Italian history and gli italiani nel mondo,Part II

Abstract

Italian historians have not yet seriously confronted the emigration of 27 million Italians as an interpretative theme. Part II of this two‐part article studies Italian migrants’ experiences in France, South America, Switzerland and Germany, comparing ‘Latin’ and ‘Germanic’ receiving areas to the English‐speaking world discussed in Part I. A focus on these other sections of the Italian diaspora challenges some fundamental interpretations of historians of Italy about emigration: Italian migrations to these areas were neither limited to the late nineteenth century, sparked by the economic crises of those yean, nor a product of the ‘problem of the Mezzogiomo’. Italian historians have special opportunities to study return migration to Italy, and to interpret Italy's own evolution into a multicultural receiving country, by comparing it to the models of multi‐ethnic nations where Italian migrants once settled around the world.     

The countryside as educator: schools, rurality and citizenship in inter-war Wales

This paper examines the ways in which the educational system in inter-war Wales reflected wider debates about national identity, rurality and citizenship. It begins by outlining the role of education in the “rebirth” of Wales at the end of the nineteenth century, and the emergence of the central figure of O. M. Edwards. It then traces his legacy into the inter-war period and the work of the Welsh department of the Board of Education and its permanent secretary Alfred Davies. Themes of nature and the rural, citizenship and Welshness are examined in the context of the Board's Scheme for the Collection of Rural Lore in Schools. These educational debates are linked to others within Welsh youth movements likeUrdd Gobaith Cymru, academic geography (especially the work of H. J. Fleure), and the emerging Welsh nationalist movement. The paper ends by noting the contested role of education in Welshness.     

Destination choices of Chinese rural–urban migrant workers: Jobs,amenities, and local spillovers

Using the 2014 China Migrants Dynamic Survey, we analyze rural–urban migrant workers’ destination choices after the global financial crisis, with an emphasis on jobs, amenities, and local spillovers. By using an equilibrium‐sorting model, this paper disentangles local spillovers from local attributes in the estimation process. We employ both an artificial instrumental variable and the provincial highway passenger flow in 1979 to tackle the endogeneity issue. After controlling for the network effects of migrants from the same origin, we find a separate and strong preference for colocating with a large population of migrants, regardless of origin. The results remain robust when we take into account labor supply‐driven migration, spatial autocorrelation between provinces, different industry definitions, and regional differences within provinces. Our results imply that due to institutional barriers, the rural‐migrant community will still be a very important factor in the foreseeable future. In addition, as the ongoing industrial upgrading and transfer policies in China may lead to a westward movement of rural–urban migrants, the movement will be expedited when the older, less educated, or lower income migrants relocate.     

The attraction of the rural: Characteristics of rural migrants in Sweden

This paper investigates the characteristics of rural migrants in Sweden divided into periurban and remote countryside using register data at the individual level. The results show that during the two years of investigation, 1987 and 1993, there was a concentration of the population in general but the periurban countryside gained migrants from the cities. In addition, the migration pattern had an aging effect on the population in rural areas. It is also shown that migration selectivity is relatively stable during the study period. The countryside is less attractive than urban areas to those with high income and high education but when the two types of countrysides are compared to each other the periurban is more attractive. Despite the renewed interest in rural living which has been reported in other studies, remote rural areas are less attractive to migrants than periurban areas in Sweden.     

Migration at the micro-scale: intra-parochial movements in rural Normandy, 1946-54

"Most working definitions of migration accept that only movements across local authority boundaries can normally be dealt with: by the use of questionnaire surveys certain urban studies have examined intra-unit moves but few non-urban migration studies have been able to penetrate below the level of local authority boundaries. In this paper use is made of various unpublished documents available in connection with population censuses in France from which it is possible to examine migration within rural communes for the intercensal period from 1946 to 1954. Twelve communes were investigated and the emerging picture of intra-parochial migrants have been compared with that of inter-parochial movers." The author notes "differences in age-structure between the two groups. Net movement takes place up the settlement hierarchy within each 'commune', whilst the reasons for movement show that between village-centres and outlying settlements there are certain social cleavages."     

The Impact of Childhood Migration on Educational Attainment: Evidence from rural–urban migrants in Indonesia

This paper estimates the effect of migrating permanently as a child from a rural area to an urban area; focusing on long-term educational attainment in Indonesia. We conduct a household survey specifically tailored to collect data on urban–rural migrants in four major migrant destination cities in Indonesia, and merge the data with a nationally representative survey to create a dataset that contains migrants in urban areas and non-migrants in rural areas who were born in the same rural districts. We find that individuals who migrated to the city as children attained three more years of education, compared to observably similar individuals who remained in rural areas. We find no gender differences in the benefit of childhood migration. Finally, age at migration and the size of network in the city do not significantly affect the educational attainment of childhood migrants.     

Language and nationality: the role of policy towards Celtic languages in the consolidation of Tudor power

This article considers the attitude of the governing elite in sixteenth‐century England to the minority languages spoken by subjects within their jurisdiction, concentrating on Cornish, Welsh and Irish. Perhaps influenced by the tendency of nineteenth‐century nationalists to equate nationality and language, historians have assumed that Tudor governments were hostile to languages other than English and wished to suppress them. An examination of a variety of sources leads to the suggestion that this was not the case. There was a certain amount of apprehension in the political sphere in the 1530s but in the second half of the century cultural perception of languages dominated as attempts to spread the Protestant faith led to an encouragement of the range of vernaculars. The conclusion points to parallels between sixteenth‐century and contemporary sympathy towards minority cultures in the context of the devolution debate.     

Telling Stories: The Mycenaean Origins of the Philistines

The story of the Philistines as Mycenaean or Aegean migrants, refugees who fled the Aegean after the collapse of the palace societies c.1200 BC, bringing an Aegean culture and practices to the Eastern Mediterranean, is well known. Accepted as essentially true by some, yet rejected as little more than a modern myth by others, the migration narrative retains a central place in the archaeology and historiography of the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age (LBA/EIA). In recent years, and despite an increasingly shaky theoretical basis, the migration hypothesis has nevertheless seemed to drown out other interpretations and characterizations of the period, claiming a normative position that is undeserved. In this paper I explore the continuing power of this nineteenth century narrative and seek to show why it is less convincing than its prominent status would suggest.     

The Crofter and the Iron Works: The Material Culture of Structural Crisis, Identity and Making a Living on the Edge

The iron and steel industry has been of the greatest importance to the Swedish economy since medieval times. During the seventeenth century a large number of new iron works were erected in the Värmland region of western Sweden. The iron works brought an urban and industrial culture into an otherwise rural area. They were also of great importance to the local economies, as a number of people could earn their living, or part of their living, by working at the iron works or in other forms of associated employment. In the late nineteenth century a serious structural crisis hit the Swedish iron industry, causing many iron works to close. However, the actual effects, in the form of unemployment and increased poverty, appear, for hitherto unknown reasons, to have been minimal. In this article the household of a crofter family with close links with an iron works at the time of the structural crisis is investigated. Aspects of the crofter’s material culture, identity and consumption pattern are studied, and it is found that although the household shared in an urban and industrial identity, its economic basis was in the rural tradition of a mixed economy, combining wage employment and land-based elements. The mixed economy stands out as one reason why the structural crisis did not have as dramatic an effect as might have been expected.     

Exclusion through Inclusion: Female Asian migration in the making of Canada as a white settler nation

In this article I explore the ways in which concerns over nation, ‘race’, gender and sexuality shaped late nineteenth and early twentieth century debates on whether Canada should exclude or include female migrants from China, Japan and India in the emerging nation-state. In the late nineteenth century, Canadians began to debate whether to allow female migration from China, Japan and India. The vast majority of those who participated in the debate argued that female migrants from Asia should be excluded, as their exclusion would insure that male migrants from Asia would be rendered as temporary residents. On the other hand, there was a small but vocal minority who argued that female migrants from Asia should be allowed into Canada. As the presence of single male Asian residents raised the specter of inter-racial sexuality, these Canadians suggested that it would be prudent to include female migrants from Asia within the nation-state. These debates raise important questions for scholars who study the relationships between nation, ‘race’, gender and sexuality. First, they point once again to the importance of gender in constituting the racialized practices of the nation. Second, as most scholars have focused on the exclusionary aspects of nationalism, they complicate our understanding of race, gender and nation by illustrating that racialized politics of nation can lead to not only exclusionary but also inclusionary practices.     

From temporary to permanent townsmen: migrants from the Malalaua District,Papua New Guinea

An attempt is made to explain how a group of people moved from being newcomers to town in the 1940s to being one of the most permanent and stable residential elements in Papua New Guinea's towns in the 1970s. Circular and permanent migration, as Young maintains, are not 2 distinct processes, and both initial rural urban movements and migrants' decisions to return or not to return home are examined simultaneously. The hypothetical career of a migrant is considered all the way from village residence to permanent urban residence along with the different decision points that might vary this career. In this case study focus is on 2 sets of factors that affect migration decisions: an imbalance in rural and urban economic conditions and the effects of the migration process itself. The people discussed come from what is now known as the Malalaua District of the Gulf Province and are referred to as Malalauas. Historically, there are several feastures of Malalaua urban migration that are important. Malalaua migration began earlier than that of most urban migrant groups in Papua New Guinea. In the 1963 urban population there were a number of Malalauas who first came to Port Moresby before or during World War 2. Migration from the Malalaua District has continued in a steady stream from the 1940s to the 1970s, although there is no evidence on absolute numbers of new migrants in any 1 year. The pattern of Malalaua migration to towns over the entire period has been largely one of the movement of young single adult males and young female adults moving to town on marriage. Both the absolute numbers of migrants and the proportion of Malalauas absent from the District have risen rapidly over the 20 years to 1972. Finally, children are being born to Malalaua migrants in town. Malalauas are possibly the migrant group most firmly established in town. The Malalauas are one of the most longterm and residential groups in Port Moresby. In Papua New Guinea as a whole they must be one of the migrant groups with the greatest commitment to urban living. Economic factors have been very important in Malalau decisions to leave the village, particularly the decisions of adult males. The migration process itself has increasingly affected migrant decisions: factors such as the diminished attraction of a depopulated rural community, a change in tastes towards urban based ways of living, the growth of strong personal and family ties among urban residents, and a simultaneous reduction in such ties with rural residents. It is argued that this 2nd set of factors over time increases in importance relative to rural-urban economic imbalance as an explanation of migration behavior. In general, rural urban economic opportunities have become less important over time. So in the 1970s and 1980s it would be argued that many Malalauas would not respond to increases in urban unemployment of rural incomes by moving back to the village. They would be permanent townspeople. This explanation of migration decisions is dynamic: in the history of individuals and groups the context and thus the explanation of decisions change.     

MIGRATION AS A WAY TO DIVERSIFY: EVIDENCE FROM RURAL TO URBAN MIGRATION IN THE U.S.

This paper extends the utility maximization model of migration by introducing income and unemployment‐related uncertainties as determinants of utility, and analyzes the effects of the informational advantages of migrants. The paper maintains that migration would expand an individual's economic choices and opportunities and allow diversification. Consequently, diversification advantages influence the location decisions of migrants, an effect captured by the correlation of incomes at the origin and potential destinations. We use the discrete choice model based on random utility maximization as the framework for our empirical investigation of migration from the United States rural to urban counties. This paper takes advantage of an equivalent relation between the conditional logit model and Poisson regression to study the migration decisions using aggregate data among a large set of spatial alternatives. The results show that the diversification concerns have significant effects on location decisions of the rural‐urban migrants in the United States.     

From left-behind children to young migrants: the intergenerational social reproduction of rural migrant labor in China

ABSTRACT

Growing in number in the last two decades, rural migrant workers in China have completed intergenerational replacement, and young migrants have become a principal part of the migrant population. However, the process of such intergenerational reproduction has not been thoroughly examined. Based on field studies in the Chinese countryside, this paper analyzes the mechanisms of intergenerational reproduction of rural migrants from the perspective of rural communities, families, and school education. “Left-behind” rural communities, their migration-oriented social culture, and the cognition of rural–urban differences as constructed through migrant parents facilitated a subjective willingness for migration among left-behind children. Exclusion from urban-biased rural education is often the final external thrust for their migration. Having finished the transition, the households of a new young generation of rural migrants are experiencing a different crisis of reproduction. This paper argues that there is a systematic rupture between labor, households, and rural society and that this presents a critical development trap for China.     

Myths of ancestry

This article examines the national significance of fifth‐century BC Greek sculpture and especially the so‐called Elgin Marbles. It examines the significance of these archaeological remains not for the Greek nation but for the British, and specifically the English, nation during the nineteenth century. The national significance of fifth‐century BC Greek art lies in its incorporation into nineteenth‐century debates concerning the identity of the English nation. At a time when physical appearance or race was accepted as an important and, indeed, determining component of the ‘self’ and a measure of collective belonging, Greek sculpture, which was primarily figural in its subject‐matter, came to be seen as an image of the English ‘self’. The belief in the Greek identity of the English caused a Greek revival in English life and art. In life, this revival took the form of care for the body and the imitation of the athletic practices of Greek youth through the practice of sport in English school and university education. It was thus that nineteenth‐century English youth turned itself into a work of art.     

RURAL–URBAN MIGRATION AND UNEMPLOYMENT: THEORY AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS*

ABSTRACT We develop a regional model where, in the city, unemployment prevails because of too high (efficiency) wages, while, in the rural area, workers are paid at their marginal productivity. We characterize the steady‐state equilibrium and show that it is unique. We then consider two policies: decreasing urban unemployment benefits and subsidizing urban employment. We find that decreasing the unemployment benefit in the city creates urban jobs and reduces rural–urban migration since new migrants have to spend some time unemployed before they can find a job in the city. On the other hand, raising employment subsidies increases urban employment but may also increase urban unemployment because it triggers more rural–urban migration. In this respect, the employment subsidy policy can backfire by raising rather than reducing urban unemployment.     

‘The land and its people’: reflections on artistic identification in an age of nations and nationalism

From the late eighteenth century onwards, increasing numbers of visual artists came to identify with their nations and with the homeland and its people. This development was strongly influenced by growing national cultural support and regulation of the arts by academies, art schools, museums and art markets in Western Europe. On a subjective level, the Rousseauan movement of a ‘return to Nature’, Herder's espousal of vernacular cultural self‐expression and, above all, the widespread Romantic cult of authenticity, were potent influences on the inner self‐identification of visual artists after 1800, and were manifested in the novel importance accorded to landscape and rural genre painting in Western Europe. Here I consider the role of national sentiment, the ‘return to Nature’ and the cult of authenticity, first in landscape paintings by Paul Sandby, J. M. W. Turner and John Constable in early nineteenth‐century Britain, and then in the rural genre paintings of Jean‐Francois Millet and Jules Breton in nineteenth‐century France and Josef Israels, Anton Mauve and Vincent Van Gogh in the later nineteenth‐century Netherlands. Their work reveals how nineteenth‐century visual artists became inwardly identified with the ‘land and its people’, and how they in turn contributed, especially through prints and engravings, to the dissemination of national imagery and a cultural nationalism.     

The body mass index of blacks and whites in the United States during the nineteenth century

Body mass index (BMI) values reflect the net balance between nutrition, work effort, and calories consumed to fight disease. Nineteenth-century prison records in the United States demonstrate that the BMI values of blacks and whites were distributed symmetrically; neither underweight nor obese individuals were common among the working class. BMI values declined throughout the nineteenth century. By modern standards, however, nineteenth-century BMIs were in healthy weight ranges, though the biological living standards in rural areas exceeded those in urban areas. The increase in BMIs during the twentieth century did not have its origin in the nineteenth century.     

Historicizing counterurbanization: In-migration and the reconstruction of rural space in Berkshire (UK), 1901–51

This article uses census data for Berkshire to argue that large-scale counterurbanization began much earlier than is generally recognized in some parts of southern England. This was not just movement down the urban hierarchy, which as Pooley and Turnbull have demonstrated was a long-term feature of England’s settlement system, but in some cases at least amenity-driven migration to rural areas of the kind increasingly recognized as a core component of recent counterurbanization. Despite a reduction of acreage Berkshire’s rural districts saw a 54% rise in population between 1901 and 1951. The sub-regional pattern of growth is assessed to gauge whether ‘clean break’ migration to the remote west of the county (which remained effectively out of commuting range from London throughout the period) was taking place, or whether counterurbanization was confined to the more accessible eastern districts. However, whilst population did increase in both west and east, it was in fact the central districts that grew most impressively. Three case study parishes are investigated in order to gauge the nature and consequences of counterurbanization at a local level. Professional and business migrants figure prominently, seeking to preserve and promote the rural attributes of their new communities, without however cutting their ties to urban centres. It is argued that migration to rural Berkshire in the first half of the twentieth century cannot adequately be described either as a form of extended suburbanization or an anti-metropolitan ‘clean break’. Rather, early counterurbanization marks the first stage on the long road to a post-productivist countryside, in which countryside becomes detached from agriculture, there is socio-economic convergence between town and country, and the ‘rural’ increasingly becomes defined by landscape and identity rather than economic function.     

Return migration in China: a case study of Zhumadian in Henan province

This paper examines the causes and process of return migration from the coastal region to the inland provinces in China since the early 2010s, based on the case study of Zhumadian city in Henan Province. Surveys administered to both rural migrants from Zhumadian to Shenzhen and recent returnees to Zhumadian are presented. Industrial relocation and the development of inland provinces trigger the current wave of return migration. Family obligations, better prospects of the hometown, and barriers to settle in Shenzhen because of the hukou system are the principal reasons to return. Most of the migrants return to work in a factory or start a business. Some migrants purchase apartments in Zhumadian as a prelude to returning and starting a business at a future date. Returnees prefer settling down in urban areas rather than in their rural origins. In light of the empirical findings, the authors argue that return migration will ease the mismatch of labor supply and demand between the inland and coastal provinces, such that the Lewis Turning Point has not been reached yet. The continuing process of rural migrants returning to and settling down in Zhumadian suggests a way to achieve some of the goals in China’s new-type urbanization plan, as local governments may address the two major challenges of the plan, namely, local job creation and financing for increased demand for public services.     

The working and living conditions of college-educated rural migrants in China

In the past one and a half decades, Chinese cities have witnessed an influx of college-educated rural migrants. Until now, there has been little systematic research on the working and living conditions of this growing population. The objective of this paper is to empirically examine similarities and differences in living conditions between college-educated rural migrants, non-college-educated rural migrants, and local urban workers. The data are from the 2010 National Health and Family Planning Commission Survey of China’s migrant population. Our study has produced several findings. First, the monthly income of college-educated rural migrants is significantly higher than that of non-college-educated rural migrants and is similar to that of college-educated local urban workers. However, less-educated rural migrants earn more than local urban workers with similar levels of education. Second, while college-educated rural migrants work fewer hours than non-college-educated rural migrants, they work longer hours than their local urban counterparts. Third, local urban workers receive greater social benefits than college-educated rural migrants, whose benefits are better than those of non-college-educated rural migrants. Overall, while college-educated rural migrants enjoy more favourable working and living conditions than non-college-educated rural migrants, they remain disadvantaged when compared to urban workers with a similar level of education. These findings highlight the insurmountable institutionalised exclusion and discrimination that imposes significant barriers on rural-origin people to reap the benefits of higher education.