Progressive Geographies

Chamayou’s Drone Theory reviewed at the Society and Space open site.

• Johannes Angermuller, Why There Is No Poststructuralism in France – now out with Bloomsbury (and free download of introduction)
• Thomas Nail, The Figure of the Migrant – now published from Stanford University Press (and sample to download)
• Foucault on the State in 1975 – a previously untranslated comment
• My sabbatical rules for writing
• Foucault and the Politics of Rights (2015)
• Where to start with reading Henri Lefebvre?
• Where to start with reading Peter Sloterdijk?
• Foucault’s Last Decade and Foucault: The Birth of Power
• ‘Before the Punitive Society: The Inquiry of Théories et institutions pénales’ – audio recording of talk to Time Served: Discipline and Punish Forty Years On conference
• ‘The Territories and Majesty of King John’ – talk to University of Warwick’s ‘Sidelights on Shakespeare’ seminar series, 3 November 2015

Thomas Nail, The Figure of the Migrant – is now published from Stanford University Press. I provide one of the endorsements. Twenty pages are available to download at academia.edu

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.

“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 with one of the world’s most pressing contemporary issues.”

—Stuart Elden, University of Warwick

“Hardly a day goes by without some reference in the media to the “problem” of migration. In offering a theoretical account of the figure of the migrant throughout history, Thomas Nail’s book thus performs an important service for the interdisciplinary study of one of the most important subjects of our century. Carefully argued, well informed, hugely ambitious, and analytically precise, it will become a standard reference for years to come.”

—Tim Cresswell, Northeastern University