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The History of Peoples Moving Across the Atlantic
Prof. Timothy Walker
Preliminary Syllabus - Spring 1999
This introductory course synthesizes the main economic, social, political,
and technological features of migration across the Atlantic in the last five
centuries. It emphasizes the variety of migration experiences as well as the
common underlying macro-processes. Modern mass migration is greatly linked
to the Atlantic experience, in which economic and political changes have gone
hand-in-hand with technological shifts, roughly contrasting this century with
the past. From a fundamentally trade economy to
an industrial base; from a relatively free entry at destinations to a bureaucratic
system of visas and "green-cards"; and from ships and messengers
to a system of air-land-sea means of transportation and videophone communication.
Contrasting waves of migration across the Atlantic in the last five centuries
include two basic directions of movement: A predominantly East-West/North-South
migration until the first half of the twenty century shifted its course (with
exception of Eastern Europeans and Africans coming recently to North America)
to a West-East/South-North in the second part of this century. Likewise, voluntary
migration by colonizers and forced migration of African slaves to the Americas
until the early XIX century, shiftcd to a predominantly voluntary economic
migration from the South to North in this century. This course highlights
the historical contexts (economic and political), motivations, and technological
means for migration. Differences of effects at origins and destinations, at
the economic and social levels, are also assessed.
PROJECTED CONTENT
1. WHY PEOPLE MOVE?
2. ON MOTIVATIONS AND REPRODUCTION OF MIGRATION
a. Human Capital perspective
b. Social network and cumulative causation approaches
c. World Systems theory
d. Migration Systems theory
e. Segmented Labor Market theories
3. TYPES OF MIGRATION
a. What is voluntary? what is forced'?
b. As colonization enterprise
c. In chains
d. For economic survival
e. For escaping persecution
f. Temporary and Permanent: Their relativeness
4. BARRIERS TO ENTRY: FROM FREE ENTRANCE TO SYSTEM OF VISAS AND "GREEN
CARDS"
5. CASE STUDIES: MlGRATION FROM EAST TO WEST, AND FROM NORTH TO SOUTH
a. Europeans Moving to the Americas:
The experience of Spanish in Latino America: Purpose, main economic activities,
remittances.
The Irish experience (1840s)
The Italian experience (1880s)
The Jewish experiences (1910s and 1930s)
b. Africans Being Moved to the Americas: The US and Brazilian experiences
(XVI- XVIII centuries)
6. CASE STUDIES: MIGRATION FROM THE WEST TO EAST, AND FROM SOUTH TO NORTH
a. Latin-Americans in Europe
As refugees (1970s)
As economic migrants (1980s-current)
b. Ex-colonized people in Europe
As 'second class' citizens: The Guyanese experience
7. THE TECHNOLOGY FOR PEOPLES ON THE MOVE AND COMMUNICATION
a. Time and space experiences
b. From ships and messengers to multi-transportation means and video-phones
c. Effects on social relations at origins and destinations
8. ADAPTATION AND ASlMlLATlON PROCESSES REVISITED: The "n"generation
from earlier migration waves versus thc first and second-generation stories
9. RECENT TRENDS: NORTH AMERICA AS DREAM DESTINATION FOR ALL MIGRANTS
© 2002 by The President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Created November 2002.