Philip D. Curtin
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195055108
- eISBN:
- 9780199854219
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195055108.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
This chapter locates European and African migration to North America in the long continuum of migrations throughout thousands of years of human history. It connects the geographic locus of migration ...
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This chapter locates European and African migration to North America in the long continuum of migrations throughout thousands of years of human history. It connects the geographic locus of migration and the occurrence of slave migration, indenture contracts, and free migration to changing demands for forced and free labor at various stages of regional economic development. Although the United States was certainly a focal point for European migration, and the descendants of Africans are a significant part of its present population, the United States stood on the periphery of the slave trade, and absorbed less than 10% of its product. The great population movements throughout the tropical world and Asia that followed the abolition of the slave trade completely evaded North America. Not until after World War II did movements of tropical peoples from the Third World direct themselves to highly developed regions like North America and Europe.Less
This chapter locates European and African migration to North America in the long continuum of migrations throughout thousands of years of human history. It connects the geographic locus of migration and the occurrence of slave migration, indenture contracts, and free migration to changing demands for forced and free labor at various stages of regional economic development. Although the United States was certainly a focal point for European migration, and the descendants of Africans are a significant part of its present population, the United States stood on the periphery of the slave trade, and absorbed less than 10% of its product. The great population movements throughout the tropical world and Asia that followed the abolition of the slave trade completely evaded North America. Not until after World War II did movements of tropical peoples from the Third World direct themselves to highly developed regions like North America and Europe.
Jennifer Cole and Christian Groes
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226405018
- eISBN:
- 9780226405292
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226405292.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
Moving beyond the narrative of crisis/disaster dominating discussions of African migration to Europe, this chapter argues for the importance of attending to intimate relations and processes of ...
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Moving beyond the narrative of crisis/disaster dominating discussions of African migration to Europe, this chapter argues for the importance of attending to intimate relations and processes of regeneration in African migration. When European migration regimes rely on marriage or family reunification as a way to grant entry and citizenship, intimate relations have become extraordinarily important: They often provide not only a motivation for migrating abroad but also a means to do so. In turn, migrants often engage in complex exchanges with their kin back home as they seek to make, rework and break intimate relationships with kin, lovers and friends. We conceptualize these exchanges as affective circuits in order to capture their material and affective dimensions, as well as their social dynamics. The chapter makes three arguments regarding affective circuits in African migration 1) Africans quest for valued forms of personhood and the desire to reposition themselves in exchange networks often prompts migrants’ efforts to build and maintain these circuits 2) notions of marriage and family, both those embodied in European state policies and the practices migrants bring along, shape how these circuits unfold 3) and that these circuits are gendered, with different participatory opportunities for men and women.Less
Moving beyond the narrative of crisis/disaster dominating discussions of African migration to Europe, this chapter argues for the importance of attending to intimate relations and processes of regeneration in African migration. When European migration regimes rely on marriage or family reunification as a way to grant entry and citizenship, intimate relations have become extraordinarily important: They often provide not only a motivation for migrating abroad but also a means to do so. In turn, migrants often engage in complex exchanges with their kin back home as they seek to make, rework and break intimate relationships with kin, lovers and friends. We conceptualize these exchanges as affective circuits in order to capture their material and affective dimensions, as well as their social dynamics. The chapter makes three arguments regarding affective circuits in African migration 1) Africans quest for valued forms of personhood and the desire to reposition themselves in exchange networks often prompts migrants’ efforts to build and maintain these circuits 2) notions of marriage and family, both those embodied in European state policies and the practices migrants bring along, shape how these circuits unfold 3) and that these circuits are gendered, with different participatory opportunities for men and women.
Jennifer Cole and Christian Groes (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226405018
- eISBN:
- 9780226405292
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226405292.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
This book examines the simultaneously material, social and emotional exchanges involved when African migrants venture to Europe in search of a better life. As we argue, these exchange are part of a ...
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This book examines the simultaneously material, social and emotional exchanges involved when African migrants venture to Europe in search of a better life. As we argue, these exchange are part of a broader quest for social regeneration that involve negotiations of family ties and intimate relationships at home and abroad as well as complicated encounters with state officials and laws hindering or facilitating their journeys. In this migratory process exchange of everything from money, goods and advice to sentiments, phone calls and assurances of belonging are part of transnational circuits that enable, block or control mobility through social networks. We call the circuits that emerge from the sending, withholding and receiving of goods, ideas, bodies and emotions affective circuits. We focus especially on how affective circuits operate in the context of contemporary African migration to Europe, following in the footsteps of migrants and their families, husbands, wives, friends, peers and lovers across African countries like Ghana, Gambia, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Cameroon, Congo, Mauritania, Kenya, Madagascar and Mozambique and European countries like France, Italy, Portugal, UK, Germany and Denmark. Through fieldwork in both Africa and Europe the authors analyze how exchanges work, how they are socially, culturally, morally and historically embedded, and how they regenerate and reshape kin and other intimate formations in our times of worldwide migrations.Less
This book examines the simultaneously material, social and emotional exchanges involved when African migrants venture to Europe in search of a better life. As we argue, these exchange are part of a broader quest for social regeneration that involve negotiations of family ties and intimate relationships at home and abroad as well as complicated encounters with state officials and laws hindering or facilitating their journeys. In this migratory process exchange of everything from money, goods and advice to sentiments, phone calls and assurances of belonging are part of transnational circuits that enable, block or control mobility through social networks. We call the circuits that emerge from the sending, withholding and receiving of goods, ideas, bodies and emotions affective circuits. We focus especially on how affective circuits operate in the context of contemporary African migration to Europe, following in the footsteps of migrants and their families, husbands, wives, friends, peers and lovers across African countries like Ghana, Gambia, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Cameroon, Congo, Mauritania, Kenya, Madagascar and Mozambique and European countries like France, Italy, Portugal, UK, Germany and Denmark. Through fieldwork in both Africa and Europe the authors analyze how exchanges work, how they are socially, culturally, morally and historically embedded, and how they regenerate and reshape kin and other intimate formations in our times of worldwide migrations.
Cati Coe
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781479831012
- eISBN:
- 9781479850921
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479831012.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
The introduction begins with a vignette of a conflict in caregiving, tracing out the backgrounds of the patient and the care worker and their reflections about this conflict. The remainder of ...
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The introduction begins with a vignette of a conflict in caregiving, tracing out the backgrounds of the patient and the care worker and their reflections about this conflict. The remainder of introduction then lays out the theoretical conceptualizations of recognition, reciprocity, and care as significant to belonging, and political belonging in particular. It provides a short background to home care and African migration in the United States, and gives an overview of the fieldwork.Less
The introduction begins with a vignette of a conflict in caregiving, tracing out the backgrounds of the patient and the care worker and their reflections about this conflict. The remainder of introduction then lays out the theoretical conceptualizations of recognition, reciprocity, and care as significant to belonging, and political belonging in particular. It provides a short background to home care and African migration in the United States, and gives an overview of the fieldwork.
Karida L. Brown
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469647036
- eISBN:
- 9781469647050
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469647036.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
Every mass movement can be traced through the particular conditions under which the migrant self is formed and transformed. This introduction outlines the struggle of black Americans once slavery was ...
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Every mass movement can be traced through the particular conditions under which the migrant self is formed and transformed. This introduction outlines the struggle of black Americans once slavery was outlawed by asking a key question: were they subjects or citizens? Though federal laws gave the now former slaves all the rights of citizens, state and local authorities allowed and enforced segregationist policies. These, in conjunction with various economic pressures, culminated in the African American Great Migration of 1910-1970. Brown, who positions herself as a third-generation descendent of a black Kentucky population that took part in this migration, claims that the collective memory of Appalachian blacks that undertook this stepwise migration deserves more attention.Less
Every mass movement can be traced through the particular conditions under which the migrant self is formed and transformed. This introduction outlines the struggle of black Americans once slavery was outlawed by asking a key question: were they subjects or citizens? Though federal laws gave the now former slaves all the rights of citizens, state and local authorities allowed and enforced segregationist policies. These, in conjunction with various economic pressures, culminated in the African American Great Migration of 1910-1970. Brown, who positions herself as a third-generation descendent of a black Kentucky population that took part in this migration, claims that the collective memory of Appalachian blacks that undertook this stepwise migration deserves more attention.
Caiti Coe
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781479831012
- eISBN:
- 9781479850921
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479831012.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
In our contemporary period of human mobility and global capitalism, political identifications are being configured in multiple sites beyond the nation-state. The book’s theoretical innovation is to ...
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In our contemporary period of human mobility and global capitalism, political identifications are being configured in multiple sites beyond the nation-state. The book’s theoretical innovation is to analyze what happens at work in terms of larger processes of political belonging. In particular, it examines how the recognitions and reciprocities entailed by care work affect the political belonging of new African migrants in the United States. Care for America’s growing seniors is increasingly provided by migrants, and it is only expected to grow, as experts in health care anticipate a care crunch. Because of the demand for elder care and the low barriers to entry, new African immigrants have adopted elder care as a niche employment sector. However, elder care puts care workers into racialized, gendered and age hierarchies, and made it difficult to achieve social and economic mobility. Through working in elder care, African care workers see the United States as uninhabitable, in the sense that it does not reciprocate their labor and makes a respected personhood impossible. This book highlights a more complex process of racialization and incorporation for Black immigrants than is commonly posited.Less
In our contemporary period of human mobility and global capitalism, political identifications are being configured in multiple sites beyond the nation-state. The book’s theoretical innovation is to analyze what happens at work in terms of larger processes of political belonging. In particular, it examines how the recognitions and reciprocities entailed by care work affect the political belonging of new African migrants in the United States. Care for America’s growing seniors is increasingly provided by migrants, and it is only expected to grow, as experts in health care anticipate a care crunch. Because of the demand for elder care and the low barriers to entry, new African immigrants have adopted elder care as a niche employment sector. However, elder care puts care workers into racialized, gendered and age hierarchies, and made it difficult to achieve social and economic mobility. Through working in elder care, African care workers see the United States as uninhabitable, in the sense that it does not reciprocate their labor and makes a respected personhood impossible. This book highlights a more complex process of racialization and incorporation for Black immigrants than is commonly posited.
Carina E. Ray
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780986497315
- eISBN:
- 9781786944535
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780986497315.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Maritime History
This essay explores the difficulties faced by interracial couples - primarily West African men and British or German women - in gaining acceptance in society in the interwar years in Britain and West ...
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This essay explores the difficulties faced by interracial couples - primarily West African men and British or German women - in gaining acceptance in society in the interwar years in Britain and West Africa. It considers the impact of the 1919 race riots in Britain during the postwar economic downturn that left maritime, immigrant, and working class communities particularly impoverished and led to a surge in racism and backlash against non-British labourers. West African men were accused of ‘stealing’ both jobs and women, and white women accused of betraying their nation through interracial marriage. This hostility led to efforts at repatriation to West Africa, which colonial governments would often prevent through legislation. The second half of this essay is a case study of West African husbands and German wives, who caused tremendous legal difficulties to governments looking to cease repatriation. The case studies demonstrate that notions of sex, gender, class, nationality, and religion informed colonial policies that heavily impacted the migration efforts of interracial couples.Less
This essay explores the difficulties faced by interracial couples - primarily West African men and British or German women - in gaining acceptance in society in the interwar years in Britain and West Africa. It considers the impact of the 1919 race riots in Britain during the postwar economic downturn that left maritime, immigrant, and working class communities particularly impoverished and led to a surge in racism and backlash against non-British labourers. West African men were accused of ‘stealing’ both jobs and women, and white women accused of betraying their nation through interracial marriage. This hostility led to efforts at repatriation to West Africa, which colonial governments would often prevent through legislation. The second half of this essay is a case study of West African husbands and German wives, who caused tremendous legal difficulties to governments looking to cease repatriation. The case studies demonstrate that notions of sex, gender, class, nationality, and religion informed colonial policies that heavily impacted the migration efforts of interracial couples.
Lynn Dumenil
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781469631219
- eISBN:
- 9781469631233
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469631219.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter explores the extent to which sex segregated labor patterns broke down during the war, especially in the railroads and munitions sectors. It also discusses the Great Migration of African ...
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This chapter explores the extent to which sex segregated labor patterns broke down during the war, especially in the railroads and munitions sectors. It also discusses the Great Migration of African Americans and the opportunities – albeit limited – that factory war work provided African Americans who had customarily been relegated to domestic and farm labor work. World War I saw the first enlistment of women in the military where they served stateside in clerical work. Even women doing traditional women’s work during World War I– clerical work or the already feminized profession of social work – found expanded opportunities with government agencies such as the Woman's Branch of the Industrial Section of the Ordnance Department and the Railroad Administration's Women's Service Section. Despite these opportunities, the permanent gains for women’s occupational advance were limited and patterns of sex segregation re-emerged as men returned from war.Less
This chapter explores the extent to which sex segregated labor patterns broke down during the war, especially in the railroads and munitions sectors. It also discusses the Great Migration of African Americans and the opportunities – albeit limited – that factory war work provided African Americans who had customarily been relegated to domestic and farm labor work. World War I saw the first enlistment of women in the military where they served stateside in clerical work. Even women doing traditional women’s work during World War I– clerical work or the already feminized profession of social work – found expanded opportunities with government agencies such as the Woman's Branch of the Industrial Section of the Ordnance Department and the Railroad Administration's Women's Service Section. Despite these opportunities, the permanent gains for women’s occupational advance were limited and patterns of sex segregation re-emerged as men returned from war.
Gwyn Campbell
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780986497315
- eISBN:
- 9781786944535
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780986497315.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Maritime History
This essay attempts to answer the question of whether the Austronesian people - referring to the Southeast Asian region connected by the Austronesian language family - were capable of making direct ...
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This essay attempts to answer the question of whether the Austronesian people - referring to the Southeast Asian region connected by the Austronesian language family - were capable of making direct trans-Indian Ocean voyages, and if so, when these voyages began. Austronesian migration across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar frequently invites scholarly debate over the timing, route, and cause. By exploring the rise and development of shipbuilding and the navigational ability of Austronesians, the essay seeks answers through developments in maritime technology. It draws on boat-building practices, sail technology, and navigational strategies to assert that Austronesians did indeed possess the appropriate maritime skills to make such a voyage, and concludes that the first human activity on the island may indeed be Austronesian, though further research must still be undertaken to establish this as fact.Less
This essay attempts to answer the question of whether the Austronesian people - referring to the Southeast Asian region connected by the Austronesian language family - were capable of making direct trans-Indian Ocean voyages, and if so, when these voyages began. Austronesian migration across the Indian Ocean to Madagascar frequently invites scholarly debate over the timing, route, and cause. By exploring the rise and development of shipbuilding and the navigational ability of Austronesians, the essay seeks answers through developments in maritime technology. It draws on boat-building practices, sail technology, and navigational strategies to assert that Austronesians did indeed possess the appropriate maritime skills to make such a voyage, and concludes that the first human activity on the island may indeed be Austronesian, though further research must still be undertaken to establish this as fact.