Resume of the African Research Committee-Sponsored Conference on Migration in Africa, February 25–26, 1966

Abstract

The purpose of this conference was to discuss the present state of research on human migration and to suggest the most immediate needs for studies facilitating research and for substantive investigations, all with special reference to Africa. The following participants met for two days in Evanston, Illinois: Lyle W. Shannon, of the Sociology Department of the State University of Iowa, has completed a study of in-migration of Mexican-Americans, southern whites, and Negroes to Racine, Wisconsin, and is concerned with the functions of gatekeepers, prevailing opportunities, and experiences of change in the absorption and integration of migrants into their new community. Leonard Doob of the Psychology Department of Yale University has done work with a scale of opinions and values which has been tested with five African tribes; he is particularly concerned with acculturation and imagery as well as temporal orientation and selective migration. Edward Soja from the Geography Department at Northwestern University has been working on Kenya, mapping intranational patterns of migration, and testing the theory that clashes of cultures generate differentiation. Hans Panofsky, Curator of the African Library at Northwestern University Library, has been concerned with the economic aspects of labor migration in Ghana and bibliographically with the whole of Africa. Louise Holborn, of the Political Science Department of Radcliffe College, has been working with the refugee problem, UN resettlement projects, and international migration. Leo F. Schnore, sociologist from the University of Wisconsin, has been doing research on population redistribution and residential mobility in the United States. Francis Hsu of the Anthropology Department of Northwestern University and Duane Marble of the Geography Department were with the group briefly. Marilyn Tschanner and Roland Eves served as rapporteurs. Chairman was Franklin D. Scott of the History Department of Northwestern, who has worked on migration in general and especially on Scandinavian migration and cultural interchange.