Beyond the Edges of Empire

This book opened with the question, how does the post-Dispersal, post-Devolution moment of Somali migration to Scotland unfold in (post)colonial space and time? The purpose of this question was threefold. First, to map patterns of Somali migration to Scotland in this post-Dispersal, post-Devolution moment, and examine through a critical colonial lens, its presentation as with or without precedent. Second, to trace in their complexity and contradiction the entanglements of (the) colonial(ity of) power between Scotland and Somalia—the former marked by the ‘colonial difference’ of its positioningDecolonial theoryColonial difference within the British ‘colonial centre’, and the latter shaped by fractured and interwoven histories of British and other forms of (post)colonial power—and to consider, both in relation to the structurally complex architectures of the (colonial) British state, and in direct relation to each other, the character and consequences of their interaction, and their subsequent impact in a post-migration terrain.