Territorial Inclusion and Its Boundaries

Abstract

Migration, unlike mere movement, involves crossing territorial boundaries.¹ Without territorial boundaries, people would not migrate but rather move around. To acknowledge this is to acknowledge that migration and territory must be theorized together. This may seem obvious, but in fact runs counter to the standard approach in the social sciences (cf. Scholte, 2005: 65). Even contemporary political theorists almost always begin with the idea of states as units with legitimate territorial dimensions, proceeding more or less immediately to questions about whether and, if so, how exclusion can be justified. Lurking behind this approach, however, is the presumption that territorial states are ontologically prior to migration. Put bluntly, first there is the idea of societies as units coterminous with the borders of actually existing states, and then there is the question of how migrants adapt to the receiving society. But there is nothing sacrosanct about this ‘container view’ of legal inclusion. In principle, migration and territoriality can be disjointed (cf. Favell, 2007: 271). One could, for instance, imagine a world in which the act of crossing territorial borders did not turn people into immigrants or asylum seekers. Migration would then be tantamount to movement. But is such a world morally preferable to one in which membership is still predominantly defined in territorial terms?