Introduction: Theorizing local migration law and governance

Serving as an introduction to the volume, this chapter begins by setting out some of the recent dynamics in migration governance, including devolution, recentralization and the increasingly proactive stance taken by local authorities in this domain. This, in turn, brought about a “local turn” in migration scholarship. Although generally transdisciplinary and integrative of various methodologies including quantitative, historical, and ethnographic studies, scholarship on the “local turn” has failed to consider legal perspectives where it rescales analyses of migrant reception and inclusion away from the state. This chapter interrogates the relegation of the law to mere context or epiphenomenon and discusses the analytical implications of this curious demotion of a central dimension of governance. In the second instance, this contribution introduces the three themes of this volume as potential launchpads for the further theorization of migration governance based on analyses of legal debates, processes and principles. For this purpose, it offers a brief account of the already existing relevant literature that can inform empirical, conceptual and normative engagements with law as migration governance. The overview of the three themes is, in each case, complemented by a short description of the contribution that the various chapters make to their discussion.