Controlling, classifying and selecting mobile populations in the era of neoliberalism

 In a world of massive inequalities between nations, and where citizenship at birth is the biggest determining factor of anyone's life chances, migration and international mobility are often seen as dramatic mechanisms of change. Yet strict borders and hierarchies between nations persist. The European Research Council funded MIGMOBS project investigates how and why global inequalities are reproduced through the shifting classification of mobile populations. Building a database with studies across 22 sending and receiving countries, it charts how nations have preserved power through the era of neoliberalism by selectively opening and closing channels of mobility: making immigration and asylum the obsessive target of sovereign control, while rendering invisible and fluid the mass mobilities of tourism, students, business and commuter travel. More information

PI, Professor Adrian Favell (migmobs@ucc.ie)