Preliminary Programme

Although many British and Scottish histories use and sometimes even rely upon newspapers for their source material, there exists very little information on the practices and development of the Scottish press itself, especially of country papers. Reading R. M. W. Cowan’s 1946 study is a quick primer to names and dates, but does not lead to a full appreciation of the divisions between the smaller country newspapers and their larger metropolitan counterparts, or the web of connections between them. Furthermore, while local histories can shed considerable light on a particular paper’s background, the historiography of the Scottish press remains scattered among countless studies that use newspapers as a means to an end, but sadly never as an end in and of themselves. This is particularly apparent in their use in migration studies. Historians have often used editors as gauges of popular sentiment, aligning them with particular classes or regions. However, this method concentrates on editorial content as a personal voice rather than a commercial enterprise. By the turn of the nineteenth century, many newspapers, especially those outside Glasgow and Edinburgh, relied entirely upon subscription and advertising revenue in order to survive; commercial considerations therefore played a significant role in the selection of editorial content. Others have discussed the private enterprises that advertised in newspapers, but do not fully explore this editorial-advertising relationship. Moreover, there has been little comparative work done on Scottish newspapers as a whole. This paper will seek to illuminate the relationship between the commercial and editorial sides of the Scottish press in regard to emigration and how these relationships varied across the nation. To what extent were emigrant-focused advertisements segregated from the rest of the paper? Did the editors of these papers respond to the increasing demand for emigration advice and how was this advice framed? What effect did the personal opinions of the editorial staff have on the content of emigration news and to what extent were regional concerns and migration flows presented in debate. A close study of how Scottish newspapers discussed emigration, and the extent to which rising commercialism affected these discussions, will provide a basis for interpreting editorial content in historical sociological studies. (Show less)

The paper tries to analyze Yugoslav migration processes to the Western Countries (mainly Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland) in the period from 1960, when the first migrations started, until the 1977. The special emphasis is put on the attempts and measures taken by the regime in order to control and coordinate those processes and make them “suite” the Party’s interests and the state economy. The article is based on sources kept in Archive of Yugoslavia and Tito’s Archive.
The relative liberalization and the weakening of the communist repression, economic crisis followed by dramatic unemployment, low standard of living and great pressure of the unqualified workers on the cities led to the continuation of the migration processes that were interrupted in 1945, when the Communist Party ceased the power. Until the 60 – ties, Party leadership considered that sporadic migration to Western Europe is equivalent to treason. Due to the economic crisis, officials changed the point of view and became benevolent to the mass emigration on uneducated workers. Workers, their families and the state had a clear benefit from gastarbaiters, as the influx of migrant’s hard currency was enormous – since they were sending 2 /3 of their income home. During the 1973. 1.1 million of Yugoslavs was working abroad and that number represents and absolute peak. Due to the recession in Western countries, Yugoslav government adopted the set of measures in order to enable the easy repatriation of migrants (May 1976). Although the number of returnees was growing as years went by, the total number of Yugoslav citizens remained constant, since German economy was absorbing the second generation of migrants. (Show less)

This paper seeks to examine the lives of late nineteenth and early twentieth century immigrants in the Swedish capital of Stockholm and the cities of Linköping, Sundsvall and Haparanda. These urban areas were of different sizes, geographical locations and socio-economic structures. One important question revolves around how these characteristics interacted with immigrant integration in the local societies. The relevance of the hypothesis suggesting that immigration differs with the size of the receiving community is discussed: it is generally assumed that larger cities offer immigrants better development possibilities and more opportunities to participate in societal life than smaller towns do. Another purpose is to study whether, and in what way, integration differed with the immigrants’ origin, gender, age as well as social and marital status when arriving. The cultural proximity in general and the linguistic in particular, ought to have facilitated the integration process for Finland-Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes in comparison with other immigrant groups.
The study is based on computerised source material from the Demographic Database at Umeå University and the Stockholm Historical Database, the latter provided by the Stockholm City Archives. The databases are complemented with Swedish parish records. Taking the point of departure in persons moving directly from abroad to the four urban areas between 1860 and 1915, the immigrants are followed as long as they remain in the areas. Integration is measured through different variables: permanent settlement, naturalisation, marriages and occupational changes. The “degree” of integration is interpreted as increasing if an immigrant settled “for good”, accepted Swedish citizenship and experienced upward social mobility. If an unmarried immigrant married a native, it is also viewed as positively correlated with integration. (Show less)

In this paper I am analyzing the first meetings between Swedish workers and Estonian World War II refugees who were recruited for industrial work to a car plant in a southern Swedish company-town, named Olofström. I will do this foremost from oral sources. The aim is to analyze Swedes’ and Estonians’ narratives about each other in an afterward perspective. I stress in this paper that the social memories which the Estonian refugees carried to Sweden differed from the social memories which the native born workers in Olofström in many respects shared, besides of their differing background experiences. I will argue that these differences affected the outcomes of the first meetings between them in the late 1940s.

Thus, the theoretical concept social memory (Fentress & Wickham 1992) is a focal point in this paper. Fentress and Wickham assert that jointly created and later on collectively recognized narratives about the past constitute important components for different kinds of social group formations, and for these social groups’ internal unity. They also argue that narratives about the past can function as lines of demarcations against other social groups.

Private memories become social and common in the same moment as they are articulated together with other people with similar experiences and backgrounds. A social group constructs its own (simplified) world view through agreements about the history, and these kinds of formations and demarcations often have their foundations in (imagined) ethnic communities and/or class affiliations.

Experiences or memories of one’s own are however not decisive for these creations of commonly agreed upon histories. Narratives, either oral or written, can be as important for the creation of a certain identity or consciousness as personal memories. Whether the social memories of the group are “correct” representations of the past or not doesn’t matter much either. The main thing is that a certain understanding of the past is shared by people in similar social positions.

By a close analysis of which pronouns the interviewees used in their oral narratives I am pointing out how they determined their own positions concerning social group belongings (cp. Schrager 1997). Accordingly, I am studying the constructions of social boundaries.

To begin with I am discussing the social memories which leading trade unionists and prominent social democratic politicians promoted, concerning the historical relationship between workers and the industrial management in Olofström, because these were social memories which the Estonian refugees were not included in and had no knowledge about. After that I am distinguishing some conflict areas in the relationship between the Swedes and the Estonians, which were defined as important by the contemporaries. What was assumed as problematic in the late 1940s are then put in relation to both Swedes’ narratives about Estonians, and Estonians’ counter-narratives about Swedes, told in interviews later on. Finally, I am also touching upon the question of how social memories can change over time. To conclude the paper I am analyzing the narratives in connection with the Swedes’ and the Estonians’ differential background experiences and social memories. (Show less)

The paper deals with two itinerant minorities, the Roma (‘Gypsies’) in Finland and the so-called Travellers (earlier called Tattare) in Sweden, and how these groups’ relationship with the mainstream peasant society changed in a period of nation-building and economic modernization.

Theoretically, the paper connects to discussions of ethnicity as a historical phenomenon, and particularly to its relation with nationalism and the nation-state. A number of researchers have argued that nationalism and nation-state building should be understood as homogenizing processes which, rather than emerge from pre-existing ethnic cores, actually ‘reinvent’ and significantly reinforce differentiation between what becomes to be seen as ‘minorities’ and the ‘national’ culture. Contrasting sharply with the ‘ethno-symbolist’ view, this ‘modernist’ position presents clearly demarcated, self-conscious ethnic groupings as the end-products rather than as the precondition of nation-building processes.

Taking off from this debate, and based on a wide array of archival sources (court records, special surveys, newspaper reporting, ethnographic reports etc), the paper compares the effects of late 19th – early 20th century nation-state building on the legal, social and cultural position of the Finnish Roma and the Swedish Travellers. The emergence of what became to be called the ‘Gypsy question’ in the Finland, ‘Tatar plague’ in Sweden is also analyzed.

Both with the Finnish Roma and the Swedish Travellers, it is argued that there was a clear politicization, problematization and racialization of ethnic difference. This politicization was further accompanied with a shift from formal discrimination, inscribed in restrictive special legislation, into more subtle forms of exclusion, increasingly market-based. In both countries, there were also local outbreaks of ethnic violence, as the traditional exchange between the Roma/Travellers and the peasants were unwinding. Despite striking similarities, there was also a significant difference: while the Finnish Roma were increasingly seen as an ‘alien’ culture or race, the Swedish Travellers gradually became to be seen as social rather than ethnic ‘problem’. (Show less)