Illusions and reality in international migration: migration and development in post World War II Greece

The author analyzes international migration using a case study of Greece, with a focus on the relationship between migration and development in the sending countries. He supports a view of international migration "as a central component of the international political economy--one whose investigation requires a sensitivity to, and intimacy with, the forces operative in the structure and process of the world economy." The role of Greek emigration in the areas of relief and unemployment, capital transfers or remittances, and the social realm is considered. (summary in FRE, SPA)     

War against War!: pictures as means of social struggle in post-First World War Europe

Germany 1925: Ernst Friedrich, a young anarchist and anti-militarist activist, publishes one of the first independent books composed only of photographs and captions: War against War! His stated goal is to employ classified pictures of the First World War (WWI) to unmask nationalistic propaganda and expose the false narratives of militaristic rhetoric. Published on the eve of the golden age of photojournalism, this book is the first grassroots attempt to use photography as a means of social and cultural change on a large scale. Through in-depth analysis of some key pictures, I will investigate the relation this series of images establishes with the beholder and the role it plays in shaping his visual experience. Emphasis will be placed on 24 close-ups of disfigured faces which constitute the last set of this visually driven narrative. As I will seek to demonstrate, the complex array of pictures created by Ernst Friedrich testifies to a fundamental yet still embryonic change in the social perception of photography in the post-WWI Europe.     

Labor migration in Asia

"A recent conference sponsored by the United Nations Center for Regional Development (UNCRD) in Nagoya, Japan examined the growing importance of labor migration for four major Asian labor importers (Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore) and five major labor exporters (Bangladesh, Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, and Thailand).... The conference concluded that international labor migration would increase within Asia because the tight labor markets and rising wages which have stimulated Japanese investment in other Asian nations, for example, have not been sufficient to eliminate migration push and pull forces...."     

From communal charity to national welfare: Jewish orphanages in Eastern Europe before and after World War I

This article examines Jewish institutions for the care of orphans in an attempt to understand several aspects of Jewish life in Eastern Europe: (1) attitudes towards orphans on the part of communal leaders, intellectuals, and political activists; (2) the transition of Jewish charitable and (in the modern period) philanthropic institutions from the pre‐modern communal charity of the early nineteenth century to modern “scientific philanthropy” at the fin de siècle to national welfare in the interwar period; (3) and, to a lesser extent, the experiences of orphans themselves, as far as is possible to ascertain from documents relating to the institutions that cared for them. Marginal figures such as orphans were of growing concern to the organised Jewish community in its increasingly complex encounter with modernity in the Russian Empire, and traditional patterns of charity, family life, and relations between socioeconomic classes were cast into doubt by new government policies and modern scientific attitudes arriving from Western and Central Europe. The religiously mandated charity of the pre‐modern kehillah gave way to a paternalistic philanthropy that aimed to mould a generation of “productive” working‐class Jews. However, the upheavals of World War I and the mass politicisation of East European Jewry brought about a transformation in attitudes towards orphans and other marginal groups, whose care was made a centrepiece of national, and nationally minded, Jewish communal life in the interwar Polish Republic.     

Aliens,Subjects and the State: Surveillance in British Hotels during World War I

The apparatus of the state expanded in unprecedented ways during World War I, with implications for longstanding practices and legal principles which governed the relationship between guests and staff within hotels and similar lodgings. Commercial hostelries were required, under successive Orders in Council, to register the movement of guests and supply these details to police authorities on state-mandated forms. This idea was new to the United Kingdom, where jurisprudence had upheld the right of guests to receive accommodation in anonymity. Exploring how institutions grappled with new regimes of surveillance, this article reveals how the British hotel’s relationship to the state and to guests of all nationalities changed dramatically in the course of war, with implications for the operation of the post-war hospitality sector.     

Paths to Democracy and Authoritarianism in Europe before World War One

This article offers a novel explanation of why some European democracies survived while others collapsed in pre-WWII Europe, describing historical paths which ended with establishment of either self-sustainable democracies or non-democratic regimes in the interwar period. The historical path to self-sustaining democracy began with the emergence, in the nineteenth century, of constitutional monarchies with executive power responsible to the monarch and freely elected legislatures. Such polities, without exception, became self-sustaining democracies unless the transition was achieved through regime discontinuity (as in Germany in 1918). An intermediate stage in this historical process consisted of development, in some countries, of competitive oligarchy as a transitional stage between the constitutional monarchy and democracy. If a country's political history did not follow the above-mentioned path, its initial democracy was susceptible to breakdown. This pertained to countries which transitioned directly to democracy or competitive oligarchy from absolute monarchy or other regimes lacking open-outcome elections.     

The Archive as a Social World

Qualitative Sociology - Historical scholars often adopt a solitary ethic, conceiving of their work as the product of a lonely and isolated individual toiling away in a dusty archive. In this...     

The post Second World War Canadian society*

Ce texte porte surtout sur ce qui est arrivéà la société canadienne depuis la seconde guerre mondiale. Cependant l'auteur soutient que pour comprendre les changements qui ont eu lieu dans cette société il faut retourner au passé et faire l'étude de la façon dont la société canadienne a évolué au cours des années d'avant la seconde guerre mondiale. On peut parler non seulement d'un « ordre ancien » de la société canadienne française mais aussi d'un ordre ancien de la société canadienne; et de cette façon qualifier de « révolution tranquille» les évènements qui se sont déroulés depuis la guerre tant au Canada français qu'au Canada anglais. The primary concern of this paper is with what has happened to Canadian society since the Second World War. In seeking to understand the changes that have been taking place in this society, however, the author argues that it is necessary to go back and examine the way in which Canadian society developed over the years before the Second World War. One can speak of an ‘old order’ of Canadian society, not simply of an old order of the society of French Canada, and what has happened since the war, in English-speaking as well as French-speaking Canada, can be described as a ‘quiet revolution.’     

Origins and destinies: Immigration to the United States since World War II

Contemporary immigration to the United States and the formation of new ethnic groups are the complex and unintended social consequences of the expansion of the nation to its post-World War II position of global hegemony. Immigrant communities in the United States today are related to a history of American military, political, economic, and cultural involvement and intervention in the sending countries, especially in Asia and the Caribbean Basin, and to the linkages that are formed in the process that open a variety of legal and illegal migration pathways. The 19.8 million foreign-born persons counted in the 1990 U.S. census formed the largest immigrant population in the world, though in relative terms, only 7.9% of the U.S. population was foreign-born, a lower proportion than earlier in this century. Today's immigrants are extraordinarily diverse, a reflection of polar-opposite types of migrations embedded in very different historical and structural contexts. Also, unlike the expanding economy that absorbed earlier flows from Europe, since the 1970s new immigrants have entered an hourglass economy with reduced opportunities for social mobility, particularly among the less educated, and new waves of refugees have entered a welfare state with expanded opportunities for public assistance. This paper seeks to make sense of the new diversity. A typology of contemporary immigrants is presented, and their patterns of settlement, their distinctive social and economic characteristics compared to major native-born racial-ethnic groups, and their different modes of incorporation in—and consequences for—American society are considered.     

War mobilization and the life course: A cohort of World War II veterans

Men experience historical events, such as wars, at different times in their lives and are thereby influenced in different ways. Using data on a cohort of veterans from World War II, this study investigates the proposition that entry into the armed forces at a relatively early age maximized discontinuity and facilitated a redirection of the life course through psychological development, a delayed entry into family roles, and greater advancement opportunity. By comparison, later entry into the service favored greater risk of family and career disruption within a pattern of life continuity from adolescence to the middle years. Results from the analysis are consistent with these expectations.     

Recreating a homeland: Czechoslovak diplomats in Canada during the Second World War

In the 1920s, a large influx of immigrants from Czechoslovakia came to Canada in search of industrial work and available land for agriculture. Interwar ethnic associations were predominantly led by individuals of Slovak origin. Czechoslovakia maintained contact with its nationals in Canada through its diplomatic officials. Their consular offices promoted loyalty to Czechoslovakia’s policies in the hopes that Slovaks and Czechs would adopt their home government’s pro-“Czechoslovak” ideology, and eventually defend their homeland in the event of a war. The Czechoslovak Consulate General in Montreal oversaw all diplomatic activity between Prague and its nationals in Canada. With Slovakia’s declaration of independence and Germany’s occupation of the Czech lands in March 1939, the Czechoslovak Consulate General in Montreal used its local diplomatic discretion in an attempt to unite Slovaks and Czechs as a “Czechoslovak” national community. However, although nationalist Slovaks supported Canada’s war effort, they opposed the Czechoslovak Consulate General’s pro-Czechoslovak agenda. Czechoslovak diplomats lobbied the Canadian government for political recognition of the Edvard Bene?-led Czechoslovak government-in-exile in London to legitimize their efforts to re-establish a postwar Czechoslovak Republic. After British recognition, Canada became the last Dominion to recognize the London government-in-exile.     

Disability in British poetry of the First World War

In 2005, K.D. Laird published an abrasive critique of the poem ‘Disabled’ by Wilfred Owen. This iconic trench poet of the First World War was accused of portraying his impaired veteran as a tragic victim of loss. However, 50?years before the modern disability movement, Owen lacked the language to interpret impairment as oppression. What ‘Disabled’ requires is a contextual analysis that integrates its literary qualities with the historical conditions. This article applies such an approach. Firstly, the technical devices used to tell the story are examined: for example, rhyming, verse structure and allusions. Secondly, the experience of impairment represented in the poem is related to early-twentieth-century British society: in particular to the initial patriotic enthusiasm for the War, to the influence of gender roles and to the limitations of state provision. In this way, we see how Owen’s literary image is situated within a historical time frame.