Conference 'Migrations and societies in Africa and the Middle East: a long term perspective', the 4th Global Migration History Conference.
Rabat, 19 - 21 May 2012
Aim of the conference
The conference seeks to map and understand patterns of cross-cultural migration in Africa and the Middle East from 1500 until the present. We are interested in local, internal, international and intercontinental movements of people, as well as in free and unfree migration. Following Manning's ideas on the crucial role of cross-community migration as an engine for social and cultural change (Migration in World History, 2005), both in sending and receiving societies, we are predominantly interested in geographical moves that involve the crossing of cultural boundaries. Such migrations, defined in linguistic, religious, class or other terms, bring people with different cultural repertoires in contact with each other and thereby has the potential to lead to innovations in various domains.
The conference seeks to assess the degree of mobility in African and Middle-Eastern societies over a longer time-frame, changes therein between periods, and, ultimately, the cultural, political, social and economic effects of migration on both sending and receiving societies. We especially invite scholars to critically rethink widespread assumptions that portray non-Western parts of the world as essentially immobile until the 19th and 20th centuries, and interpret any forms of mobility there were as induced by the actions of violent and coercive outsiders (mostly Europeans). As a counterpoint, we put forward the hypothesis that, throughout the period under study, cross-community migration has been both part and parcel as well as a major determinant of processes of social change in the countries of Africa and the Middle-East. Therefore, we urge participants – where possible – to particularly pay attention to the human capital of migrants into their analyses.
More: http://socialhistory.org/en/events/migration-africa-and-middle-east