What is 'migration' and why unbox it?

Host Bridget Anderson asks guests Nandita Sharma and Tim Cole what they think of when they hear the word ‘migration’. Humans have always moved so when and why does moving become described as ‘migrating’? What might we miss if we just accept the term ‘migration’ without questioning it? In this lively conversation, taking us across different histories, landscapes, species and state systems, Bridget, Nandita and Tim take on the challenge of unboxing migration and show why this matters for making a more just world.

Bios:

Bridget Anderson is Director of Migration Mobilities Bristol and Professor of Migration, Mobilities and Citizenship at the University of Bristol. She is the author of Us and Them: The Dangerous Politics of Immigration Controls (Oxford University Press, 2013).

Nandita Sharma is Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She is an activist scholar whose research is shaped by the social movements she is involved in. Nandita was a Bristol Benjamin Meaker Distinguished Visiting Professor with MMB in 2022.

Tim Cole is Professor of Social History at the University of Bristol. His research ranges across social, landscape and environmental histories with a focus on the Holocaust.

Further links for this episode:

Nandita Sharma’s book Home Rule: National Sovereignty and the Separation of Natives and Migrants (Duke University Press, 2020).

MMB’s Race, Nation and Migration blog series.

‘Invasive Others: Plants? People? Pathogens?’ – an interview with Miriam Ticktin on MMB Insights and Sounds.

The (de)Bordering plot at the University of Bristol.

Credits:

Produced by Migration Mobilities Bristol

Edited by Melissa FitzGerald – X @Melissafitzg

Music by Olly Shaw – ollyshawmusic.com

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