Abstract. This article sheds new light on the histo­rical roots of contem­po­rary migra­tion poli­tics by intro­du­cing the notion of the colo­nial migra­tion state. Brin­ging toge­ther research on colo­nial popu­la­tion poli­tics and the poli­tical science lite­ra­ture on the ‘migra­tion state,’ we compare modes of migra­tion mana­ge­ment in three distinct cases of colo­nia­lism – settler colo­nia­lism in Algeria, protec­to­rate colo­nia­lism in Egypt, and corpo­rate colo­nia­lism in Saudi Arabia. We show that migra­tion mana­ge­ment in these three colo­nial spaces operated accor­ding to similar hierar­chi­cally-struc­tured logics of economic extrac­tion and legal-poli­tical diffe­ren­tia­tion. At the same time, these produced different local migra­tion regimes based on varia­tions in moda­li­ties of colo­nial rule, impe­rial economic inter­ests, and pre-exis­ting local insti­tu­tions. Through a careful empi­rical explo­ra­tion of migra­tion and mobi­lity prac­tices in colo­nial periphe­ries, we contri­bute both to the global history of colo­nia­lism and empires, and to more recent work that rethinks the ‘migra­tion state’ concept and its appli­ca­tion to contexts across the Global South. We draw atten­tion to the rela­tion­ship between histo­rical and contem­po­rary forms of hierar­chi­cally struc­tured regimes of mobi­lity mana­ge­ment, inclu­ding the endu­ring impor­tance of racial and reli­gious cate­go­ries as signi­fi­cant markers of diffe­ren­tia­tion in global migra­tion, and suggest ways in which contem­po­rary mobi­lity regimes inter­sect with larger struc­tures of economic extrac­tion and socio-legal differentiation.

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