Table of Contents

1. The Migrant/Refugee Binary
2. Uneven Sovereignties
3. Academic Study
4. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
5. The Global South
6. Arrivals in Europe
7. American Public Discourse
8. Beyond Binary Thinking

About the Author

Rebecca Hamlin is Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the author of Let Me Be a Refugee (2014).

Reviews

"Crossing is a theoretically rich, historically informed, and empirically sweeping corrective to misleading narratives about forced versus voluntary migration and the legal realities they generate. Rebecca Hamlin excavates the deep harms done by imposing distorting categories on the diverse realities of migrant lives and shows us how better language and laws will benefit everyone."-Elizabeth F. Cohen, Syracuse University
"A remarkable book. Hamlin applies deep insight and meticulous research to explore the expedient but misleading wisdom that sharply distinguishes refugees from migrants. This is essential reading for anyone eager for a pathbreaking and surely influential perspective on migration in the twenty-first century."-Hiroshi Motomura, UCLA School of Law
"Hamlin's book indeed wakes interest for these aspects: what is that space called 'beyond binaries' like and how are we to navigate it without use of other concepts that make sense in relation to their origin?"-Aina Backman, Anthropology Book Forum
"In this book, Rebecca Hamlin has skillfully brought into view the manifold consequences of the persistent migrant/refugee binary on policy, advocacy, and scholarship. Illuminating both its origins and effects, and offering impulses for challenging it, Crossing is set to become a key point of reference for those seeking to deconstruct the problematic binary 'migrant/refugee' logic - and potentially paves the way for a deconstruction of the logic of the border itself."-Silvester Schlebrugge, Ethnic and Racial Studies