Migrations in History

Migration has been one of the most pressing societal issues throughout history. Immigrant associations play a crucial role in understanding this phenomenon. They channel migration streams, influence the assimilation of their members, and serve as representatives of the entire immigrant group in society. However, they remain an understudied subject, particularly in historical research.

To address this gap, this study examines German immigrant associations in New York from the 1890s to the 1930s. Through an innovative combination of statistical and textual analyses, it explores the class composition of these associations, their intricate system of mutual aid, and their political activities. This study offers insights into how specific socio-economic motivations influenced immigrant organization and collective action, including aspects such as long-distance nationalism and cross-border ethnic identity.

Ultimately, based on these findings, this study demonstrates that immigrant associations played a crucial role in helping their members adapt to a new social and economic environment. Additionally, it shows why and how immigrant associations significantly shaped the image of German immigrants in American social and political life.

The mobility regimes in which migratory careers of highly educated women are embedded have a high impact on the invisible sway between privileges and vulnerabilities in situated socio-political contexts. Between 1960s and 1990s, highly educated women began moving on their own, but, despite their qualifications, they nonetheless faced big challenges, some of which have not completely disappeared.
Are highly educated migrant women really privileged? This book explores the empirical dilemma between privileges and vulnerability in the framework of conceptual transformations of the highly skilled migration and human mobility in history from the post-industrial era to the present.
The book’s subject matter shows an existing sway between privileges and vulnerability in the construction process of the “migratory careers” of highly educated women, which depends on the articulation of macro, meso and micro factors and driving women historically to shape heterogeneous readaptation responses in different geo-political contexts. The case study of the Basque Country in Spain is presented as emblematic reflection of the global economy conformation.
The history explored from a gender perspective shows that a critical understanding of the structures of opportunities and constraints influencing women’s mobility is relevant to overcome stereotypes and generate gender-sensitive policies for the socio-economic inclusion of more vulnerable groups.

Was migration to Germany a blessing or a curse? The main argument of this book is that the Greek state conceived labor migration as a traineeship into Europeanization with its shiny varnish of progress. Jumping on a fully packed train to West Germany meant leaving the past behind. However, the tensed Cold War realities left no space for illusions; specters of the Nazi past and the Greek Civil War still haunted them all. Adopting a transnational approach, this monograph retargets attention to the sending state by exploring how the Greek Gastarbeiter’s welfare was intrinsically connected with their homeland through its exercise of long-distance nationalism. Apart from its fresh take in postwar migration, the book also addresses methodological challenges in creative ways. The narrative alternates between the macro- and the micro-level, including subnational and transnational actors and integrating a diverse set of primary sources and voices. Avoiding the trap of exceptionalism, it contextualizes the Greek case in the Mediterranean and Southeast European experience.　

Managing Migration in Italy and the United States shows how the development of gatekeeping in the United States and Italy laid the groundwork for immigration restriction worldwide at the turn of the twentieth century. The volume brings together European and American scholars, many for the first time, effectively crossing national and disciplinary boundaries. Using archives on both sides of the Atlantic, the authors explore the rise of immigration restriction and the attendant growth of the bureaucracy to regulate migration through the lens of migration studies, transnational history, and diplomatic and international history. The essays contribute to recent scholarship on the global repercussions of immigration restriction and the complex web of interactions created by limits on mobility. Managing Migration brings to light Italy’s important role in the establishment of international border controls promoted by the United States and expands the chronology of restriction from its origins to the present.

Migration, in its many forms, has often been found at the center of public and private discourse surrounding German nationalism and identity, significantly influencing how both states construct conceptions of what it means to be "German" at any given place and time. The attempt at constructing an ethnically homogeneous Third Reich was shattered by the movement of refugees, expellees, and soldiers in the aftermath of the Second World War, and the contracting of foreign nationals as　Gastarbeiter　in the Federal Republic and　Vertragsarbeiter　in the German Democratic Republic in the 1960s and 70s diversified the ethnic landscape of both Cold War German states during the latter half of the Cold War. Bethany Hicks shows how the regional migration of East Germans into the western federal states both during and after German unification challenged essential Cold War assumptions concerning the ability to integrate two very different German populations.

This book aims to study the departure and reception of refugees in 19th-century Europe, from the Congress of Vienna to the 1870-1880s. Through eight chapters, it draws on a transnational approach to analyze migratory movements across European borders. The book reviews the chronology of exile and shows how European states welcomed, selected, and expelled refugees. In addition to presenting the point of view of nation-states, it reflects the experience of those migrating. The book addresses departure into exile, captured through the material circumstances of crossing borders in the 19th century, and examines the emergence of new ways to pursue political commitments from abroad. The outcasts are considered in all their diversity, with a prominent place accorded to women and children, many of whom also moved under duress. The book aims to shed light on the forced migrations of Europeans across Europe, while also considering the global dimension, looking at exile to the Americas or the French colonies. A final chapter examines the impossibility or difficulty of returning from exile to one’s country of origin, as well as the a posteriori memorial constructs around that crucial experience.