Governing Migration in the Late Ottoman Empire

How do terms used to describe migration change over time? How do those changes reflect possibilities of inclusion and exclusion? Ella Fratantuono places the governance of migrants at the centre of Ottoman state-building across a 60-year period (1850-1910) to answer these questions. She traces the significance of the term muhacir (migrant) within Ottoman governance during this global era of mass migration, during which millions of migrants arrived in the empire, many fleeing from oppression, violence and war. Rather than adopting the familiar distinction between coerced and non-coerced migration, Fratanuono explores how officials’ use of muhacir captures changing approaches to administering migrants and the Ottoman population. By doing so, she places the Ottoman experience within a global history of migration management and sheds light on how six decades of governing migration contributed to the infrastructures and ideology essential to mass displacement in the empire’s last decade.

Ella Fratantuono is an associate professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, USA. Her research and teaching focus on the Ottoman Empire, the Modern Middle East, migration, and genocide. Her work has appeared in venues including the Journal of Genocide Research and Border Criminologies. Her research has been supported by the US Fulbright Commission, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the American Philosophical Society.