Abstract

This dissertation explores questions of migration justice that intersect with issues in political philosophy, One thing that unites the essays included here is a focus on theory-to-world fit. I aim to theorize migration in all its messy complexity. To do so, I draw on the work of social scientists, especially anthropologists, sociologists, and economists. I also take a migrant-first approach, centering migrant testimony and ethnographic accounts of migration practices. My goal is to produce theory grounded in the material lives of migrants, to arrive at more nuanced models of migration practice, and the institutions that govern migration. When we introduce greater complexity into our models, we often find that the normative landscape looks very different than we first supposed. Three essays in this research program make up my dissertation: Chapter 1 What is Valuable about Migration? This paper presents an account of what is characteristically valuable about economic migration. I argue that the value of migration is in its capacity to be agency-enhancing in respect to the material environment for both communities and individual migrants. Chapter 2 When We Decide: Plural Agency, Voluntariness, and Migrant Choice: This essay develops an account of when migration is voluntary. I point out that the decision to migrate is often made by groups, not individuals, and argue that these groups are often best understood as plural agents. I offer a definition of voluntariness in migration apt to cases of singular and plural agency. Chapter 3 Persecution in the Context of Asylum: Beyond State Violence: This essay reconstructs the concept of persecution in the context of asylum. Received accounts of persecution in the context of asylum define it as demonstrative of a state failure. I argue that these accounts rest on misconceptions about the state, and that they introduce foreign policy considerations that tend to bias asylum rulings. I contend that persecution in the context of asylum is better understood as serious status-based harm.