Scholars of Excellence Workshop – States That Send: Migration Governance from an Alternative Perspective

This workshop brings the sending state to the centre of migration studies by examining how migration is governed, managed, and politicized across the Global South. While migration scholarship has historically privileged receiving states, border control, and integration regimes, this workshop shifts analytical attention to states that actively regulate departure, mediate labour mobility, engage diasporas, and govern citizens abroad. We therefore use the term ‘sending state’ instead of the more neutral ‘country of origin’ on purpose to signal the role of some countries of origin as active transnational participants in labour migration regimes. By foregrounding migration policies, institutions, and practices from and within the sending state, the workshop interrogates how Global South states exercise power across borders and how migration becomes a central modality of governance rather than a peripheral policy concern.

Drawing on comparative perspectives across regions, the discussion explores the political economy of labour export, the moral and legal claims embedded in transnational citizenship, and the tensions between care, control, and discipline in sending-state practices. Methodologically and theoretically, the workshop asks what changes when migration is analysed from the vantage point of departure rather than arrival and how does centring the sending state reshape core concepts in migration studies, including sovereignty, welfare, citizenship, and state responsibility. The Workshop aims to advance a more globally grounded migration scholarship that takes Global South state actors seriously as theorists, regulators, and brokers of mobility.

More specifically, the first panel examines how sending states in the Global South conceptualize, justify, and institutionalize emigration. Speakers will reflect on the historical emergence of emigration governance in different southern contexts (South Asia, South-East Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, North Africa, West Africa etc), the role of labour export in state development strategies, and the theoretical implications of treating departure as a site of state power. The second panel will focus on the practices and consequences of sending-state governance, including migrant protection regimes, diaspora engagement, transnational welfare provision, and mechanisms of surveillance and discipline. Discussion will explore how sending states negotiate responsibility, accountability, and legitimacy in transnational spaces.

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