The Figure of the Migrant

By: Thomas Nail

Narrated by: Doug McDonald

This book offers a much-needed new political theory of an old phenomenon. The last decade alone has marked the highest number of migrations in recorded history. Constrained by environmental, economic, and political instability, scores of people are on the move. But other sorts of changes - from global tourism to undocumented labor - have led to the fact that to some extent, we are all becoming migrants. The migrant has become the political figure of our time.

Rather than viewing migration as the exception to the rule of political fixity and citizenship, Thomas Nail reinterprets the history of political power from the perspective of the movement that defines the migrant in the first place. Applying his "kinopolitics" to several major historical conditions (territorial, political, juridical, and economic) and figures of migration (the nomad, the barbarian, the vagabond, and the proletariat), he provides fresh tools for the analysis of contemporary migration.

The book is published by Stanford University Press.

©2015 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University (P)2018 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"Nail's book is a novel approach to history and political theory." (CHOICE)

"In this powerful book, Thomas Nail forces us to think migration from the perspective of movement and so builds both a theoretical argument and a political intervention. A bold and provocative engagement..." (Stuart Elden, University of Warwick)

"Carefully argued, well informed, hugely ambitious, and analytically precise, it will become a standard reference for years to come." (Tim Cresswell, Northeastern University)