Coercive Geographies Historicizing Mobility, Labor and Confinement (Studies in Critical Social Sciences, 178)

Responding to the deteriorating situation of migrants today and the complex assemblages of the geographies they navigate, Coercive Geographies examines historical and contemporary forms of coercion and constraint exercised by a wide range of actors in diverse settings. It links the question of spatial confines to that of labor. This fraught nexus of mobility and work seems self-evidently relevant to explore. Coercive Geographies is our attempt to bring together space, precarity, labor coercion and mobility in an analytical lens. Precarity emerges in particular geographical and historical contexts, which are decisive for how it is shaped. The book analyzes coercive geographies as localized and spatialized intersections between labor regulations and migration policies, which become detrimental to existing mobility frameworks.

Contributors include: Irina Aguiari, Abdulkadir Osman Farah, Leandros Fischer, Konstantinos Floros, Johan Heinsen, Martin Bak Jørgensen, Martin Ottovay Jørgensen, Apostolos Kapsalis, Karin Krifors, Sven Van Melkebeke, Susi Meret, and Vasileios Spyridon Vlassis.

Johan Heinsen is Associate Professor at the research group Conflict, Coercion and Authority in History (CCA) at the Department of Politics and Society, Aalborg University. He works on labor coercion and punishment across the early modern world. He is vice-chair of the COST-action Worlds of Related Coercions in Work.

Martin Bak Jørgensen is Associate Professor at the Department for Culture and Learning, Aalborg University, Denmark. He works within sociology and political geography. He has published Solidarity and the ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Europe (Palgrave, 2019) with Óscar García Agustín.

Martin Ottovay Jørgensen, Ph.D. in International History. His research explores how international peacekeeping within the context of an international system significantly influenced by multiple imperial regimes is linked to inequality and insecurity.