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Panels and
Abstracts
Thursday (May 4) 7:30 Walker Ames Room
Katrina and Other Catastrophes: Environment, Poverty, Policy,
and Migration
Douglas Massey (Sociology, Princeton
University)
“THE SOCIAL ORIGINS OF URBAN DISASTERS”
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"Natural
disasters" rarely stem from the forces of nature alone. They usually
arise from an interaction between a natural event and some feature of
social organization that left human beings vulnerable to its
consequences. Such was the case in New Orleans and
Hurricane Katrina, where a legacy of class and racial segregation led to
the geographic concentration of poverty within the city's least desirable
neighborhoods---former swamp and marshlands lying at the lowest elevations
that were converted to residential use late in the city's history. The dramatic images appearing on
television after the disaster struck revealed to America
and the world the stark realities of racial segregation and inequality, but
these realities are not confined to New
Orleans.
The geographic concentration of black poverty is a basic structure
feature of urban America,
and natural events could produce similar results in dozens of other
metropolitan areas throughout the United States. The roots of the Katrina disaster are
social as well as environmental
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Myron Gutmann (History,
University of Michigan/ICPSSR)
“Katrina in Context: Environment and
Migration in the U.S.”
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The exodus of residents from New Orleans
spurred by Hurricane Katrina, and the ensuing massive publicity, have
encouraged interest in the question of the ways that migration in the U.S.
has been shaped by environmental factors. So has Timothy Egan’s exciting
new book, The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of those who survived the
Great American Dust Bowl. This paper is about the much less exciting
context in which those dramatic stories took place, because the facts of
the story tell us that the kinds of environmental factors exemplified by
Katrina and the Dust Bowl are dwarfed in importance and frequency by the
other ways that environment has both impeded and assisted the forces of migration. We accomplish this goal by enumerating
four ways to think about migration and environment in the U.S. They are:
1. Environmental Calamities - the
big things, including floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes, that have the biggest short-term impact, and
are most clearly environmental.
2. Environmental hardship. This
happens when environmental events lead to hardship. The classic examples
are droughts, including the Dust Bowl, which disrupt agriculture and
markets, thus causing people to move.
3. Environmental barriers and
environmental management. For a long time, environmental conditions (heat,
cold, humidity, aridity) made it difficult for people to live in some
places. Part of the big news of the 20th century in the U.S. is the advent of environmental
management, although it has long-term origins in the Dutch polders and
other drainage schemes, and in the finding of
replacements for the lack of wood for home construction on the Plains.
Today, this means heat, air conditioning, flood control, drainage, and
irrigation. These management schemes have allowed migration of people into
areas they haven’t previously lived in. This is by far the most important
environmental cause of migration in U.S. history.
4. Environmental amenities.
Finally, there are places that are more fun than others to live in. There’s
a growing literature that shows that people migrate to places that have
certain amenities - temperature, proximity to water or mountains, etc.
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Friday (May 5) 9:30-11:30 HUB 310
Migration Studies: Looking Backward
and Forward
Donna R. Gabaccia (History, University of Minnesota)
“Moving Americans
and Global History”
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This paper
discusses the impact of global studies / history on scholarly studies of
people “on the move.” The vast chronological and spatial scales of analysis
in these fields have encouraged specialists to scrutinize and to re-think
the boundaries and objects of inquiry of their research fields. In particular, they have encouraged
scholars to ponder why and if their research should stop at or be contained
within national borders.
“Moving
Americans” provides a concrete example of how recent critiques of
methodological nationalism open exciting opportunities for dialogue between
formerly isolated research agendas. Although focused on the U.S., the conference brings together experts
on international migrations (who connect the U.S. to most of the other
continents of the world) with specialists on internal (or domestic)
migrations. From the perspective of global history, it would appear that
the intentions of the conference are not just to broaden scholarly dialogue
across disciplines but (by focusing on a single nation) to re-examine from
new perspectives questions about the significance or insignificance of
citizenship, nationality, and state regulation for the cultural, economic
and social dynamics of two, widely (if separately studied) types of
migration.
A global
historical perspective also allows us to ponder the limits of dialogue
proposed. Other scholars who study human movement and mobility, in the U.S.
might have been seated at the seminar table but may not be. To name just a
few examples, I would point to the border commuters who move back and
forth, often daily, across the Canada/U.S. and Mexico/Canada border, to the
entry into the U.S.
of large numbers of tourists and students, and to the short-term or
short-distance changes of residence that occur within American cities or
counties. Thinking historically, we might have also added to our discussion
the nomadism of indigenous peoples prior to the
arrival of Europeans.
As this
suggests, the perspectives of global studies/history are also pushing
specialists, regardless of discipline or chrono-spatial
expertise, toward a typology of human movements defined by variations in
their temporality (long/short term) and spatiality (long/short distance).
Since we are focused on a single nation, and the modern era, we might want
to ponder where “international” and “internal” (or “domestic”) migrations
fit into such a typology and how (if at all) the emergence of national and
an international system of national states has constructed, regulated,
prohibited or encouraged different types of human movement. What is it, if
not national states, that distinguishes nomads from migrants, immigrants
from emigrants, tourists from commuters?
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Gordon F. De Jong
(Sociology, Pennsylvania
State University)
“REVITALIZING INTERNAL MIGRATION STUDIES”
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This paper on revitalizing interdisciplinary internal
migration studies focuses on seven themes:
1. Give priority to questions on the consequences
(impacts) of internal migration, but integrate determinants and
consequences theories for enhanced quality scientific tests.
2. Utilize empirical frameworks which include both
actors and contexts in multi-unit frameworks.
3. Integrating life course developmental science with
cost-benefit microeconomic and spatial differentiation theory offers the
potential for new perspectives on internal migration studies.
4. Values, expectations, and intentions are key
theoretical concepts in prying open the migration decision-making black
box.
5. Emphasize stream-specific rather than generalized internal
migration behavior in generating questions, theoretical frameworks, and
empirical test.
6. Bridge the artificial dichotomy of internal and
international migration studies.
7. A new national longitudinal migration survey is
essential for significant future advances in internal migration
scholarship.
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James Gregory (History, University of Washington)
“Studying Moving Americans: The
Uneven History of Migration Studies”
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Interest in
the subject of migration has waxed and waned over the past 100 years and
also oscilated between concentrations on internal
migration and international migration. Lately most of the popular and
academic interest has focused on immigration and international migrations,
but all through the middle decades of the 20th century internal migration
studies were the focus of greatest interest. This paper explores these
patterns and relates them to shifting contexts: both geopolitical and
academic/institutional. Part of this will involve the relationship between
migration studies in the field of History and migration studies in the
fields of Sociology/Demography. The two enterprises have often been out of
sync, perhaps in part because of differences in their institutional
environments: History relating more to journalism and other popular media;
Sociology relating more to policy making and a particular set of funding
agencies.
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Trent Alexander (History, Minnesota Population
Center)
“Global, Local, and Nowhere in Between: Data
and Disciplines in the Study of U.S. Internal Migration”
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The study of U.S.
internal migration has been booming in both history and sociology, though
cross-fertilization between the two fields has been minimal. The lack of robust interaction between
historians and sociologists is not simply due to artificial disciplinary
boundaries. In the study of the Great Migration, the two disciplines have
fundamentally different geographic approaches to studying the move. Historians typically favor sources that
lend themselves to local studies--such as newspapers, local organizational
records, and oral histories--whereas sociologists tend to develop
national-level portraits drawing on the U.S. Census or other
systematically-collected datasets.
Recent developments in
both fields suggest that there is hope of bridging this disciplinary
"geography gap." One
approach is for individual scholars to "do it all"--to master the
methods of both fields and analyze multiple levels of geography
simultaneously. While a number of
recent works have taken this approach with varying degrees of success, it
would be a mistake to pin all hopes for continued interaction on such a
rare and difficult type of scholarship.
A more practical approach would be for scholars in both fields to
meet somewhere in the middle, to explicitly incorporate relevant regional
patterns into their analyses and arguments, as many have begun to do
already.
As sociologists and
historians begin to speak about the same places--say, the West, the Rust
Belt, the Pacific Northwest, or however
defined--we will move towards a more integrated portrait of migrants'
experiences and of the process of migration more generally. In this paper I advocate for this second
approach, paying special attention to new and forthcoming resources available
to scholars in both disciplines interested in pursuing a mid-level
geographic approach.
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Friday 12:30-2:30 HUB 310
Bridging the Gap: Connections Between Internal and International Migration Studies
Douglas T. Gurak and Mary M. Kritz (Sociology,
Cornell University)
“New Immigrant Destinations: Stability and Change”
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During the 1990s the tendency for
immigrants to settle in non-traditional places accelerated significantly.
Some of this dispersion was due to the internal migration of immigrants who
had been living in traditional gateway regions; some was due to changes in
the forces shaping the initial settlement places of immigrants; and some
may have been due to the internal migration of immigrants who had already
been living in non-traditional places. The dynamics affecting this
evolution of settlement patterns very likely differ considerably across a
range of types of places and across a very diverse set of foreign-born
groups. The knowledge base is weakest with regard to what happens after
immigrants have settled in non-traditional places and thus this will be the
main focus of our paper.
Questions that will be addressed
include: Does the lack of a large ethnic communities and institutional
structures adapted to dealing with immigrant communities
lead to high levels of residential instability? How does this vary for
different groups, different types of places and different parts of the
country? Given both the generally high level of mobility of the total U.S.
population and of the foreign-born population, it is likely that a
significant level of population churning is occurring in these new
destinations. The degree of churning must be evaluated in terms of both a
broad set of forces that influence settlement stability for native born as
well as foreign born, and forces that are more relevant for the foreign
born. We examine key conceptual and empirical issues relevant to augmenting
our knowledge of what happens to immigrants after they have settled in
non-traditional destinations in an effort to set a research agenda aimed at
clarifying the implications and likely trajectory of the recent settlement
patterns.
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Matthew Garcia (History,
Brown University)
“Geographies of Latinidad: Mapping Latina/o Identity and Community
formation in the Twenty-first Century”
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he spatial practices of Latin American im/migrants and more rooted ethno-nationalists groups
(i.e. Chicanos, Boricuas) have combined to
produce something approximating a “U.S. Latina/o community.” While the boundaries of this imagined
community remain in flux and somewhat in debate, the common practice of
identifying “Latinos” or “Hispanics” by U.S. media (i.e. Latina Magazine),
government bodies (i.e. the census), and academics contributes to the
discursive mapping of this group. In
this regard the “practice of everyday life,” to borrow a phrase from Michel
de Certeau, has been instrumental in forging a
sense of identity and community among disparate groups divided by
generation, origins, race and even language. (de Certeau,
1984; Arreola 2004) Such diversity, however, demands
attention to what draws us together as well as what threatens to break us
apart. Indeed, the very concept of
“us”—a referent present as early as the 19th century—cannot be taken for
granted and whose applicability must be rigorously interrogated. “Our America,”
as the Cuban poet and revolutionary José Martí
described the space occupied by Latin American people living in the Americas, has had a tenuous existence that
is not an inevitable part of North America’s
future.
The
purpose of this essay is to explore the construction and likely futures of
this heterogeneous pan-ethnic configuration. As my title suggests, “geographies” or
the locations of articulation is a determinant factor both in the creation
and sustainability of Latinidad. Latinidad,
therefore, must be understood as a concept and community that “takes
place,” whether through people’s actions and occupations or their movements
and interactions with one another and the dominant culture. As Henri Lefebvre argues, to know a space
such as the one occupied and influenced by Latina/os,
one must be intimately aware of the process of its production. (Lefebvre,
1991; Hayden, 1995) Consequently, I
have chosen to define Latinidad as the
spaces—both physical and metaphorical—occupied by the historic and more
recent populations of people having a relationship with Latin
America. I explore the
ways in which this relationship contributes to and challenges the formation
of Latinidad in the United States as Latina/os migrate to locations outside the traditional
“coastal” areas and beyond the national perimeters. These migrations, I argue, have been as
challenging to the ethnic parochialism of the 1960s and 1970s formations as
they have been to the dominant culture of the United States.
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William Frey (Sociology,
University of Michigan)
"Studying Immigration and Domestic Migration
in Multiethnic America"
Mark Ellis (Geography,
University of Washington)
“JUST DIFFERENT
SCALES OF FLOWS? THE PROMISE AND PERIL OF RESEARCH INTEGRATING INTERNAL AND
INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION”
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There is a small but growing body of
research showing how migration flows within countries are bound up with
flows to and from countries. The connections between internal and international
migration are not a phenomenon only of the present global migration
wave. The rhythms of international
migration between Europe and North America in the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries were connected to internal flows within European
countries and the US. Nevertheless, it seems likely that the
linkages between internal and international migration today are greater in
strength and more geographically widespread because of the spatial
penetration of current labor market globalization. Efforts to integrate
investigations of population flows within and between countries have
pierced the long-standing epistemological boundary between international
and internal migration research. In
so doing, this work parallels transnationalism
scholarship in illuminating the conceptual and methodological weakness of a
nation-state dominated view of migration systems.
In this essay, I will summarize
existing arguments and findings about the linkages between internal and
international migration. I will also
identify areas where the connections between these different scales of
movement have yet to be fully explored.
In advocating for more research into these connections I also want to warn against
the treatment of internal and international migration as just different
scales of flows. For such a view, if
adopted carelessly, may downplay the very real and sometimes harsh power of
the state in restricting movement across borders, as well as in limiting
citizenship and residence rights for the foreign-born. In other words, I want to argue in favor
of an approach to internal-international migration linkages
that acknowledges the enduring power of the state as opposed to
relegating it to the sideline. I
also want to suggest that state power is in itself something that links
internal and international migration through the regulation and
manipulation of both internal and international flows.
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Friday
3:00-5:00 HUB 310
Racial Movements: Migration and Race
Nayan Shah (History,
University of California,
San Diego)
"Race, Mobility and Intimate Ties"
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This paper will track the history of
internal migration of Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, South
Asian, and Arab) and their intimate ties with Mexicans, Chicanos, Blacks,
Native Americans, European immigrants and Whites from the mid-19th to mid-
20th century. The paper will explore
how internal migration shaped and intensified legal/political regulation of
sexual conduct, intimate ties and domestic life across disparate and local
racial formations. The survey of the
field raises questions about the consequences and legacies of individual
and group strategies of negotiating and transgressing boundaries of race,
morality and social membership.
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Kimberley Philips (History,
College of William and Mary)
TBA
Richard Wright (Geography,
Dartmouth University)
“Immigration
and Mixed-Race Geographies”
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This research attempts to comprehend current US
racial formation from the vantage point of the location and migration of
mixed-race households. The study
builds from changes in the laws proscribing mixed-race marriages and
immigration. Accordingly, we
rehearse the history of the relaxation of state anti-miscegenation laws,
speculating about the attractiveness of different states for racially mixed
people and households. We then explore, using confidential Census data from
recent censuses, how immigration-driven demographic change has produced new
mixed-race forms at various geographic scales: the body, the household, the
neighborhood, the metropolitan area, and the region. We report on the geographical unevenness
of racial diversity at these spatial scales then go onto theorize, as well
as present evidence on, how mixed-race households navigate the prevailing
landscape of single-race groups. The argument builds on the previous
research that finds that racially mixed households migrate toward places
not clearly scripted as the terrain of one racial group or another. We
become especially interested in the configurations of diversity that
attract different types of mixed-race households. (Co-authors Mark Ellis, University of Washington,
Steven Holloway, University
of Georgia)
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Saturday (May
6) 8:30-10:30 Watertown Hotel, Wallingford Room
Family Ties: Household Organization and Gender Relations in American Migration
William A.V. Clark (Geography, UCLA)
“THREE DECADES OF CHANGE: FAMILIES IN PLACE AND OUT OF PLACE”
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To a substantial extent, the research
on family structure and composition has proceeded independently from the
substantial body of work on residential mobility and migration. But we know that there are links between
migration and mobility and family events.
We know that marriage and the birth of children is likely to lead to
changes in residential location.
People often move out of the family home to marriage (women more
than men), and move again in anticipation of additions to the family. There is a substantial body of
residential mobility work that links the need for space to residential
change. However, there is not an
equivalent body of work that looks at the implications of residential
mobility and migration for family composition change.
Family structures are very different
from those of three decades ago. If we
examine the age by which most individuals are likely to be married, (the
30-34 year old cohort) we find in 1970 that only 6 percent were still
unmarried, but in 2002, 34% were still never married. How is this very important difference in
family composition translated into differential mobility and migration? And
in turn, how is this changing mobility and migration related to changing
fertility? In addition, are there
differences over time and across space?
Thus, we might expect greater mobility from a larger single
population because in general the evidence we have from studies of mobility
and migration is that younger people move more often, and single people
move more often than married people.
We might expect overall decreasing rates of mobility for some groups
and increasing rates of mobility for others. Changing mobility rates may
well be linked to changes in fertility and so to family composition itself.
Two questions guide the research in
this preliminary investigation of mobility and family composition. First, are there differences between
those who move and those who stay?
Have these groups changed over time and have their mobility rates
and associated family compositions changed over time. Second, what are the experiences, both in
terms of mobility and family composition change, of the most vulnerable
households? That is, how are single
headed households faring in the mobility family change context and what are
the affects of hypothesized greater mobility for these most vulnerable
households.
The research will use the files of the
Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to examine migration and family
intersections for each of four cross sections, 1970-71, 80-81, 90-91 and
99-2001 (the latter dates relate to changes in the structure of the PSID
sample). A specific analysis of the vulnerable single family households
will use a sub-sample of longitudinal moves.
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James R. Walker (Economics, University of Wisconsin)
“Economic Perspectives on Family,
Migration and the Environment “
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Migration
plays a central role in economic models in trade, labor, and public
finance. In all of disciplines
inter-region mobility is seen as an important equilibrating force. In local public finance, migration
(“voting with ones’ feet) is important enough to merit a particular name (Tiebout). As the
sole economist on the panel, my paper will present an economics
perspectives on migration. I will
stress similarities and differences with other social science disciplines. I will identify a few critical papers to readers
an easy entry into the economics literature. And will also make a comment or two on
some recent empirical research, identifying the data and measurement issues
that haunt migration researchers.
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Thomas Cooke (Geography, University
of Connecticut)
“THE FUTURE OF FAMILY MIGRATION RESEARCH”
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After 30 years
of steady empirical analysis the effects of family migration on the
employment and income of women are well known; on average women experience employment
disruption and a drop in income for several years
following a move. However, these findings have little utility
because the family migration literature has failed to explore both the
causes of family migration and the impacts of moving for all family
members. This paper discusses several new areas of research which would
provide a better understanding of the causes and consequences family
migration.
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