International conference

Intra-continental agricultural migration in the Old and New World (1800-2000).
(Paper session -- Complete)

SSHA Baltimore. 12-15 November 2015

Sunday, November 15: 08:00 AM-10:00 AM

Organizers

Laurent Herment CNRS-CRH. Paris EHESS. UMR 8858. GDRI-CRICEC.
Niccolo Mignemi, Ecole Française de Rome (Roma).


Many scholars have studied the migration of Europeans to the New World and the farm settlements that resulted from it. Beyond these intercontinental migrations there were also intra-continental migrations in Europe and in the New World which are less well-known; perhaps the most important of these were the ones occurring within Europe. Several reasons could be invoked to explain these migrations. Warfare or political disruptions could trigger migrations out of a specific country or a specific region (Greeks after World War I for example). Warfare could also bring about the settlement of new populations a region had been depopulated (e.g. Germany after the Thirty Years’ War). Other demographic changes could also explain some migrations. The declining growth of the French population during the nineteenth, and the first part of the twentieth century triggered immigration from Belgium and Italy. In a very different context, in Canada, immigration was promoted by political authorities to pioneer a new province, Saskatchewan. Unlike recent migration, since the middle of the twentieth century, a large part of these immigrants came to a new country with the intention to settle as farmers.  


This session has two goals. The first one is to focus on migrants whose aim was specifically to settle as farmers in more or less crowded countries where old agrarian systems prevailed. Contrary to what happened in migration from Europe to the New World, new farmers (or new homesteaders) encountered existing farming populations. They also faced specific, well-established legal rules and political authorities. In some cases these new farmers were welcome, but in others they were considered competitors whose new ways of farming threatened to disrupt the old traditional system. The second aim of the session is to promote a comparative perspective with the New Worlds in which the settlers faced with a very different legal, social, economic framework.


The session will contribute to the debate on the social, economic, and agricultural causes and consequences of these migrations. It will also deal with the attitude of political authorities in both countries of departure and receiving countries who had it in their power to promote or hamper these migrations. Contributions about migrations within Europe as well as within the New Worlds are welcome.

J. Bolt, E. Green. Capturing the capital rents? The development of large-scale farming in Southern Rhodesia, 1900-1960.
N. Mignemi. Foreign Peasants in the Agriculture of South-Eastern France (1920s-1930s).
L. Herment. Belgian farmers in the North of France at the beginning of the French Agricultural Revolution 1945-1955.
M. Olsson, P. Svensson. Storage and Commercial Networks in southern Sweden during the Agricultural Revolution.