Preliminary Programme

This paper focuses on migrants who moved from Polish-speaking areas of Germany, Austria, and Russia to Westphalia and then to France, particularly after the First World War. Previous studies on these migrants have largely interpreted their removal to France as an expression of the Poles’ low capacity to integrate into the society of the Ruhr or considered them just another element in the history of Polish migration to France. Instead of elaborating on the similarities and differences of the treatment of these migrants in the German Empire and in France or discussing the liberal or restrictive policies of the respective nation-states, this paper will bring together the different stages of migration – to Westphalia and then to Northern France – from the perspective of Polish-German migrants. The connections they developed and sometimes intensified through their movements should be clarified. Therewith, the case of Polish-German migration to the Ruhr Valley and northern France shall also reveal what supra-regional and cross-border relations meant to the migrants as well as to other agents, such as Nazi officers, in an age of a growing and exceeding nationalism. (Show less)

At the end of the Second World War, over 7 million people found themselves filling the newly formed category of Displaced Persons’ (DPs) in Germany, of which over 60% in the British zone of Occupation were Polish. The Allied Military forces and welfare workers aimed to repatriate as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, however with most Poles not willing to return to a Soviet controlled Poland, a vast amount stayed within the DP camps and began to establish their own communities.

Although free from Nazi rule, these Poles now found themselves under the auspices of the Allied Military whilst simultaneously being pulled homewards by Soviet forces in Poland. As Poland had only gained independence at the end of the First World War, the huge division and separation of Poles throughout Europe caused cultural and community identity to become lost.

As the longevity of their stay within the DP camps became evident, the friction between nationality groups grew as each embraced their own culture through honoring national celebrations and singing national anthems. However, due to the unique position of the Poles, their national identity continued to be stifled as their public holidays had been lost and the words of their national anthems were forcibly changed to appease the new Soviet controlled government in Poland.

This paper will seek to create an understanding of what it was like for Polish DPs living in Allied controlled DP camps within the British zone of Occupation in the immediate post-war years. It will explore the experiences endured by these Poles throughout the war and the situation they were forced into for years afterwards. This paper will show how important a sense of community, togetherness and national pride was to those newly liberated from slave/forced labour, yet it will also display the difficulties that were present due to the fragmented relationships as a consequence of familial and community separation. It will illustrate how the conditions forced upon this newly formed community contributed towards a confused cultural and community identity that would further exacerbate relationships with existing communities in Germany. (Show less)

Today, the Swedish church is establishing itself as an important actor in the “welfare field” concerning migration and in social work targeting migrants. From a historical perspective, such activities are not novel but rather a fundamental trait of the Swedish church’s function in relation to the state and the control of the population. In my recently initiated postdoc project, I focus on this function, how it evolved and what it implied from the late 18th century to the mid 19th century. This was a period when migration was construed and approached as a problem within the scope of the Swedish church’s activities on local, national and international levels. The Swedish church was an important actor in local social work as well as in normative problematizations concerning migration, migrants and minorities. Missionary and social welfare work organisations were established in Sweden and abroad to work with migrants that were considered “deserving” poor, while others were set up for the “undeserving” poor.
In my previous research I show that local excluding practices targeting Roma and Resande (Travellers) in Sweden during the first half of the twentieth century were largely due to the activities of representatives of the Swedish church. Such practices could be executed within the scope of the local welfare boards or as part of the national registration, for which the Swedish church held responsibility until 1990. This has caused severe consequences for people classified as “zigenare” or “tattare”, that is, Roma and Resande in contemporary terminology.
In my presentation, I will outline the background, main empirical material and preliminary findings of the project. This includes a discussion about methods, notably contextualisation and comparison, which are important in the field of migration and ethnicity research and also in historical research about the Swedish church as an important actor in the development of the social, from philanthropy to social work. One question, for instance, is whether the church’s problematizations altered depending on the target group, i.e. what migrants were considered “deserving” or “undeserving” poor and according to which criteria? Other issues concern the practices developed to “handle” the different problematizations and the categorizations and classifications they induced. (Show less)

Both contemporary and historical studies find ample evidence of a so-called healthy migrant effect, pointing to a situation in which migrants have lower mortality risks and higher survival rates compared to the native population. The healthy migrant hypothesis departs from the idea that migrants are a self-selected group of remarkably healthy people. Apart from positive selection effects, scholars have found evidence that the healthy migrant effect is, at least partially, a result of differences in early life conditions, life style and health protective behavior. The healthy migrant effect is found among both international and domestic migrants.
Ever since the healthy migrant effect was discovered in the 1980s, scholars have doubted whether the results are real or merely a statistical artifact. There are at least two reasons for these doubts. First, the results are rather counterintuitive, as migrants often originate from countries with higher death rates, and because they usually have on average lower levels of education, less access to health care services and a lower socioeconomic profile than the native population. All these parameters suggest that migrants would instead have poorer health outcomes than natives. The second reason why scholars have casted doubts on the authenticity of the healthy migrant effect is related to the fact that demographic data on migrants are often of a poorer quality than data on the native population. The salmon bias hypothesis states that lower mortality risks among migrants are the result of selective return migration of the sick and elderly. If migrants indeed go home before they die, their deaths do not contribute to the national death statistics in the country of migration, but rather to the country of origin This would lead to a situation in which migrants become ‘statistically immortal’ and their death rates are artificially lowered.
Although the salmon bias hypothesis appears quite often in research in the field of migration and mortality, empirical tests are scarce. This is largely a consequence of the absence of data which allows researchers to trace migrants after they left the society of study. The Historical Sample of the Netherlands is an exception in this regard, at least with respect to domestic migrants. With the help of this database we recently analyzed adult mortality differences between migrants and natives and found a strong healthy migrant effect among domestic migrants in Rotterdam in the period 1850-1930. We are now going to further investigate whether this was related to selective out-migration of the sick and elderly. If the salmon bias hypothesis is true, domestic migrants who left Rotterdam would have faced a sharp increase in mortality risks right after they left the Dutch city. Using event history methods, we will test this hypothesis by comparing mortality risks among migrants who returned to their hometown, migrants who moved to another destination within the Netherlands, and migrants that remained in Rotterdam. We will incorporate the following variables into the analysis: sex, occupation, travelled distance, age at arrival, civil status and birth place type (urban versus rural). (Show less)