Preliminary Programme

Wed 12 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 13 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Fri 14 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Sat 15 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00

All days
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Friday 14 April 2023 11.00 - 13.00
L-10 ETH17b Identities II
C24
Network: Ethnicity and Migration Chair: Nina Trige Andersen
Organizers: - Discussant: Nina Trige Andersen
Ritva Kylli : Tastes of Home? – Food History of Finnish American Emigrants in Three Generations
Finland met its last huge peacetime famine in 1866–68, and there were large crop failures still in the 1890s and during the first years of the 20th century. At the same time letters received from the United States told that people there had an opportunity to eat a lot of ... (Show more)
Finland met its last huge peacetime famine in 1866–68, and there were large crop failures still in the 1890s and during the first years of the 20th century. At the same time letters received from the United States told that people there had an opportunity to eat a lot of wheat bread and delicious pork hams. Many hoped for a better livelihood and nutrition for themselves and their families, and more and more Finnish people emigrated to the United States from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. At this stage, the diet of many Finns consisted of soups and porridges. Bread and potatoes were eaten at almost every meal, and buttermilk was often used as a drink. This presentation examines the food history of emigrants and their descendants in three generations, starting from the 1890s. Although many Finnish emigrants came from very poor conditions, food was not a mere nutrition for them and their families. One Finnish American wrote in the 1990s, ”Food is much more than nutrition, it is an expression of memories of family ties and cultural history”. Many of the dishes favored by the emigrants had long historical roots in Finland. One such example was lipeäkala (lutefisk), which had been eaten in Finland since the Catholic Middle Ages. It was considered as such an important Christmas food that many Finnish Americans prepared it year after year despite it being very laborious, it had a peculiar taste – and it could sometimes even be harmful to one’s health. Many first-generation emigrants had lived in the farms where the animals had been slaughtered for food, and they were used to making blood pancakes from the blood of slaughtered animals. These pancakes could still be an important dish for the children and grandchildren of the emigrants, although they were no longer made from scratch during the late 20th century. Lingonberry jam had often been served with blood pancakes in Finland: Lingonberries did not usually grow in the United States, but Finnish American families learned soon to collect and use cranberries instead of them. Although society and cooking opportunities changed during the 20th century (one example was the rapid spread of the microwave ovens), descendants of emigrants were not willing to give up the most important Finnish tastes, especially the festive dishes. Food was a convenient way to build collective memories and connect with one’s parents and grandparents. However, many essential dishes and flavors were forgotten at the same time as some Italian dishes, for example, began to become more popular in everyday life. The food culture of the emigrants was very dynamic, and new ingredients and dishes from Finland were also adopted throughout the 20th century. The source material for the presentation are oral histories, newspaper articles and cookbooks, which Finnish Americans used to keep the familiar tastes and food memories alive. (Show less)

Slawomir Lukasiewicz : Émigré Sovietologists from Poland within the Global Experts' Networks during the Cold War
After vast reconnaissance made as a Fulbright Scholar, and visiting scholar at Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, I came to a conclusion that global picture of the milieu of Sovietologists in exile, who were active in the West during the Cold War, and who before 1939 ... (Show more)
After vast reconnaissance made as a Fulbright Scholar, and visiting scholar at Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University, I came to a conclusion that global picture of the milieu of Sovietologists in exile, who were active in the West during the Cold War, and who before 1939 were citizens of Poland, is needed. The World War II disrupted careers of the whole cohort, and they disappeared from the radar of the historiography. Early phase of Soviet studies produced by former Polish citizens abroad appears only incidentally in the literature (e.g. Marek Kornat, Andrzej Nowak, and Miros?aw Filipowicz, David Engerman), but a comprehensive overview of such multi generational phenomenon doesn’t exist. A history of Polish-born Sovietologists in exile contributes to the history of global knowledge production process and circulation. Cold War migration processes and emergence of postwar Western Sovietology frame this study. Experts in the Soviet Studies, had a specific Central European experience, which framed their attitude toward the Soviet Union, a subject (state) which is not axiologically indifferent.
The main aim of this presentation is a study of this extraordinary group mixing methods of intellectual history and social network analysis. It could help us to answer the questions not only about the cohort itself, its position in a broader international and transnational context of the Cold War, but also about intellectual potential lost by Poland. The text will deal with several dozen of experts dispersed around the world like Wiktor Sukiennicki, Stanis?aw Swianiewicz, Zbigniew Brzezi?ski, Richard Pipes, Adam Ulam, Marian Kamil Dziewanowski, Leopold ?ab?d?, Józef Maria Boche?ski, Ryszard Wraga (Jerzy Niezbrzycki), W?odzimierz B?czkowski, Seweryn Bialer, Adam Bromke, and many others. Postwar Western Sovietology needed not only their experiences, but also language skills and expertise. From the other side practicing such research was not possible in the countries dominated by the Soviet Union. On the basis of archival inquiries made in Poland, USA, France, United, Kingdom and Switzerland I will propose a interpretations based on gathered biographical data, institutional materials, and texts. I will try to outline also possible directions for sociological analysis of ideas’ mobility, experts’ networks, and migration patterns. (Show less)

Monica Miscali : Migration and Identity: the Perception of the Self in Italian Female Immigrants from the 1950s until Today
Emigration has long been described as an almost exclusively masculine experience and only recently have women appeared in migration studies. Female migration was, in most cases, invisible, challenging, and hampered by legal and moral constraints, in stark contrast to male migration, which was far better documented but, above all, ... (Show more)
Emigration has long been described as an almost exclusively masculine experience and only recently have women appeared in migration studies. Female migration was, in most cases, invisible, challenging, and hampered by legal and moral constraints, in stark contrast to male migration, which was far better documented but, above all, acceptable from a social and legal perspective.

Migrant women were, in most cases, a minority compared to male migrations in the pre and post-war periods. History of migrant women has not been incorporated into that of migration, often due to their small numbers. In addition to that, female emigration has often been described as a passive phenomenon; women were portrayed as unproductive and simply dependent on their families or husbands. The inactivity of women was not only considered and consequently described as physical immobility, but it was often also seen as something cultural.
Today, the migratory process has changed entirely, and the number of women has consistently increased, accounting for approximately half of all global migrants.

My paper aims to reconstruct how female Italian migrants’ identity and perception have changed over a long period of time. In particular, the paper will investigate how women's departures were considered and perceived by their families, society and by the women themselves in the period from the second world war until today. Does it remain difficult even today for a woman to make the decision to leave on her own? How was their departure influenced by the prejudice and stereotypes that existed regarding Italian immigrant women that left Italy in the past and are those prejudices still alive today in Italian society? Was emigration perceived as a factor of emancipation by these women?

For my research I will use different kinds of sources, including documents, investigations, parliamentary committees of inquiry and interviews with women that immigrated in the post-war and contemporary periods. (Show less)

Walter Nkwi : Restless People: Conflict and Refugee Mobility in West and Central Africa, c.1994-2017
One of the most topical and hotly debated issues in Africa since the dawn of the 20th Century has been conflicts of various kinds. This article attempts to demonstrate how, in conflict situations, individual agency plays an important role in decision making when and where to migrate. Inspired by Johnson ... (Show more)
One of the most topical and hotly debated issues in Africa since the dawn of the 20th Century has been conflicts of various kinds. This article attempts to demonstrate how, in conflict situations, individual agency plays an important role in decision making when and where to migrate. Inspired by Johnson (2013:113), the article further argues that although refugees make these choices, they do not make just as they please neither do they make it under circumstances chosen by themselves but under circumstances collectively driven by governments’ decisions and policies. While focusing on the geographic space which includes the Central African Republic (CAR), Burundi, Cameroon and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), analytically, the article seeks to understand how these different countries and their different contexts shed light on different aspects of this argument? The article further questions: how violent conflicts trigger refugees and what are the dynamics that show the direction which the refugees take? Why do some governments resort to repatriate refugees? The conflicts in these regions ranging from the Tutsi-Hutu fratricidal war of 1994 to the formation of Boko Haram and Seleka and Anti-Balaka organizations and anglophone crisis, have produced refugees of varying proportions. While these conflicts have resulted in people moving from place to place with unforeseen repercussions and adjustments to new ways of life, others have decided to stay behind. The complexities involved in refugee mobility from war torn areas to relative peaceful areas suggests they faced lots of challenges crossing over borders as well as other transient spaces. The main data for this article was collected from personal reading of secondary literature and watching TV news. Refugees should not be simply pigeon-holed as either flaccid preys and or buoyant agents but that they have an agency of their own and although sometimes repatriated by host governments, they are not scalar quantities without direction. (Show less)



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