Managing Mobility
The British Imperial State and Global Migration, 1840–1860

Examines the ideological framework behind the interventions of the British imperial state in the first age of mass migration (1840–1860).

Philip Harling (Author)

9781108833929, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 19 December 2024

296 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.1 cm, 0.57 kg

'… Managing Mobility is an impeccably researched and finely crafted study that breaks new ground in our understanding of a crucial period in the making of global modernity. It convincingly ties the presumptively “spontaneous” departures of millions of midcentury migrants to the (at once) coercive and incentivizing practices of the imperial state. In identifying common patterns in a highly dispersed human drama, Harling has made a compelling case for the role of coherent ideology and overarching design - even if room for argument remains about how systematically, or indeed deliberately, these larger objectives were pursued.' Stuart Ward, The American Historical Review

Between 1840 and 1860 the British Empire expanded rapidly in scale, with rampant annexation of territory and ruthless suppression of rebellion. These decades also witnessed an unprecedented movement of people across the Empire and around the world, with over 2.6 million emigrants leaving Britain in the 1850s alone. Managing Mobility examines how the British imperial state facilitated the mass migration of its impoverished subjects as labor assets, shipped across vast expanses of ocean to contribute to the economy of the Empire. Philip Harling analyzes the ideological framework which underpinned these interventions and discusses the journeys taken by emigrants across four continents, considering the varied outcomes of these significant projects of social engineering. In doing so, this study demonstrates how the British imperial state harnessed migration to ensure and maintain a racialised global economic order in the decades after Emancipation.

Introduction
1. 'An awful Remedy': Irish Famine migration and Laissez-Faire theodicy, 1846–1853
2. 'A long Train of moral Evils': the end of convict transportation and the rise of assisted emigration to Australia, c. 1837–1853
3. 'The most perfect skeletons I ever saw': 'liberated' African immigration and the free trade crisis in the British Caribbean, 1838–50
4. 'A stranger to the facts will hardly credit the Negligence': Indian indentured immigration to the British Caribbean I. 1838–52
5. 'Complaints are still made of inadequate clothing': administrative muddle, Indian casualties, and the fortunes of William Humphreys
6. 'A new Epoch in the History of the experiment': Indian indentured immigration to the British Caribbean II. 1852–70
Conclusion: Migration, the imperial State, and the British Empire in 1860
Index.

Subject Areas: British & Irish history [HBJD1]