Governing Migration in the Late Ottoman Empire

by Ella Fratantuono

How do terms used to describe migration change over time? How do those changes reflect possibilities of inclusion and exclusion? Ella Fratantuono places the governance of migrants at the centre of Ottoman state-building across a 60-year period (1850–1910) to answer these questions. She traces the significance of the term muhacir (migrant) within Ottoman governance during this global era of mass migration, during which millions of migrants arrived in the empire, many fleeing from oppression, violence and war. Rather than adopting the familiar distinction between coerced and non-coerced migration, Fratanuono explores how officials’ use of muhacir captures changing approaches to administering migrants and the Ottoman population. By doing so, she places the Ottoman experience within a global history of migration management and sheds light on how six decades of governing migration contributed to the infrastructures and ideology essential to mass displacement in the empire’s last decade.

288 pages, Hardcover

Published April 30, 2024

Reviews

[martyn benny]

Governing Migration in the Late Ottoman Empire is an illuminating and meticulously researched study that offers fresh insight into one of the most consequential aspects of the late Ottoman period. Ella Fratantuono skillfully demonstrates that migration was not merely a demographic phenomenon but a defining force that shaped governance, identity, administration, and state-building during a time of profound transformation.

One of the book's greatest strengths is its nuanced examination of migration as both a challenge and an opportunity for the Ottoman state. Rather than presenting migration solely as a response to conflict or political upheaval, Fratantuono reveals the complex ways in which officials developed policies to regulate movement, integrate populations, manage borders, and respond to changing geopolitical realities.

The scholarship is both rigorous and highly engaging. Drawing upon an impressive range of archival sources, the author reconstructs the administrative processes and political decisions that influenced the lives of migrants while placing them within the broader context of imperial reform, modernization, and international diplomacy. The result is a study that speaks to historians of the Ottoman Empire while also contributing to contemporary discussions surrounding migration and state governance.

I particularly appreciated the book's interdisciplinary perspective. By bringing together political history, social history, legal frameworks, and migration studies, Fratantuono offers readers a richer understanding of how population movement shaped both institutions and everyday life. The work illustrates that migration has long been central to questions of sovereignty, citizenship, and imperial administration.

Perhaps most importantly, the book reminds readers that many of today's conversations surrounding migration, borders, and state policy have deep historical roots. By exploring these issues within the Ottoman context, Fratantuono provides valuable historical perspective that resonates well beyond the period under study.

An outstanding contribution to Ottoman studies, migration history, and the broader understanding of how states respond to human mobility during periods of political change.

[Elena Jones]

Ella Fratantuono’s Governing Migration in the Late Ottoman Empire is a brilliant, deeply researched contribution to Ottoman historiography and migration studies. Spanning 288 pages, this volume provides a crucial re-examination of how the late Ottoman state adapted its administrative apparatus, legal frameworks, and local governance to manage massive waves of incoming refugees, displaced populations, and internal migrants during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

What sets Fratantuono’s work apart is her focus on governance as an evolving, negotiated process rather than merely a top-down bureaucratic directive. By analyzing refugee resettlement, land distribution, and civic integration, she demonstrates how managing human mobility was central to late Ottoman efforts at state modernization and political centralization. It is an indispensable resource for scholars of Ottoman history, Middle Eastern studies, migration and refugee policy, and university research libraries.