This book is a study of the transformations in Punjab created by biotechnological revolutions, economic restructuring, persistent migrations, and political upheaval in the late 20th century. The sacred centre at Amritsar, the transnational settlement of Southall and a Doaba village form the terrain for this — three sites that can seen as metonymic spaces of identity that transcend geographic boundaries, and form the structure of this book. Relations between the rural, the sacred and the transnational, fostered through migration, marriage and material exchange, existed well before 1984. After 1984, however, and through the violent decades of the militancy period, these three locations became connected via the circulation of political ideologies, violent deaths, financial aid, a sense of disaffection, and the migration of men. Analysis of the linkages between transnational migration and religious revival is a key theme of this study. Conversely, the enhanced engagements of the diaspora with homeland politics became a source of support and created sanctuary spaces for political asylum seekers and transnational migrant labour. Re-analysing existing material and drawing on fieldwork-based interviews, as well as local history archives, the book presents a different framework to analyse the politics and social history of Punjab.

This book explores the links between militancy and migration, two movements that transformed the socio-political landscape of late 20th-century Punjab. Re-analysing existing writings and drawing on fieldwork and local history archives, it presents a different framework to analyse the politics and social history of Punjab.

The question of migration has come to dominate the news agenda in many countries, but what does the word ‘migrant’ really mean today and how should we respond to those who are labelled ‘migrants’? In this short book Alain Badiou argues that our way of thinking about migration should be governed both by an ethical duty to welcome the migrant in the name of hospitality and also by the urgent need to put an end to the global capitalist oligarchy that has produced the migrant as a figure of contemporary crisis. For the ‘migrant,’ argues Badiou, is in fact a nomadic proletarian. Today, our homeland is the world, and any meaningful politics must include those who come to us and who represent the universal nomadic proletariat. Writing with the rigor, clarity, and polemical flair that have made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers, and drawing on a rich body of material including contemporary poetry and the words of an anonymous migrant, Badiou develops a powerful riposte to those who have stoked the fear of migrants and exploited the migration question for political ends.

Being part of a violent community in revolt can be addictive--it can be fun. This book offers a fascinating inside look at present-day political violence in Pakistan through a historical ethnography of the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM), one of the most remarkable and successful religious nationalist movements in postcolonial South Asia. The MQM has mobilized much of the "migrant" (Muhajir) population in Karachi and other urban centers in southern Pakistan and has fomented large-scale ethnic-religious violence. Oskar Verkaaik argues that urban youth see it as an irresistible opportunity for "fun." Drawing on both anthropological fieldwork, including participatory observation among political militants, and historical analyses of state formation, nation-building, and the ethnicization of Islam since 1947, he provides an absorbing and important contribution to theoretical debates about political--religious and nationalist--violence. Migrants and Militants brings together two perspectives on political violence. Recent studies on ethnic cleansing, genocide, terrorism, and religious violence have emphasized processes of identification and purification. Verkaaik combines these insights with a focus on urban youth culture, in which masculinity, physicality, and the performance of violence are key values. He shows that only through fun and absurdity can a nascent movement transgress the dominant discourse to come of its own. Using these observations, he considers violence as a ludic practice, violence as "martyrdom" and sacrifice, and violence as "terrorism" and resistance.

In recent years the borders of Europe have been perceived as being besieged by a staggering refugee and migration crisis. The contributors to The Borders of "Europe" see this crisis less as an incursion into Europe by external conflicts than as the result of migrants exercising their freedom of movement. Addressing the new technologies and technical forms European states use to curb, control, and constrain what contributors to the volume call the autonomy of migration, this book shows how the continent's amorphous borders present a premier site for the enactment and disputation of the very idea of Europe. They also outline how from Istanbul to London, Sweden to Mali, and Tunisia to Latvia, migrants are finding ways to subvert visa policies and asylum procedures while negotiating increasingly militarized and surveilled borders. Situating the migration crisis within a global frame and attending to migrant and refugee supporters as well as those who stoke nativist fears, this timely volume demonstrates how the enforcement of Europe’s borders is an important element of the worldwide regulation of human mobility. Contributors. Ruben Andersson, Nicholas De Genova, Dace Dzenovska, Evelina Gambino, Glenda Garelli, Charles Heller, Clara Lecadet, Souad Osseiran, Lorenzo Pezzani, Fiorenza Picozza, Stephan Scheel, Maurice Stierl, Laia Soto Bermant, Martina Tazzioli

An urgent and provocative account of the modern ‘militant’, a transformative figure at the front line of emancipatory politics. Around the world, recent events have seen the creation of a radical phalanx comprising students, the young, workers and immigrants. It is Badiou’s contention that the politics of such militants should condition the tasks of philosophy, even as philosophy clarifies the truth of our political condition. To resolve the conflicts between politics, philosophy and democracy, Badiou argues for a resurgent communism – returning to the original call for universal emancipation and organizing for militant struggle.

At first glance, the U.S. decision to escalate the war in Vietnam in the mid-1960s, China's position on North Korea's nuclear program in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the EU resolution to lift what remained of the arms embargo against Libya in the mid-2000s would appear to share little in common. Yet each of these seemingly unconnected and far-reaching foreign policy decisions resulted at least in part from the exercise of a unique kind of coercion, one predicated on the intentional creation, manipulation, and exploitation of real or threatened mass population movements. In Weapons of Mass Migration, Kelly M. Greenhill offers the first systematic examination of this widely deployed but largely unrecognized instrument of state influence. She shows both how often this unorthodox brand of coercion has been attempted (more than fifty times in the last half century) and how successful it has been (well over half the time). She also tackles the questions of who employs this policy tool, to what ends, and how and why it ever works. Coercers aim to affect target states' behavior by exploiting the existence of competing political interests and groups, Greenhill argues, and by manipulating the costs or risks imposed on target state populations. This "coercion by punishment" strategy can be effected in two ways: the first relies on straightforward threats to overwhelm a target's capacity to accommodate a refugee or migrant influx; the second, on a kind of norms-enhanced political blackmail that exploits the existence of legal and normative commitments to those fleeing violence, persecution, or privation. The theory is further illustrated and tested in a variety of case studies from Europe, East Asia, and North America. To help potential targets better respond to—and protect themselves against—this kind of unconventional predation, Weapons of Mass Migration also offers practicable policy recommendations for scholars, government officials, and anyone concerned about the true victims of this kind of coercion—the displaced themselves.

Militant Islam provides a sociological framework for understanding the rise and character of recent Islamic militancy. It takes a systematic approach to the phenomenon and includes analysis of cases from around the world, comparisons with militancy in other religions, and their causes and consequences. The sociological concepts and theories examined in the book include those associated with social closure, social movements, nationalism, risk, fear and ‘de-civilising’. These are applied within three main themes; characteristics of militant Islam, multi-layered causes and the consequences of militancy, in particular Western reactions within the ‘war on terror’. Interrelationships between religious and secular behaviour, ‘terrorism’ and ‘counter-terrorism’, popular support and opposition are explored. Through the examination of examples from across Muslim societies and communities, the analysis challenges the popular tendency to concentrate upon ‘al-Qa’ida’ and the Middle East. This book will be of interest to students of Sociology, Political Science and International Relations, in particular those taking courses on Islam, religion, terrorism, political violence and related regional studies.

This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society, explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in U.S. immigration policy—a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race, and state authority in the twentieth century. Mae Ngai offers a close reading of the legal regime of restriction that commenced in the 1920s—its statutory architecture, judicial genealogies, administrative enforcement, differential treatment of European and non-European migrants, and long-term effects. She shows that immigration restriction, particularly national-origin and numerical quotas, remapped America both by creating new categories of racial difference and by emphasizing as never before the nation's contiguous land borders and their patrol. Some images inside the book are unavailable due to digital copyright restrictions.

Border Capitalism, Disrupted -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Map -- Introduction -- 1. Producing the Border -- 2. Capitalist Recuperation -- 3. Mobility Struggles -- 4. Coercive Policing -- 5. Class Recomposition -- 6. Organizing under Flexibilization -- Conclusion -- Postscript -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z