Migration, Historical Geographies of

Abstract

Migration has long featured as an important theme in historical–geographical studies. Over the past three decades, however, perspectives on historical migration have extended beyond quantitative analyses of numerical flows between regions and their associated ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors to embrace more comprehensively the variety of human experiences associated with these movements in different parts of the globe. The sources used and methodologies deployed in these works have become more varied as a result. While the dynamics of ‘migration systems’ currently frame macro-understandings of historical migrations, regional and local studies have illuminated the often-complex exchanges that occurred between migrants and their host societies as well as the frequently uncredited contributions that migrants made to the shaping and reshaping of rural and urban landscapes. Other fundamental consequences of migration were its contribution to the progress of capitalism globally, its role in the building of empires, and its impact on discourses of nationalism in the migrants’ places of destination. In all of these contexts, migration intersected in different ways with other socially constructed categories such as race, ethnicity, class, and religion. Yet migration was about departure as much as arrival, and many migrants retained both active and nostalgic links with their ‘homeland’ under a variety of circumstances. The context, content, and impact of these ‘diasporic imaginings’ remain an important, if as yet under-researched, avenue of inquiry for geographers.