Much of the literature on migration governance focuses on states and policies, the relationships of many different actors (e.g. civil society, international organisations), legal and technical perspectives, and processes that take place at various scales (Arcarazo & Geddes, 2014; Kunz et al., 2011; Pecoud & Thiollet, 2023; Robinson, 2018; Rother, 2022). This chapter unpacks the concept “governance” in migration studies by reconceiving it as social relations of power among actors in everyday practices. This approach is in part inspired by the reconceptualization of power in global governance which critique “choice-theoretic” approaches that reduce world politics to global public management (Barnett & Duvall, 2005). Barnett and Duvall’s typology of power specifies different ways in which power is exercised with different effects. Global governance, from this perspective, is not simply the interest-based cooperation of different actors working at various levels to solve problems posed by a globalising world.