This article argues that postcolonial approaches to migration in Asia are relevant and useful in this age of unprecedented migration for two important reasons. Firstly, such approaches enable the interrogation of fundamental migration-related concepts such as citizenship, race and ethnicity, diaspora, indigeneity and development. This critically questions the need for these categories of difference which have been augmented and exacerbated by migration, the nation-state and its bordering strategies. Secondly, such approaches shed light on fundamental issues of inequality, through which migration occurs as a response to differential access to opportunities and resources. By tracing how and why migration occurs in specific locations through a postcolonial lens, we can then map out the underlying power inequalities and discover possibilities for agency and social change.