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‪This article explores migration governance training programs as a point of entry into the contemporary politics of migration and development. Leveraging a comparative ethnographic lens, it examines the curricular content offered in three different such capacity building settings. Its analysis also considers how this content is received and contextualized by program participants. The study finds migration governance assumed distinct forms, with differing priorities, across the training programs offered by international organisations. In addition, it shows how the participants’ prior experiences and their positionality within the professional field of those working on international migration contribute to shaping how they make sense of program content. By revealing how the meaning of migration governance shifts across the settings in which such knowledge is practically communicated and received, these findings open space for a more explicitly political approach to this domain of international law making.‪