclusion on the basis of who has the potential to
‘belong’ as a participating citizen. Drawing from memory studies, the course explores the role of
memory in the development of the nation-state, and how memories of migration play a central
role in how identity is reconstructed and expressed beyond "home". The course is organized into
key topics that attempt to create an intellectual narrative (or guide map) to constructions of
nations, borders, categories of legal and illegal migrants, and the migrant body. The goal of the
course is to expose how today’s gendered discourses of illegality and borders borrow from a
much longer history of state-sovereignty premised upon constructing – and excluding – the
‘other’. Bringing new discussions to bear on established bodies of work in migration studies,
ethnic studies of migrant communities, and histories of immigration and exclusion, the course
draws upon postcolonial and post-structural feminist and gender critiques of ‘new migrations’,
and the ways in which the human costs of migration are intricately linked to global trends in
environmental, financial, and cultural development.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
• Identify and engage with the major themes outlined in the course syllabus, and offer a
critical interpretation of all class readings assigned to these themes.
• Understand the key methodological developments in the field of global migration and
refugee studies, and be able to reflect upon how these intersect with historical trajectories
of migration, and more current modes of forced migration, diaspora and labour migration.
• Adopt an intersectional approach to the major themes of the course, and understand how
gendered experiences and interpretations of migration, both in the past and in the present,
shape the ways we conceptualize a ‘new refugee crisis’.
• Identify how interdisciplinary qualitative work adds depth and context to a quantitative
and numbers-based approach to understanding migration in the post-1945 period.
• Draw upon key concepts in migration theory and employ these towards and integrative
approach to exploring how and why the ‘new crisis’ opens up new fields of inquiry into
the gendering of migration routes and experiences globally.
• Engage actively with political rhetoric and media influence on the concept of a ‘new
crisis’, and speak with some authority on why the idea of a ‘new crisis’ is a dangerous
development that threatens to reinforce old Eurocentric boundaries of First and Third
World/developed and developing/new and old-world migrants (and their problematic
categorizations!).
understanding of how and why migrants move, as well as how modern nation-states have
developed a precedent for inclusion and exclusion on the basis of who has the potential to
‘belong’ as a participating citizen. Drawing from memory studies, the course explores the role of
memory in the development of the nation-state, and how memories of migration play a central
role in how identity is reconstructed and expressed beyond "home". The course is organized into
key topics that attempt to create an intellectual narrative (or guide map) to constructions of
nations, borders, categories of legal and illegal migrants, and the migrant body. The goal of the
course is to expose how today’s gendered discourses of illegality and borders borrow from a
much longer history of state-sovereignty premised upon constructing – and excluding – the
‘other’. Bringing new discussions to bear on established bodies of work in migration studies,
ethnic studies of migrant communities, and histories of immigration and exclusion, the course
draws upon postcolonial and post-structural feminist and gender critiques of ‘new migrations’,
and the ways in which the human costs of migration are intricately linked to global trends in
environmental, financial, and cultural development.
Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
• Identify and engage with the major themes outlined in the course syllabus, and offer a
critical interpretation of all class readings assigned to these themes.
• Understand the key methodological developments in the field of global migration and
refugee studies, and be able to reflect upon how these intersect with historical trajectories
of migration, and more current modes of forced migration, diaspora and labour migration.
• Adopt an intersectional approach to the major themes of the course, and understand how
gendered experiences and interpretations of migration, both in the past and in the present,
shape the ways we conceptualize a ‘new refugee crisis’.
• Identify how interdisciplinary qualitative work adds depth and context to a quantitative
and numbers-based approach to understanding migration in the post-1945 period.
• Draw upon key concepts in migration theory and employ these towards and integrative
approach to exploring how and why the ‘new crisis’ opens up new fields of inquiry into
the gendering of migration routes and experiences globally.
• Engage actively with political rhetoric and media influence on the concept of a ‘new
crisis’, and speak with some authority on why the idea of a ‘new crisis’ is a dangerous
development that threatens to reinforce old Eurocentric boundaries of First and Third
World/developed and developing/new and old-world migrants (and their problematic
categorizations!).
- Instructor: Nadia Jones Gailani