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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This chapter examines the condition of African migrants who seek to cross to Europe. It looks at the causes that make them decide to cross “without papers,” in condition and take high risks, including the risk of death. The author argues that poverty by itself does not explain why many young Africans take the risk to cross, he instead argues that the youth are usually motivated by the desire to reinvent a new life in a Europe that exerts tremendous fascination on the imagination. The chapter also examines the consequences of the new flux of young African migrants.

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.

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.

This chapter addresses the political and economic factors that thwarted Headen’s first attempts to follow his ambitions. It discusses his work as a Pullman porter in 1900-1901, and later as a student from 1901-1903 at Albion Academy, an advanced boarding school in Franklinton, NC, founded by the Presbyterian Church. Describing the faculty and student life at Albion, and Headen’s personal record there, it probes how Albion helped Headen navigate the rising violence and segregation of the Jim Crow era and keep his ambitions alive. The chapter also discusses Headen’s marriage in 1903 and his decision to become part of African American migration out of the South that same year.