Acknowledgments ix
1. Home Rule: The National Politics of Separation 1
2. The Imperial Government of Mobility and Stasis 36
3. The National Government of Mobility and Stasis 62
4. The Jealousy of Nations: Globalizing National Constraints on
Human Mobility 90
5. The Postcolonial New World Order and the Containment of
Decolonization 117
6. Developing the Postcolonial New World Order 142
7. Global Lockdown: Postcolonial Expansion of National Citizenship
and Immigration Controls 163
8. National Autochthonies and the Making of Postcolonial
National-Natives 205
9. Postseparation: Struggles for a Decolonized Commons
268
Notes 285
Bibliography 299
Index 347
Nandita Sharma is Professor of Sociology at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and author of Home Economics: Nationalism and the Making of ‘"Migrant Workers" in Canada.
“Nandita Sharma has taken on the most burning issues of our times
and written about them with clarity, grace, and power. She shows us
a path from an oppressive past to a radical, humane future based on
a ‘mobile politics of solidarity.’ This brilliant, timely book is a
must-read for scholars and activists alike.”
*Marcus Rediker, University of Pittsburgh*
“Home Rule is a bold, ambitious book that advances an original,
complex, and controversial argument about the social and political
production of binary oppositions and antagonisms between indigenous
‘Natives’ and ‘Migrants’. Bristling with important and exciting
ideas, it challenges us to interrogate some of the most pernicious
complacencies of contemporary political discourse, providing an
innovative, wide-ranging examination of the global politics of
autochthony and a far-reaching reconsideration of the postcolonial
world order.”
*The Borders of “Europe”: Autonomy of Migration, Tactics of
Bordering*
"Home Rule offers important arguments about how we understand the
nature of othering across post-imperial contexts, especially in the
face of global capitalism and continued faith in the nation state.
Sharma’s rich analysis reminds us that there is more work to be
done, particularly around alternative ways of understanding
nationhood and sovereignty as seen and experienced by those most
subject to discourses and practices of exclusion."
*Social History*
"Sharma’s Home Rule will spark many fruitful conversations among
scholars and graduate students interested in migration,
nationalism, and postcolonial thought and is a particularly strong
example of the way postcolonial ideas can provide a powerful
interpretive approach to timely issues of great sociological
concern."
*Social Forces*
"Aside from 2020's unforeseen circumstances, it is clear that Home
Rule deals with the pressing issues of today's world,
successfully historicizing the current, troubling characterization
of migrants as colonial invaders and carefully contextualizing the
intense disputes over national sovereignty in Israel-Palestine.… I
would whole heartedly recommend this book to anyone who wants to
understand more about the important history of migration or who
wants a comprehensive overview of how the structures of imperialism
have developed in today's postcolonial world."
*European Review of HIstory*
"Taken in the round this is a stimulating and thought-provoking
read, that seeks to challenge received perceptions and to
articulate a different way to understand the role of national
sovereignty within the changing global politics that structure our
understandings of citizenship and immigration."
*Ethnic and Racial Studies*
"With its length and sometimes a bit dense narrative structure, it
might feel overwhelming at the start but it is definitely worth
finishing. The breadth and wide range of examples is actually a
strength.…This book is definitely worth a read for students and
researchers interested in nation building and processes of othering
across post-imperial contexts."
*International Migration*
"A provocative critique of nation-state sovereignty . . . the book
should inspire deep thinking about what remains a central but
perhaps still too often underanalyzed."
*American Historical Review*
"Sharma’s profound critique of sovereignty as a mode of separation
rather than one of freedom, autonomy, and an authentic postcolonial
condition is an important intervention and re-assessment of where
we have arrived. . . . The kind of critique that Sharma offers in
Home Rule is one that unsettles how our political present has
unfolded and in doing so Sharma writes against and significantly
clarifies the limits of some political claims in our present
moment."
*Journal of World-Systems Research*
"Home Rule is a provocative book that challenges prevailing
conceptions of sovereignty at their core. Notions of belonging and
national liberation are out the door, jettisoned by detailed
accounts of the entanglements among imperialism, national
liberation, and anti-immigrant politics now. The argument is
expansive, the geographic and historical range daunting, the
research and scholarly literatures engaged incredible. Sovereignty
is dissected with exquisite skill."
*Journal of World Systems Research*
"I have never read a work like this. . . . Nandita Sharma has
delivered a masterpiece that further fuels the cries for global
justice."
*African Studies Review*
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