AMIS Public Lecture: Thomas Gammeltoft Hansen: Migration Industries

Migration has become business, big business. Over the last few decades a host of new business opportunities have emerged that capitalize both on the migrants’ desires to migrate and the struggle by governments to manage migration. From the rapid growth of specialized transportation and labour immigration companies, to multinational companies managing detention centres or establishing border security, to the organized criminal networks profiting from human smuggling and trafficking, we are currently witnessing a growing commercialization of international migration.

Today it is almost impossible to speak of migration without also speaking of the migration industry. Yet, acknowledging the role the migration industry plays prompts a number of questions that have so far received only limited attention among scholars and policy makers. The presentation by Thomas Gammeltoft Hansen offers new concepts and theory for the study of international migration by taking these multifaceted processes and actors into account.