New Destinations of Empire - (Geographies of Justice and Social Transformation) by Emily Mitchell-Eaton

About the Book

"In 1986, the Compact of Free Association marked the formal end of U.S. colonialism in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, while simultaneously re-entrenching imperial power dynamics between the two countries. The U.S.-RMI Compact at once enshrined exclusive U.S. military access to the islands and established the right of 'visa-free' migration to the U.S. for Marshallese citizens, creating a Marshallese diaspora whose largest population resettled in the seemingly unlikely destination of Springdale, Arkansas. An 'all-white town' by design for much of the 20th century, Springdale has been remade by Marshallese as well as Latinx immigration, having nearly quadrupled in size since 1980. Through ethnographic, policy-based, and archival research in Guêahan, Saipan, Hawai'i, Arkansas, and Washington, D.C., New Destinations of Empire tells the story of these place-based transformations, revealing how U.S. empire both enables and constrains mobility for its subjects, shaping migrants' experiences of racialization, citizenship, and belonging in new destinations of empire. In examining two spatial processes-imperialism and migration-together, Mitchell-Eaton reveals connections and flows between presumably distant, 'remote' sites like Arkansas and the Marshall Islands, showing them to be central to the U.S.'s most urgent political issues: immigration, racial justice, militarization, and decolonization"--

Book Synopsis

In 1986 the Compact of Free Association marked the formal end of U.S. colonialism in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, while simultaneously re-entrenching imperial power dynamics between the two countries. The U.S.-RMI Compact at once enshrined exclusive U.S. military access to the islands and established the right of "visa-free" migration to the United States for Marshallese citizens, leading to a Marshallese diaspora whose largest population resettled in the seemingly unlikely destination of Springdale, Arkansas.

An "all-white town" by design for much of the twentieth century, Springdale, having nearly quadrupled in population since 1980, has been remade by Marshallese as well as Latinx immigration. Through ethnographic, policy-based, and archival research in Guåhan, Saipan, Hawai'i, Arkansas, and Washington, D.C., New Destinations of Empire tells the story of these place-based transformations, revealing how U.S. empire both causes and constrains mobility for its subjects, shaping migrants' experiences of racialization, citizenship, and belonging in new destinations of empire.

In examining two spatial processes--imperialism and migration--together, Emily Mitchell-Eaton reveals connections and flows between presumably distant, "remote" sites like Arkansas and the Marshall Islands, showing them to be central to the United States' most urgent political issues: immigration, racial justice, militarization, and decolonization.

Review Quotes

A deeply researched, well-written, and solidly structured book, New Destinations of Empire offers a multi-scalar geographic analysis of the ways in which empire produces the very places to which people migrate.--Perla M. Guerrero "author of Nuevo South: Latinas/os, Asians, and the Remaking of Place"

Mitchell-Eaton sheds new light on the critically important issues of migration, citizenship, and bordering by bringing forward and interrogating the notion of imperial citizenship--what it is, how it impacts people, how state actors enact it, and how people experience it. This new perspective in New Destinations of Empire makes important contributions not only to the robust scholarly conversation within the fields of geography, sociology, and migration studies but also to the public and political conversations and policy-making in regard to migration that are so vexing in the world today.--Mona Domosh "author of Disturbing Development in the Jim Crow South"

About the Author

Emily Mitchell-Eaton is assistant professor in geography at Colgate University. Her previous writing has been published in numerous scholarly journals.