Migration and its Enemies: Global Capital, Migrant Labour and the Nation-state

Can politicians effectively control national borders even if they wish to do so? How do politically powerless migrants relate to more privileged migrants and to national citizens? Is it possible for capital to move to labour rather than vice versa? In this book Robin Cohen shows how the preferences, interests and actions of the three major social actors in international migration policy – global capital, migrant labour and national politicians – intersect and often contradict each other. Cohen addresses these vital questions in a wide-ranging, lucid and accessible account of the historical origins and contemporary dynamics of global migration. Contents: Introduction; Unfree labourers and modern capitalism; The proletariat at the gates: migrant and non-citizen labour, 1850–2000; Shaping the nation, excluding the Other: the deportation of migrants from Britain; Constructing the alien: seven theories of social exclusion; Trade, aid and migration; Citizens, denizens and helots: the politics of international migration flows after 1945; Migration and the new international/transnational division of labour; Globalization, international migration and everyday cosmopolitanism; The free movement of money and people: debates before and after '9/11'; Index.