The state we’re in: critical questions in migration scholarship?

In his provocative book, Adrian Favell advocates a grand normative theory for migration scholarship. He aims to debunk research focussing on “integration” and the liberal nation-state. He constructs a lumpen “mainstream” straw man of scholarship that remains wedded to an outdated container model of the nation-state–a feature he argues is effectively apologist for colonialism and empire. Against this, he advocates a theory of society based on postnational borderless, human rights and free movement, that draws its conviction from decolonizing, critical race perspectives on the liberal nation-state and global (racial) inequalities. In my view, the historical evolution of knowledge production on “integration” perspectives is more engaged, diverse, critical, imaginative and socially relevant than this binary master-narrative critique could present. Ultimately, I remain to be convinced whether his prognosis offers a viable way forward, as a scholarly statement, or for migrants in the social world. Readers should decide for themselves.