Introduction

What happens when migration takes place between sites defined by different types of ‘colonial difference’? This book asks this question in the context of Somali migration to Scotland, which it maps over a century of colonial relations, independence movements, and the reorganisation of the (post)colonial Somali and British states. Framing both Somalia and Scotland as sites of marginality in the matrices of colonial power, it tracks through a combination of archival material and contemporary testimonies the operation, development and divergence of (the) colonial(ity of) power in shaping Somali migration and citizenship experiences in Scotland. However, whilst the book has a grounded and localised focus, it makes the argument that Somali-Scottish migration cases present the urgent need for a holistic approach to the operation of coloniality, which not only emanates from the so-called ‘centre’ of Empire, but also at and between its edges.