“Nandita Sharma has taken on the most burning issues of our times and written about them with clarity, grace, and power. She shows us a path from an oppressive past to a radical, humane future based on a ‘mobile politics of solidarity.’ This brilliant, timely book is a must-read for scholars and activists alike.” - Marcus Rediker, University of Pittsburgh
“Home Rule is a bold, ambitious book that advances an original, complex, and controversial argument about the social and political production of binary oppositions and antagonisms between indigenous ‘Natives’ and ‘Migrants’. Bristling with important and exciting ideas, it challenges us to interrogate some of the most pernicious complacencies of contemporary political discourse, providing an innovative, wide-ranging examination of the global politics of autochthony and a far-reaching reconsideration of the postcolonial world order.” - Nicholas De Genova, editor of The Borders of “Europe”: Autonomy of Migration, Tactics of Bordering
"Home Rule presents a challenge to critical literature on settler colonialism which perhaps too often allows claims to indigeneity to go unquestioned. ... In spite of the painful histories in Home Rule, Sharma maintains optimism. Instead of repeating the errors of the past, reinforcing the divisions and hierarchies of state citizenship and border regimes, Sharma proposes that we study, learn, and do better for the next political transformation." - Mat Cusick, Public Seminar
"Home Rule offers important arguments about how we understand the nature of othering across post-imperial contexts, especially in the face of global capitalism and continued faith in the nation state. Sharma’s rich analysis reminds us that there is more work to be done, particularly around alternative ways of understanding nationhood and sovereignty as seen and experienced by those most subject to discourses and practices of exclusion." - Laura Madokoro, Social History
"The major contribution of [Home Rule] is to establish the importance of the nationalist autochthonous discourses in formulating capitalist immigration policy, and to explain the racist and xenophobic ways they are used to determine who qualifies as a citizen versus who does not." - Comrade Motopu, libcom.org
"Sharma’s Home Rule will spark many fruitful conversations among scholars and graduate students interested in migration, nationalism, and postcolonial thought and is a particularly strong example of the way postcolonial ideas can provide a powerful interpretive approach to timely issues of great sociological concern." - Gregory J., Goalwin, Social Forces
"Aside from 2020's unforeseen circumstances, it is clear that Home Rule deals with the pressing issues of today's world, successfully historicizing the current, troubling characterization of migrants as colonial invaders and carefully contextualizing the intense disputes over national sovereignty in Israel-Palestine.… I would whole heartedly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand more about the important history of migration or who wants a comprehensive overview of how the structures of imperialism have developed in today's postcolonial world." - Zoë Miller, European Review of HIstory
"Taken in the round this is a stimulating and thought-provoking read, that seeks to challenge received perceptions and to articulate a different way to understand the role of national sovereignty within the changing global politics that structure our understandings of citizenship and immigration." - John Solomos, Ethnic and Racial Studies
"With its length and sometimes a bit dense narrative structure, it might feel overwhelming at the start but it is definitely worth finishing. The breadth and wide range of examples is actually a strength.…This book is definitely worth a read for students and researchers interested in nation building and processes of othering across post-imperial contexts." - Ilse van Liempt, International Migration
"At once stirring and provocative, Home Rule establishes Sharma as a scholar of global history from below. It is difficult to overstate the importance of this book's contribution to the ways those of us active in social movements think about decolonization, migrant justice, anti-racism, and movements." - Elsie Hjalmarson, Interface
"A provocative critique of nation-state sovereignty . . . the book should inspire deep thinking about what remains a central but perhaps still too often underanalyzed." - Miranda Johnson, American Historical Review
"Sharma meticulously links the imperial and racist origins of immigration controls with their current use. . . . Sharma’s argument also suggests new lines of inquiry for political philosophers. It raises the questions, for example, whether there are benign conceptions of self-determination and place-based politics that avoid the imperial legacies of national home-rule, and what those look like." - Torsten Menge, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy
"I read Sharma’s Home Rule with deep interest and find her arguments powerful and provocative. . . . The persuasiveness of the book lies in the structure of the argument and in the weight of the evidence it provides. As such, it needs to be read in its entirety." - Radhika Mongia, Journal of World-Systems Research
"Home Rule equips us with analytical lenses for addressing the question 'who is a migrant here and now?' situating it within a longer genealogy of the making of migration. At once, the book implicitly paves the ground for an abolitionist approach to borders that supplements and is intertwined with a NoBorder perspective. . . ." - Martina Tazzioli, Journal of World-Systems Research
"Sharma’s profound critique of sovereignty as a mode of separation rather than one of freedom, autonomy, and an authentic postcolonial condition is an important intervention and re-assessment of where we have arrived. . . . The kind of critique that Sharma offers in Home Rule is one that unsettles how our political present has unfolded and in doing so Sharma writes against and significantly clarifies the limits of some political claims in our present moment." - Rinaldo Walcott, Journal of World-Systems Research
"Ambitious and complex. . . ." - Bridget Anderson, Journal of World-Systems Research
"Home Rule is a provocative book that challenges prevailing conceptions of sovereignty at their core. Notions of belonging and national liberation are out the door, jettisoned by detailed accounts of the entanglements among imperialism, national liberation, and anti-immigrant politics now. The argument is expansive, the geographic and historical range daunting, the research and scholarly literatures engaged incredible. Sovereignty is dissected with exquisite skill." - Victoria Hattam, Journal of World Systems Research
"I have never read a work like this. . . . Nandita Sharma has delivered a masterpiece that further fuels the cries for global justice." - Douglas Thomas, African Studies Review
