How to deal with migrants and the State’s backlash – Polish cities’ experience

Over the last decades, Poland has witnessed a relatively dynamic increase in the number of immigrants. At the same time, current Polish central authorities, politicians of the ruling party and the majority of the population perceive migrants mostly as a threat and a challenge. Municipal authorities lack complex support from central authorities. However, the situation is slowly changing. Some Polish cities are adopting migration policies or including migration issues in the local development strategies. Considering this, the article aims to examine migrants’ integration policies in selected Polish cites considered leaders in this field: Lublin, Gdańsk, Kraków and Wroc?aw. The main research question is: how do Polish cities deal with the backlash from the national government and absence of clear legal regulations on their role and competences in the area of migrant integration? The research method is that of a legal-institutional analysis and case study. The former is used to interpret the legal acts and other documents. Its application is justified by the fact that this paper examines strategic documents adopted at the level of urban governments regarding the integration of migrants. Case study methods made it possible to examine the migrants’ integration policy in four Polish cities.     

Diffusion in the Studies of the African Past: Reflections From New Archaeological Findings

Diffusionist theories have often been invoked to explain how ancient African cultures were formed and developed. Explanations were either in terms of waves of migrations or by infiltration by people of less African origin or people alleged to have had a high culture. This article provides new evidence for a Neolithic cultural sequence on the islands and coast of East Africa. It proposes that archaeological cultural horizons such as these should be re-examined using a revised diffusionist theory. On this basis, it can be shown that the people who were smelting iron in Sub-Saharan Africa around the first century a.d. were not marauding communities of Bantu peoples with no inclination to settle and build up empires, but of people who were well settled, and had a long history of building stable settlements and trading from Neolithic times.     

明清时期瑶族向西南边疆及越南、老挝的迁徙

本文对明清时期的瑶族向西南边疆及越南、老挝等东南亚国家的迁徙进行了探讨。认为明清时期,由于封建统治阶级的政治压迫和经济剥削,以及刀耕火种游耕生产方式、自然灾害等方面的原因,瑶族被迫从湖南及湘粤桂边界大规模向西南边疆及东南亚一带迁徙,并由此而引起瑶族人口和其文化中心的转移,形成新的文化特征,瑶族亦由此而成为跨境民族。     

Wissens‐ und Wissenschaftstransfer – Einführende Bemerkungen

Knowledge and science transfer – introductory remarks. The article presents introductory remarks on the historical study of knowledge and science transfer. Discussion focuses initially on the reasons for speaking of knowledge transfer and not only about science transfer, and the relations of this topic to current research in general history on cultural transfer. Multiple levels of knowledge / science transfer are then discussed, specifically: (1) transfer by means of migration or other movement of people across geographic boundaries; (2) scientific changes related to the transfer of objects (such as plant specimens or instruments) across continents or disciplines; (3) knowledge or science transfer in practical contexts. Addressed throughout is the problematic character of the concept of transfer itself. The author suggests that users of this concept often presuppose a static conception of scientific and cultural contents being more or less successfully transferred; more interesting, however, are the changes in science and culture conditioned or caused by the migration of individuals as well as the transfer of culture by other means.     

County versus region? Migrational connections in the East Midlands, 1700–1830

Much literature on the industrial revolution has argued for the emergence of distinct, economically specialised regions during the eighteenth century. Large towns are thought to have played a vital part in drawing these industrial regions together, economically, socially and culturally. However, using the example of the East Midlands, this paper highlights the fact that neither industrialisation nor regional development was a uniform process. The East Midlands was significantly affected by industrialisation, but unlike ‘classic industrial regions’ such as the North-west or West Midlands, it did not experience a concomitant growth in regional integration and identity. Data on migration to Leicester, Nottingham and Derby in the period 1700–1830 are used to examine the nature and extent of social and economic linkages between these towns and their hinterlands and thus to explore the nature of urban-centred spatial integration in the East Midlands. It is argued that the apparent lack of region-wide integration can be explained, firstly, by the unusual dominance of the three county towns at the head of weak county urban networks, and secondly, by the persistence of a proto-industrial structure in the East Midlands' staple hosiery industry.     

Unwanted sea migrants across the EU border: The Canary Islands

In the early 2000s, the Canary Islands emerged as the main gateway for unwanted sea migrants from Senegal into Spain. In this paper, I draw from a year of multi-sited ethnographic work to discuss the relationship between state actions to secure the border against these migrants, on the one hand; and smugglers and migrants' efforts to subvert those actions, on the other. My argument is that the relationship between the two is mutually constitutive: anti-immigration policy is a reaction to the actions of unwanted migrants, and unwanted migrants adapt to state efforts to seal the border against unwanted migration by finding and exploiting spaces of opportunity in the border. In the context of sea migration from Senegal to the Canary Islands, 2005 marks a major shift in this relationship. That year the European Union adopted a new framework for migration control (the Global Approach to Migration and Mobility), Frontex became operational, and Spain and Senegal deepened their cooperation to stop unwanted Europe-bound sea migration. This forced unwanted migrants to find creative ways to enter EU territory. I argue that combining the institutional and migrant perspectives allows us to explore the decentering of the state in the contemporary anti-immigration border regime, the emerging spatialities of the contemporary border, and understand the migrant's journey. This perspective also illuminates the messiness, violence, and multiplicity of interests involved in the bordering of Europe.     

加拿大人回发展与人回迁移

本文简析加拿大人口发展与人口迁移过程,以及人口迁移对加拿大人口增长、种族、语言构成、人口分布及未来人口增长的影响。     

Groundnuts as ‘economic crop’ or ‘wife of the home’ in Northern Nyasaland

This paper examines points during the 1930s in which the colonial state in Nyasaland attempted and failed to bring groundnuts more into the colonial export economy. Nyasaland colonial officials, the Department of Agriculture, European export companies and the British Colonial Office attempted to establish the groundnut as an ‘economic crop’ for African smallholder farmers in the Northern Province of Nyasaland in the 1930s. Their failure was in part due to competing and conflicting interests: payment of hut taxes, reduction of millet production, improvement of food security, payment of railway costs, and reduction of migration. Farmers actively resisted colonial efforts to sell groundnuts to European buyers. The paper addresses the question: how can we understand the nature of colonial state power in relation to Nyasaland peasant agricultural practices in the 1930s? I argue that conflicting interests within the colonial state, as well as external constraints led to efforts to both stabilize and exploit the Nyasaland farmer in the Northern Province. These competing agendas helped lead to a failed effort at groundnut promotion. Colonial officials' actions were linked to ideas about gender, ethnicity and migration. Lack of colonial scientific knowledge about groundnuts, including their gendered role in the local food system contributed to the failure. The focus on groundnuts is a lens through which to understand the nature of colonial power in Nyasaland and the role of agricultural science in the colonial state. The paper contributes to broader discussions about multiple historical geographies of colonialism, the nature of African colonial states, and the relationship of African farmers to colonial states.     

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.     

Contested migration and settler politics in Cyprus

Immigration and settler literatures provide contrasting approaches to the evaluation of conflict between ‘newcomers’ and ‘indigenous’ groups. On the one hand, immigration studies emphasize that newcomers, particularly migrants, almost never fight civil wars; on the other hand, studies on settlers in contested territories expect inherently unstable relations between settlers and native populations affected by colonization projects. While each provides strong evidence to support its argument, neither literature has adequately accounted for hybrid cases where the settler and migrant categories have become almost indistinguishable. The article focuses on Cyprus as a paradigmatic such case. Specifically, it looks at populations transferred from Turkey to the northern part of the island after 1974 described either as settlers or immigrants by rival accounts in the Cypriot conflict. While colonization constitutes a violation of international conventions and a major obstacle to peace, settlers in such places as Cyprus, Tibet or Western Sahara often meet the profile of migrant populations more interested in daily survival issues than in territorial politics. In contrast to other historical or contemporary cases of settler colonialism such as Algeria (France) or West Bank and Gaza (Israel), what is particularly puzzling in Cyprus and elsewhere is the absence of mobilization and politicization among settlers despite perceived discrimination and fear of relocation following a negotiated peace agreement. Addressing this puzzle is essential to bridging the gaps between immigration and settler literatures and in mediating the tensions between conflicting claims over space, land and the political geography of peace settlements in deeply divided societies.