What can a Nordic perspective bring to the study of transimperial spaces and mobilities in global history? How can the study of Nordic transimperial connections and movements in turn recontextualize Nordic national histories? Is understanding how, why, and where Nordic peoples operated in spaces and networks between empires relevant for explaining and understanding present-day Nordic identities and cultures?

These are some of the questions the articles in this special issue will seek to address as they track Nordic people working, living, and traveling in a variety of transimperial spaces. They follow connections across national and imperial boundaries and chart historical processes as relational – meaning interactive, dialectic, and constituted of layers and relations. The articles situate and analyze Nordic mobilities through different spatial scales and analytical layers, providing cross-cutting examinations of the techniques of colonial reimagining and reengineering of geographic domains, ethnic boundaries, and national identities.