I am a National Research Foundation Scarce Skills Postdoctoral Fellow in the International Studies Group, University of the Free State, in Bloemfontein, South Africa. Following the award of an MA with distinction by the University of Cape Town in 2010 as a Mandela Rhodes scholar, I completed my PhD in history on a scholarship at the University of Sydney, Australia, in 2015. I will take up a visiting fellowship from April to June 2017 in the Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, Canberra, collaborating on the theme 'The Question of the Stranger'. My research focuses on the British Empire and the nineteenth-century origins of carceral regimes for restricting human mobility, especially penal colonies, POW camps, and immigration acts. The historical context of my research is particularly pertinent in our modern world of heightened xenophobia, humanitarian crises, and exclusionary nationalism.