Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Do people have special rights in a place if they are one of the locals? The belief that they do is common worldwide. Yet, entitlement to place has little role in most accounts of migration politics. Instead, accounts of migration politics are a showdown between culture and economics, in-group identities and material incentives. Strangers and Settlers moves past that stand-off by considering domestic and international migration simultaneously. Being local is normative even within national and ethnic groups and when the material stakes of migration are low. Both domestic and international migration politics takes place within that pro-local status quo. Using information from censuses, public opinion, mobility laws, and political parties, Strangers and Settlers describes a world of nested hierarchies of locals, offering new insights about migration politics. How mobile has the world become since the 1950s? How do migrants and minorities think about migration policy? What is the political economy of mobility control and why is immigration more regulated domestic migration? What do anti-migration activists ask for if they cannot have a sealed national border? The answers to these questions start with the fact that it’s a local’s world.</jats:p>