Preliminary Programme

Many of the French immigrants who settled in California between 1880 and 1940 originated from mountain regions in France, where economic activities were slow and land opportunities limited. What attracted the French to Central California was precisely access to large land and rich farming. The first settlers successfully exploited the land. They then encouraged family members (male and female) and countrymen and countrywomen to join them, thus forming a tightly-knit French community. How did they integrate to the new environment?
Looking at the French immigrants’ naturalization petitions and applications between 1880 and 1940, together with the three-generation family reconstitutions (about 250 of them), this paper will attempt to determine the manner and the degree the French integrated into the local environment. The process of integration though gradual and inevitable was rarely complete as the French maintained strong ties between them, especially through intermarriage and their common Professional activities. The purpose of the discussion is to use naturalization documents to measure the French immigrants’ integration process and the short-term and long-term effects on men as well as on women. (Show less)

The abolishment of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1920 and the consequent Soviet administration in Azerbaijan paved the way to the escape of a prominent group of intellectuals to Turkey. These migrants of the second wave of Azerbaijani muhaceret (emigration) constituted the intelligentsia of the Azerbaijani community in Turkey and became the backbone of the migrant organizing process in the rest of the century. While these émigrés started to get involved in the political activities aiming at the independence of Azerbaijan, they started to form their relations with the civil society organizations, the political parties and the state in Turkey. From 1931 onwards, however, the rapprochement between Turkey and the Soviet Union, the establishment of a one-party state in Turkey, and the accompanying suppression of the civil society would put an end to these limited relations: Their organization called Azerbaijan National Centre was closed down, the publications of muhacirs were prohibited and the leading figures of the Azerbaijani community were forced to leave the country. In 1947, the muhacirs managed to return to Turkey and continued with their political activities. Especially in the period between 1975 and 1991, their successors and the organizations led by them enjoyed the close relations with the Turkish state in line with the growing anti-Soviet and anti-communist tendencies in Turkey. In this context, two periods which can be placed in a comparative framework come to prominence: the period between 1920-1935 and the one between 1975-1991. In this paper, I focus on the impact of domestic politics and foreign policy of Turkey on the formation and development of the migrant organizations in these two periods, with particular reference to the Turkish-Soviet rapprochement, transition from one-party to multi-party regime and the rise of the anti-communist governments. The primary sources I use are the Azeri Türkü (1928-1931), Odlu Yurd (1929-31) and Azerbaycan (1976-1991) journals of the muhacirs, the newspaper Cumhuriyet, the organizational programme of the Azerbaijan National Centre (1923-30) and Azerbaijan Cultural Association (1949-to date). Additionally, I benefit from the interviews with the board committee of Azerbaijan Cultural Association. The paper explains that the transformation of the foreign policy of the receiving state largely influences the migrant organizing process and the relations between the sending and receiving states limit the functions of the migrant organizations
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In this paper I will discuss the opportunities and problems faced by prisoners of war in the Swedish town of Uppsala during the great northern war (1700-1721). For several years the town and the surrounding countryside housed about 40 Danish, Russian and Saxon prisoners of war, constituting a notable addition in a small town with a war time low of roughly 700 registered inhabitants. The interaction between these prisoners and the local population sheds new light into early modern perceptions of ethnicity and social inclusion.
Prisoners of war are seldom recognized as early modern migrants. Yet, during the wars of the 17th and 18th centuries, increasing numbers of captured soldiers were removed from the theatre of war to be held behind the frontlines. They were often quartered in the heart of civilian society, in the very homes of burghers and peasants, and for a lesser or greater amount of time prisoners and civilians were forced to live side by side.
Records from Uppsala magisterial court and other sources demonstrate that the prisoners were surprisingly well integrated into town life. They socialized closely with the locals and several prisoners eventually married local women, some even returning to settle down permanently in Uppsala after the war. From being soldiers of a hostile monarch, a number of these men thus became Swedish subjects.
Opportunities were, however, not equal among the prisoners. The Russian soldiers seem to have existed on the very periphery of town life, whereas soldiers of German origin were accepted into the local community with seeming ease. Housed in Uppsala castle, physically removed from town life, the Russians’ freedom of movement was restricted and the examples of social contact with the locals are comparatively scarce. This raises important questions about contemporary perceptions of cultural and religious differences, but also the influence of official state policy.
The experiences of the prisoners in Uppsala tell a story of forced migration in exceptional circumstances, but being extreme cases they have much to tell us about what was needed to be accepted in the early modern community. (Show less)

The creation of colonization companies, specialized in the recruitment of German immigrants and the subsequent establishment of these groups in Brazilian territory, it was important for the expansion of immigration to Brazil. The role of the Brazilian State was undoubtedly crucial and decisive for the creation of a land settlement system in the south of the country, however, the participation of immigrant elites and entrepreneurs in the process is still poorly evaluated by the researchers. Immigrant entrepreneurs were also responsible for the agency of new immigrant groups, resulting in the expansion and growth of their companies, which also received financial compensation by the insertion of desirable immigrants, according to the legislation of the time. This situation created an immigration system organized by the Brazilian government with the participation of businessmen and wealthy German merchants, already installed in Brazil, generating a lucrative business. These immigrant elites gained a comfortable position in Brazilian society and maintained a certain political and economic influence. This paper proposes to discuss some characteristics of these groups of immigrant entrepreneurs, from the investigation of their social networks and their relations maintained between Brazil and Germany. The central focus of the work is the Germans and German immigrants involved in the process, that is, the main aspects are the networks formed by migrants and non-migrants involved in the engagement and transport of immigrants, as well as the participation of banks, companies and traders who Financed this type of business, according to research data collected for a doctoral thesis. (Show less)

Scotland by the late nineteenth-century had become one of Europe’s most industrialised and urbanised societies. By 1914, newcomers from continental Europe, though small in number, had taken up residence in cities like Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee and found themselves facing interactions in a civic space informed , among other things, by Scotland’s distinct religious and legal traditions. Semi-autonomous state institutions, located mostly in Edinburgh, had gained increasing weight in the oversight of locally-elected public bodies and from 1885 became subject increasingly to the direction of a ‘Secretary for Scotland’, a UK Cabinet minister with a territorially-defined remit. A growing public perception that Scottishness somehow needed more obvious attention helped to give incumbent Secretaries for Scotland authority in both Edinburgh and London; however, more importantly for the long-term, his Scottish Office and various supervisory boards became important in determining how Westminster laws were actually adapted and applied to the northern polity. Of particular relevance to migrants, a whole range of powers over domestic affairs such as those related to crime, social welfare, public health and local government in general, meant that there was now machinery in place that could express and elaborate an official ‘Scottish’ approach to ‘foreign-ness’.
Undoubtedly of central influence on this developing official Scottish view was the emerging body of ‘alien’ legislation which was applied UK-wide and overseen by the incumbent Home Secretary. This legislation dramatically gathered pace during WW1; that said, the general wartime responsibilities of the Secretary of State, acting in Scotland with powers similar to those enjoyed by the Home Secretary elsewhere in the UK, become a very visible demonstration to the public of the way in which official Scottishness interacted with foreign-ness. In the immediate post-war period, we see in Scotland, amidst ongoing publicly-expressed concern about the presence and loyalties of aliens, continued restraints on aliens and a toughened entry procedure. However, this was also a period in which welfare understood in its broadest sense became a significant priority for both politicians and unelected officials in Scottish state institutions. Though still small scale, and for most marginal to their lives, migrants could then benefit from a public discourse which favoured increased central state responsibility for social services and economic development. This in turn could enhance the possibility for migrants that the Scottish Office might act as a benevolent intermediary in interactions with Whitehall civil servants. However, public officials in Scotland, inclined towards upholding the tenets of respectability, professionalism and paternalism, would not always be comfortable with assertive expressions of identities that had the potential to undermine the ideal existence of a Scottish ‘common good’. (Show less)