Current Research Projects

The Colonial and Racial Logics of German Migration Control and Citizenship Laws

In 1920, the German government opened its first detention site solely dedicated to the imprisonment of foreigners who had been ordered a deportation: Fort Prinz Karl in the German state of Bavaria, in Ingolstadt, an hour from Munich. At the same time, the Prussian government opened two detention sites – one in Cottbus in Eastern Germany and one in Stargard in present-day Poland. These camps were part of a larger effort to target Jewish migrants fleeing the pogroms in present-day Poland and Ukraine. The German government also attempted to control its external borders and deport those that had been categorized as ‘nuisance foreigners’ – the poor, those without a job or a permanent abode, and those who had been found guilty of a crime. While much of the existing scholarship has focused on the expansion of migration controls since the end of the Second World War, I argue that the institutionalization of migration controls began much earlier. Ultimately, this earlier history brings the colonial and racial logics of contemporary migration controls into view. Under this broader theoretical umbrella, I am currently finalizing my first book project, Controlling Migration: Vagrancy Laws, Indentured Labor, and the Policing of Mobility in Germany, and am working on three articles which expand on and complement my book project.

Related publications:

“Arresting Movement: The History of German Immigration Detention Beyond the Camp.” Punishment & Society. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/14624745241230391.

“Targeting Jewish Migrants and Unwanted Foreigners in the 1920s: The History of Germany’s First Immigration Detention Sites.” Available at: https://blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/blog-post/2023/03/targeting-jewish-migrants-and-unwanted-foreigners-1920s-history-germanys-first.

The Political Economy of International Security Practices

Violent clampdowns of worker’s strikes, a genocide against indigenous people in Brazil to clear land for farming and mining, smear-campaigns and intimidation against union organizers, restrictive border regimes that keep migrants in spaces of legal precarity. The history and presence of political economy abound with examples of violence that largely play out on the bodies of racialized, marginalized, and poor communities. However, these forms of violence have often been ignored and treated as an extra-economic force; a phenomenon to be studied through the lens of the political rather than political economy. Pushing against this separation, I have co-developed a rich research agenda that interrogates how capitalism relies on different forms of colonial violence.

As part of this project, I co-led the drafting of a collective discussion piece titled “The Colonial Lives of the Carceral Archipelago.” The article excavates the colonial roots of practices of policing, bordering, and surveillance to demonstrate their centrality to the functioning of capitalism. It became International Political Sociology’s second most-read article of 2021. A second piece in this line of inquiry is a forthcoming co-authored chapter on “Corporeal Power.” This chapter examines the bodily dimension of power in the social sciences. It theorizes corporeal power as a process whereby raced, sexed, and gendered differences are simultaneously produced and policed.

Beyond these two pieces, my co-author and I have endeavored to create an academic community around questions of the enmeshment of capitalism, racism, and state violence. This idea began when we received funding to organize an Early Career Scholar’s Workshop during the 2019 European International Studies Association Conference and continued when being selected to host a mini-conference on racial capitalism and global systems of colonial violence during the 2022 Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics General Conference.

Related publication:

“Colonial Lives of the Carceral Archipelago: Rethinking the Neoliberal Security State.” With Ida Danewid, Asher Goldstein, Matt Mahmoudi, Burak Cemal Tansel, and Lauren Wilcox. International Political Sociology. 15(3): 415-439. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/ips/olab013.

Completed Research Projects

The Representation of Migrants and Refugees

How do non-governmental organisations (NGOs) represent migrants and refugees? In the last few decades humanitarian organizations have been criticized for framing migrants as voiceless victims in need of rescue. Based on 24 interviews with staff members of US-based NGOs, the article that evolved out of this project shows that organizations have responded to these critiques by adopting a narrative that emphasizes individual resilience and ‘our shared humanity.’ The article then examines how these discourses are used to galvanize support and how they have been shaped by the culture and political economy of humanitarianism. Drawing on critical and post-colonial migration studies, it argues that while these strategies seemingly mark a break from previous criticisms, they still operate under the same meta-narrative: An understanding of worthiness predicated on individual deservingness. This not only silences the racial structures that affect migrants’ lives. It ultimately narrows the confines of who is considered a legitimate recipient of assistance. By embedding these discourses within the larger industry of helping, the article illustrates how these frames are shaped by the industry’s focus on individual action and individual donors that leads to a favoring of individual stories as well as by the ongoing colonial amnesia prevalent across the humanitarian sector.

Related publication:

“‘We try to Humanise their Stories’: Interrogating the Representation of Migrants and Refugees Through the Shift from ‘Poverty Porn’ to Humanisation and Resilience.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/03058298231161154.