This paper traces the category “expatriate” in the Royal Dutch Shell Group of Companies, focusing on two key moments of corporate structural change in the 1950s and 1990s. The paper examines how the “expatriate” was materially and narratively produced by the corporation, by employees labelled expatriate and by spouses. It interrogates continuities and transformations, and their power effects, inquiring who became an expatriate, for what purposes, what meaning the category was inscribed with, and how it was lived. The central argument of the paper is that the Shell “expatriate” has a postcolonial genealogy: its constitution, functions, and lived experience cannot be understood without accounting for histories of European imperialism. The category initially reified imperial power relations – indeed, was instrumental to their racialised production. The mid‐century “racial break” prompted changes, yet did not result in the wholesale decolonisation of corporate mobilities and managerial hierarchies as imperial differentiations and logics continued to work in the postcolonial corporation, if in adapted and ambiguous ways. Similarly, the Shell “expatriate” was a gendered construct that not only denoted husbands’ corporate control but increasingly depended on women's organisational, emotional, and social labour, until its gendered destabilisation in the 1990s. The shifting and fragmented category “expatriate” thus reflects how racialised and gendered logics were (re)worked, by and for corporate management, in contested and ambiguous ways. More generally, the paper historicises contemporary managerial arrangements of multinational firms, which depend squarely on migration, and shows them to be central to the postcolonial production of racial capitalism. It thereby contributes to furthering the dialogue between postcolonial and economic approaches in geography.

中文翻译：

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商业帝国及其移民：荷兰皇家壳牌公司和种族资本主义的管理

本文追溯了荷兰皇家壳牌集团公司中的“外派人员”类别，重点介绍了1950年代和1990年代公司结构变化的两个关键时刻。本文研究了“外籍人士”是如何由公司，标有外籍人士的雇员和配偶在物质上和叙事上产生的。它询问连续性和转变及其权力影响，询问谁成为外籍人士，出于什么目的，该类别的名称意味着什么以及它如何生活。该论文的中心论点是，壳牌“外籍人士”具有后殖民时期的家谱：如果不考虑欧洲帝国主义的历史，就无法理解其构成，功能和生活经验。最初，这一类别改善了帝国权力关系，的确有助于种族化生产。本世纪中叶的“种族中断”促成了变化，但并没有导致公司流动性和管理阶层的全面非殖民化，因为帝国的差异化和逻辑性在后殖民公司中继续发挥作用（如果采用了适应性和歧义性的方式）。同样，壳牌“外籍人士”是一种性别结构，不仅表示丈夫对公司的控制，而且越来越依赖于妇女的组织，情感和社会劳动，直到1990年代性别不稳定为止。因此，不断变化和零散的“外籍人士”类别反映了公司管理如何以及有争议的方式（种族）对种族和性别逻辑进行（重新）处理。更笼统地说，该论文对跨国公司当代的管理安排进行了历史化处理，这种安排直接取决于移民，并显示出它们对于种族资本主义的后殖民生产至关重要。因此，它有助于促进地理上的后殖民方法与经济方法之间的对话。