The recent migration and refugee ‘crises’ in Europe, most recently in the wake of the war in Ukraine, have demonstrated the continued relevance of debates about citizenship, inclusion and exclusion, multiculturalism, and immigration policy. This course aims to contextualise these debates within the history of European immigration since the late 19th century, examining the construction and impact of citizenship and nationality laws, immigration policies, and public discourse in particular, but not exclusively, in Britain, France, and Germany. Seminar topics include the challenges faced by migrant communities in 19th-century imperial capitals such as Paris and London; the mass migrations from Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century; refugees and refugeedom before, during, and after the two World Wars; migration after the decolonisation of European Empires; and challenges faced by ‘internal others’ such as Jews and the Roma.

We will explore political, social, and cultural aspects of immigration: e.g. the relationship between citizenship, inclusion, and equality; the limits of inclusion and national belonging; racism and the rise of the xenophobic right; the language(s) used to talk and write about migration. In addition to state policies, we will explore migrants’ experiences, voices, and agency through primary sources such as memoirs, interviews, film, and news media, paying attention to often marginalised groups like women, children, people of colour, and (former) colonial subjects. Questions we will address reading the sources include: How do gender, class, race, ethnicity and religion intersect in the experience of migration? In what ways has race informed refugee history? Were hostilities experienced by migrant groups at particular historical moments linked to wider social tensions? Is ‘crisis’ a useful framework for historians?

 

Indicative List of Seminar Topics

1. Citizenship: from empire to nation

2. Refugees and borders

3. Jus Soli vs. Jus Sanguinis

4. Insiders and outsiders in 19th-century cities

5. The Jewish refugee crisis

6. Children as refugees during and after World War II

7. Postwar Germany in transit

8. Postcolonial France: lifting the veil?

9. Postcolonial Britain: the Windrush Generation

10. The Roma in Europe

 

Indicative Reading

Secondary Literature

Banko, Lauren, Katarzyna Nowak and Peter Gatrell, ‘What is refugee history, now?’, Journal of Global History 17 (2022): 1-19.

Bensimon, Fabrice, ‘British Workers in France, 1815-1848,’ Past & Present 213 (2011): 147-89.

Bleich, Erik, ‘Antiracism Without Races: Politics and Policy in a ‘Colour-Blind’ State,’ French Politics, Culture and Society 18 (2000): 48-74.

Brubaker, Rogers, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany, 1992.

Clifford, Rebecca, Survivors: Children’s Lives after the Holocaust, 2020.

Coller, Ian, ‘Arab France: Mobility and Community in Early-nineteenth-century Paris and Marseille,’ French Historical Studies 29 (2006): 433-456.

Cooper, Frederick, Citizenship, Inequality, and Difference: Historical Perspectives, 2018.

Gatrell, Peter, The Unsettling of Europe: The Great Migration, 1945 to the Present, 2019.

Hirschhausen, Ulrike von, ‘From Imperial Inclusion to National Exclusion: Citizenship in the Habsburg Monarchy and in Austria, 1867-1923,’ European Review of History 16 (2009): 551-573.

Jones, Reece, Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move, 2016.

Moch, Leslie Page and Rachel G. Fuchs, "Getting Along: Poor Women’s Networks in Nineteenth-century Paris," French Historical Studies 18 (1993): 34-49.

Panayi, Panikos, Migrant City: A New History of London, 2020.

Perry, Kennetta Hammond, London is the Place for Me: Black Britons, Citizenship, and the Politics of Race, 2015.

Scott, Joan Wallach, The Politics of the Veil, 2007.

Stokes, Lauren, ‘The Permanent Refugee Crisis in the Federal Republic of Germany, 1949-,’ Central European History 52 (2019): 19-44.

Taylor, Becky, Another Darkness, Another Dawn: A History of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers, 2014.

Zahra, Tara, The Great Departure: Mass Migration from Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World, 2016.

Primary Sources

Arendt, Hannah, We Refugees, 1943.

Breslauer, Hugo (dir.), Die Stadt ohne Juden [The City without Jews], 1924.

Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951.

Evans-Gordon, William, The Alien Immigrant, 1903.

Kassowitz, Mathieu (dir.), La Haine [The Hate], 1995.

Mikes, George, How to Be an Alien?, c.1946.