Geography Compass 9/8 (2015): 432–444, 10.1111/gec3.12226 Postcolonial Approaches to Migration in Asia: Reflections and Projections Sin Yee Koh * Institute of Asian Studies, Universiti Brunei Darussalam Abstract This article argues that postcolonial approaches to migration in Asia are relevant and useful in this age of unprecedented migration for two important reasons. Firstly, such approaches enable the interrogation of fundamental migration-related concepts such as citizenship, race and ethnicity, diaspora, indigeneity and development. This critically questions the need for these categories of difference which have been augmented and exacerbated by migration, the nation-state and its bordering strategies. Secondly, such approaches shed light on fundamental issues of inequality, through which migration occurs as a response to differential access to opportunities and resources. By tracing how and why migration occurs in specific locations through a postcolonial lens, we can then map out the underlying power inequalities and discover possibilities for agency and social change. Introduction Postcolonialism has been recently reinvigorated as a useful approach to advance existing migration research (McIlwaine 2008; Mains et al. 2013; Nair 2013). 1 Drawing on a rich foundation in postcolonial theory and postcolonial studies, postcolonial approaches to migration highlight the continued salience of colonial-institutionalised knowledge, structures and practices that continue to circumscribe migration patterns and experiences for people in and/or from former colonies. These knowledge, structures and practices often manifest themselves as “categories of difference” (Neely and Samura 2011, 1940) in social, cultural, economic and political spheres (e.g. education, the labour market, land ownership and citizenship rights) operating at different scales. These include the local, national, regional, international and even “planetary” (Sidaway et al. 2014) scales. Postcolonial approaches to migration are inherently political and ethical, as they show how “here” and “there” (i.e. the host and sending contexts) and “past” and “present” (i.e. the colonial period and the post-colonial 2 period) are embodied in and borne by the figure of the migrant. Postcolonial migration scholars show this by paying attention to historical legacies and by giving voice to marginal and bottom-up perspectives. This offers alternative viewpoints to the same migration phenomenon by not privileging official and formal accounts by the authorities (e.g. national governments and international organisations), or abstracted academic theories which may have little relevance to individual lives. As Yeoh (2003) highlighted, in order to be a truly transformative scholarship, postcolonialism must be examined through material forms, places, spaces and experiences. Existing empirical works in this renewed postcolonial migration scholarship have focused on Western expatriates (Fechter and Walsh 2010; Wang et al. 2014), ethnic minority migrants (Shin 2010; Trovão 2012; Sharpe 2014), medical professionals (Raghuram 2009) and international student migrants (Madge et al. 2009) in selected geographical locations. 3 Notably, these works have thus far focused on the perspectives of receiving countries which are often former colonial states, such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Japan (e.g. Bosma © 2015 The Author(s) Geography Compass © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd